Vivo in California. Sono americano ma I lived in Italy for two years. Mi sono innamorato dell'Italia. Vorrei vivere li.

I fell in love with Italy. I would like to live there. Learned Italian while in Italy and became an interpreter. I liked Italy

so much I didn't want to leave. After leaving Italy I was very depressed and would dream of Italy every night. My Italian friends,

Italian girlfriends, the kids at the orphanage, the Italian way of life etc. etc. There is something so special about just walking

down those ancient Italian streets, watching people talking e cosi via. I would walk along the river in Vicenza through these little

paths, sking in the Italian Alps along those little paths between trees. This and more I would dream about every night.

Learned very well how immigrants feel when they come to the U.S. by the way.

Back home in California wanted to continue parlando l'italiano ma(but)not a whole lot of people speak Italian qui(here). So I learned
the second language of California, namely Spanish. (Sono laureato in lo spanglo.) Took 18 classes of Spanish got my master's degree
in Spanish and taught Spanish for 30 years. By the way, one of the things I would do in my Spanish classes was to teach Italian words,
phrases and conversations to the students to show them how easy it was to learn Italian if you speak Spanish. They would learn very quickly.
The majority of my students in California were Spanish speaking or knew some Spanish.)The point is I learned Spanish all because Spanish
remided me of Italian and it(Spanish) was easy for me to learn after knowing Italian. Spanish and the Hispanic culture filled that void that
was missing for me with Italian. I wasn't depressed anymore after learning Spanish.(Spanish and Italian language and culture 80% the samething.)
(How else could I and all the other Italians I know learn Spanish so easily here in California.)

I'm teaching Italian at night to adults adesso(ora). It's the best job I've every had. Can't believe they are paying me for something I love so much to do.
It's my hobby. It's my life. I started teaching Italian 4 years ago to first graders. I'm now in my 3rd year of teaching Italian to adults.

In the summer of 2007 rented an apartment in Italy and went to the Universita di Perugia in Perugia, Umbria and took
intensive classes in Italian history/culture/music and advanced Italian conversation. Had previously taken Italian years ago.
Am going back to Vicenza, Italy this summer 2009. Non vedo l'ora! (I can't wait!)

This is a lovely story.....
You really do love italy don't you? I only joined on saturday night and already I making lots of new friends. I feel a bit of a voyeur though reading all these true stories. So when I get my act together I will submit my story about my love for Italy.
Alassiolady

I also always thought Italian and Spanish were very similar, but it seems like everytime I say that to someone they think I'm crazy. The grammar is different and words are slightly different, but I always thought they were very similar. They both come from the Latin language after all.

You're very lucky to have lived in Italy. What made you move to Italy. What made you move back to the USA?

My dream vacation ever since I was about 7-years-old was to visit Italy. Once I started to learn more about Italy I wanted to visit Sicily and Rome the most. I finally got to go to Sicily as a late honeymoon in 2006 and I'm hoping we are able to have enough money to go to Rome in April or May. Espeically since our vacation we had planned in December didn't work out.