I stumbled outside, bleary-eyed and half-asleep where Tiziano was waiting in his car. It was precisely 5:15am and my first question to my neighbor was, “Why do we have to leave so early to look for mushrooms?”

“To beat everyone else looking for mushrooms,” he said. Satisfied with that logic, I wedged my head between the window and seat and fell asleep.

I awoke as we drove into the driveway of his boyhood friend Primo who was joining us in the hunt. I introduced myself, they saluted each other in dialect and we began the hour and a half drive to their secret, undisclosed mushroom bonanza located somewhere in the mountains between Emilia Romagna and Tuscany.

The first stop was as the bar of a nearby gas station for a little breakfast. Not even six in the morning, it was packed with montanari, or men of the mountain, preparing for a day of hunting for cinghiali, deer, or like us, porcini mushrooms. Huddled around the bar with cappuccinos in one hand and pastries in the other, one of the older camouflage-clad hunters recounted his true and less-than-true stories in a thick Reggiano dialect about the ones that got away, turning around regularly with a grin and a wink to make sure we were hanging on to every word.

Porcini mushrooms are the prized culinary ingredient in many Italian dishes. The name literally means “piglet” due to the chubby shape of the mushrooms when they are young and can be found in the wild high up in the mountains throughout Autumn. I was told that only people from this area in Italy are interested in hunting for porcini, even going so far as to tell me of a story of how during a bus trip up to Scotland, the old ladies found fields of untouched porcini because the Scots had no idea they were edible. They spent days picking and drying their find in front of the heaters in their hotel rooms and over the engine of their bus in an effort to preserve the delicate mushrooms for the ride back to Italy. They came back feeling as though they had found D.B. Cooper’s illusive sack of money.

Driving down the last stretch of an unmarked dirt road through the forest where we’d begin our hike, the sun had yet to rise and a ferocious cold wind blew the trees back and forth. The temperature was barely above freezing and I breathed a sigh of relief about having had put on two sweaters and a heavy jacket before leaving this morning. We waited in the car for almost a half hour for the sun to rise and with luck, for the wind to calm down. At least that was a plan, until we spotted three other guys hiking up our mountain at which point we jumped out of the car, strapped on our mushroom baskets and began hiking through the dimly lit forest towards the top of the mountain.

A full hour of hiking and we hadn’t found a single porcino. Tiziano grew discouraged saying more than once, “It’s just not the right time of year.” Primo and Tiziano decided to split up, with Primo going up the mountain and Tiziano and I going down it. We were no longer following any trails and were hands and feet planted to the 45º slope of the mountain that disappeared into a chasm below us. It wasn’t long before Tiziano waved me over to where he was standing, whispering my name as to not alert anyone who might be hidden in the trees, to show me the big porcino he found hidden beneath the grass in a small alcove beneath some stones. He reached over and found another, and another and I scurried over to another patch and pulled the large, sourdough scented mushrooms from the ground. We had found the motherload. We were piling up the porcini in piles, cleaning them off, then carefully placing them in our baskets. We continued up and down the mountain, zig zagging and checking areas the other had already checked to avoid missing even one.

Working up the mountain, sometimes even climbing vertically up rock walls, Tiziano’s basket was nearly completely full and it wasn’t even 10 AM. We followed narrow goat trails deeper into the wilderness but eventually our luck ran out and the porcini became harder to find. Hiking up the next mountain I noticed signs that someone had already passed by that morning since some of the poisonous mushrooms had been pulled out by their roots. We were both tiring and it was getting close to lunch time so Tiziano called Primo on his cell phone to tell him that we were on, “The mountain over by the chasm,” which turned out to be enough information for him to walk right up to us while we were hiking back to the car. The arduous four hour hike up was followed by a leisurely half hour hike down the marked trail that led us right to the car.

We eventually arrived back home where Tiziano, the proud son, handed his basket of mushrooms to his mother, Adele. She pulled out a rusty antique hand-held scale older than herself with a large weight on one end of the fulcrum and a hook on the other. Single-handedly she picked up the basket with the scale and with a big smile said, “Ten kilograms!” I told her she can have all of mine as well since she’d know how best to use them, and she graciously replied, “Then I’ll invite you down when I use them in a dinner.” With only three hours of sleep and a lower body crying out in pain, the only response I could muster up was a deep primordial grunt of joy.

So you have your papers in order, your plane ticket in hand and you’re gung-ho to make the jump across the ocean and start a life over here. Not so fast! I received two emails this week both asking the same question: “Is there anything from the US I should bring that I can’t find over there?”

Why yes, yes there are.

Below is a short list of what you should bring when moving over here. This is, of course, after you’ve gotten your visa, passport and documents in order. From your bank to international calls, this list will save you a ton of time and money and, to be honest, I wish someone had written this when I moved over.

Finances

First of all, you need to get your finances in order. Nearly all large US banks will nickel and dime you to death with international ATM fees and even Visa/Master Card will charge you an extra 1% on all of your international purchases. As you’re already going to be experiencing a 30% devaluation of your savings just by stepping on Italian soil, it’s important spend as little as possible in useless fees.

You have three options:

1. Capital One – If you would like to stay with a major bank, their Money Market Account works just like an interest-earning savings account with an ATM card. You can withdrawal $500 per day and there are no ATM fees, credit card fees and they’ll even eat the 1% Visa/Master Card surcharge on international purchases. I’ve been with them for over a year now and my only complaints are trivial and un-important. All other major US banks from Bank of America to Wells Fargo currently have international ATM fees, Capital One being the only holdout.
2. Small Credit Unions – Some expats have reported good experiences with small credit unions not charging exorbitant fees like the large banks do. It is worth checking out if Capital One is not your cup of tea.
3. EverBank.com – This is an internet bank that is FDIC insured and offers a variety of foreign currency accounts, savings accounts and normal checking accounts. I have no personal experience with them, however their offerings are very attractive and the introductory interest rate on their money market accounts are currently higher than Capital One’s.

Phone

Most likely you’ll want to keep in touch with your family and friends you left in your dust back in the US. Unless, of course, you owe them money. Thanks to the internet, the “Oh I really wanted to call you, but gosh, you know how expensive it is!” excuse no longer flies.

The least expensive reliable option available is Skype. For about $8 a month, you can have a US telephone number in an area code that you choose and unlimited US and Canada calling. You no longer even need your computer turned on thanks to products like the Ipevo SO-20 Wi-Fi Phone. When you sign up for DSL here, choose the option for a wireless router and your phone will work just like a normal cordless phone anywhere in your home.

People in the US will be able to call your US phone number to reach you and you can call them without spending a fortune on international long distance. Call quality is sketchy at times, but hanging up and redialing usually resolves most problems. Skype’s long distance rates are pretty competitive too, especially when calling other parts of Europe.

Food & Spices

Ok some of this might get confiscated in the airport if they find it, but I’ve never had any problems. You’ll be able to find spices such as cinnamon, brown sugar and chili powder but they are nothing like what we use in the US. (Is brown sugar considered a spice?) The cinnamon has a more muted flavor, the brown sugar is actually cane sugar, the chili powder is chili powder but not good for using in Mexican food (in my opinion, anyway) and vanilla extract is only a mythical substance here. Oregano, basil and other staples of Italian food should be bought HERE! If you like to make snickerdoodle during the holidays, a little American cinnamon is a must.

Electronics

My mantra is: If you can plug it in, leave it in the US. The only exceptions are items that you can’t easily or cheaply find here and the Skype phone above. Actually you might be able to find that here, but I haven’t seen it.

The only big exception to the rule would be a computer keyboard if you plan on purchasing a computer here. The Italian keyboard layout is much different than the English layout and if you don’t want to relearn how to type, bring along a cheap $10 keyboard from Wal-Mart to get you by. It will plug into Italian computers without a problem. You might also want to bring along an English version of Windows if your Italian is still a little sketchy.

The only other plug-in electronics you should bring are those that support up to 220V. That way all you’ll need is a plug adapter and not a big inefficient power inverter that will hit you on your electric bill.

To know if your electronics support 220V, look on the label for the word “Input” followed by something similar to, “110-240V.” That means that it will accept between 110 and 240 volts. If it just says, “Input: 110V” it’s only good for the US. Here’s an image of the power brick from my laptop as an example:

A few plug adapters will come in handy over the years. (Note: These don’t change the voltage, just the style of plug so that you can plug your 220V compatible electronics directly to the walls here.) Obviously bring along a power inverter as well, but only for occasional use. They’re extremely inefficient and create a lot of heat and you’d be better served to just repurchase your electronics here.

Entertainment

Bring some of your favorite movies, TV shows and/or books with you. Not the whole collection, but those that you can slip into to pass through those homesick moments. My dirty little collection includes M*A*S*H, the John Cusack ’80s catalog, Lord of the Rings and Casablanca. Books in English are pretty easy to find in the large book stores where they’ll usually have a shelf of the more popular books, so don’t think you have to bring an entire library over.

As some of you may know, DVDs are region encoded meaning that US discs won’t work in Italian players — or so they want you think. Most DVD players have an unlock code that you punch into the remote control and magically (as if the ability was there all along) your player will become compatible with discs from anywhere in the world! Philips players usually are the easiest to unlock. (If you’re worried, it’s not illegal to unlock your DVD player.)

If you’re a magazine reader and looking at getting your subscription here, many of the popular magazines are now available in PDF format that you can purchase directly from their websites (or procure in devious and dastardly internety ways). As long as you don’t mind reading the lastest edition of Cosmo on the crapper with a notebook on your lap, this could save you a ton of cash. The new Kindle e-reader with the larger screen is a great option as well, but unfortunately it’s only in black and white.

That’s all that comes to mind right now, but I will update this post if anything else pops into my head.

I have so many unfinished draft posts, I’m going to start pounding these out — punctuation and coherence be damned!

It’s been four years since I sold all and moved to Italy and there is a semi-famous festival nearby that I have managed to consistently miss every year for one reason or another. The Corteo Storico at Quattro Castella, which is very similar to our Renaissance festivals, is an annual festival to celebrate the 1,000 year old cash cow known as Matilde of Canossa. Part of what makes it so well known is the promise of two beautiful celebrities who come to town to play the parts of Matilde and Heinrich IV, King of Germany to reenact his famed trip from Germany to Canossa to grovel at the feet of Matilde and to return to the good graces of the Church. A story that spawned the phrase, “The Walk to Canossa,” used as both a battle cry of the Ottoman Empire to not cow-tow to any outside force and a metaphor for doing penance.

I don’t want to sound sour, but this is one of the very few times I’ve had to buy a ticket to get into a festival, let alone pay for parking outside of one. A Springsteen concert, no problem. A small medieval festival in a town I’ve been in countless times with a “Dancing with the Stars” runner up as the main attraction, my enthusiasm wanes. Do I sound sour?

Arriving about 9pm, most everything in the lower part of the town was closed up, the stage from earlier events broken down and all of the food carts covered over. This was the last day of the three day festival and the main action was was in the field beneath Castello di Bianello. The locals were dressed in period clothing, some as soldiers with weapons and others with the tools of their trades for their characters. The stadium where games of soccer are usually played was overflowing from end to end with spectators watching sword fights and fire dancers in front of a stage constructed for the final scenes with Matilde and Heinrich.

I wandered the mercato in the street below the stadium whose vendors peddled handmade goods of the period such as armor for knights, swords, handmade clothing, pottery, toys and beer. Well, no, the beer wasn’t handmade but it was the only thing I bought. Having explored the streets, I walked back up into the stadium just as the “Parade of 1,000” began, which was a procession of around a thousand locals dressed in costume walking out onto the field grouped by their individual communities. It’s not uncommon for summer festivals to run late, and this was no exception. Already after midnight the reenactment of Matilde and Heinrich wouldn’t begin for another half hour.

Eventually Matilde and Heinrich walked onto the stage and sat in their wooden thrones while the famous European story was recited by a faceless actor with a deep booming voice. And he recited. And he recited some more. My Italian has improved, but long periods of passato remoto make my eyes cross so I unfortunately missed a lot of the story, but Wikipedia saved me in the end. Apparently after Heinrich begged for forgiveness and his excommunication from the church was lifted, he returned to Germany only to lose his throne to evil Saxon warlord, David Hasselhoff. Oh Wikipedia, ever the source of accurate information.

This is a four day weekend in Italy in celebration of la Festa della Repubblica, comparable to our 4th of July. Since my original plans for Saturday didn’t quite pan out, I jumped online and searched to see what festivals were in the area. Being such a major holiday I was surprised to find that my only real choices nearby were between a farm equipment festival and a power yoga event. Not exactly what I was after.

Looking as far over as Bologna one festival caught my eye — Le veglie di Bacco (The Vigils of Bacchus). Located in the mountain-top borgo of an ancient abbey that sits above the town of Monteveglio, it was a good two hour drive away on the back roads through three provinces. But since it was a beautiful spring day, that was no problem at all.

The two hour drive turned into three as I wasn’t in any particular hurry and turned off the main road whenever I would see something interesting off in the distance. One of those stops was at the fortress in Bazzano, which happened to be completely empty during my visit. Walking through the large gate I found myself in a grassy courtyard surrounded by the outer walls and a view of the town below. The fortress, now an architectural museum, stood quietly with a sparsely decorated church and clock tower visible to the town beneath.

Finally pulling into the festival close to 9pm, I grabbed a bite to eat at the only food stand around. They had a choice of crescentina, known in our area as gnocco fritto (fried bread), or a single tigella with prosciutto, coppa di testa and/or a local cheese inside. I picked the crescentina with coppa di testa and cheese and wandered around a bit through the market. Coppa di testa is made up of little pieces of meat from the head of pigs and possibly other parts I shouldn’t share with you and has a really strong taste that takes some getting used to. I should’ve gone with the prosciutto.

Not much was happening in Monteveglio so I grabbed a ticket for the bus that would haul me up the mountain on a road barely wider than itself to the Borgo dell’Abbazia. It’s a 1.5 mile trip and the many signs announcing that the last bus down will leave at 10pm let me know that I, along with most others, would be hoofing it down the mountain in the middle of the night since that was when the festival was scheduled to end.

Before entering the festival, every visitor was stopped at the gate and asked the simple question, “Red or White?” The answer determined the color of bandanna you were handed for what was explained as, “The Final Battle.” Dum dum duuuuuuuuum.

Inside the festival were blacksmiths, weavers, thatchers and pottery makers dressed in period clothes demonstrating their various trades. Others walked around dressed as nobles, squires, lepers covered in bandages and other random villagers. The best costumes I saw were of a group of men with long beards dressed as friars mingling with the crowd. Back when I went to the Renaissance Fair in Texas, I always dressed as a friar and so I noted how authentic their costumes were. I walked towards one of them to ask for a picture only to quickly realize — they weren’t costumes.

At the far end of the borgo where the abbey sits, they had a jousting arena and games for kids. The inside of the church had the same fascinating architectural style as the duomo at Modena with the sanctuary one flight of stairs up and a crypt directly beneath it one flight of stairs down. I tried to sneak a photo of the inside, but one of the (real) friars was giving me the evil eye and I deftly put my camera back in my pocket.

I slipped into a line at one of the food stands to try out one of the desserts available and met the Irish university student, Vincent, and his Italian girlfriend who were in line behind me. They later introduced me to a group of their friends who came down from Pavia to stay in one of the apartments inside the borgo and I hung out with them for the rest of the evening. We watched a performance of a mythological story very similar to what I saw at Brisighella with dancers on stilts and fireworks strapped to every appendage of their bodies dancing around each other lighting the occasional spectator on fire. I thought about explaining the story as I understood it explained to me, but even now I’m still confused. Something about Zeus, women in plastic bubbles and fire breathing cows. Or as we like to say in Austin, a Tuesday night on 6th.

It was near midnight and tension filled the air, bandannas fastened tightly to our foreheads, menacing growls on our faces. We were outnumbered at least 2 to 1. The final battle was imminent. We took our weapons in hand, the ever dangerous and highly volatile foam balls in socks, and stood shoulder to shoulder against a greater foe. “VIA!” In less than a second the air was filled with crisscrossing red and white spheres flying aimlessly towards the opposite sides of the field. Vincent hurriedly organized groups of fighters to stave off the incoming attacks and I was using my patent-pending throw-like-a-girl tactic to win sympathy from the enemy. But alas, our efforts were in vain and my shoulder giving out on me forced me to the sidelines.

Leaving about 1am, I started walking down the mountain in the pitch black without even the moonlight to show me where I was going. I heard some noise around the corner and caught up with another group ahead of me with torches in hand singing Bella Ciao all the way down the hill. The streets were empty and the stands were closed and I hopped in my car for the two hour drive back home.

The emails I get from other American expats here in Italy almost always focus on the same topic — how am I coping with the falling Dollar? Everytime the Dollar falls another cent or two, I grumble and groan and tell myself, “It can’t fall anymore than that!” I’ve been saying that since the Dollar was €0.83 and as of this morning, it looks like it’s about to sink below €0.65. Some American expats are even selling all and heading back home, waiting for easier times to return and try again.

But my solution was simple: I’ve just stopped worrying about it.

The realization that I’d be spending the same amount, if not more, living in New York or Los Angeles makes it a little easier to digest. It could even be rationalized as being a premium on living in a far away country and experiencing a new culture.

But that didn’t change the fact that I was still hemorrhaging money and needed to plug up my financial situation before I wound up a zingaro on the streets. Here’s a quick rundown of what I changed to help cope with the falling Dollar.

1. Dump the Greedy Banks

   Wells Fargo, in their fee-induced insanity, was charging me $5 per ATM withdrawal for the first two years that I was here. Every time I used my Wells Fargo credit card in Italy, I was charged a 1% foreign transaction fee no matter what I purchased. These fees added up over time to where I was spending in the neighborhood of $800 a year in nothing but fees. It was absurd!

   So I switched to a Capital One Rewards MMDA at the end of last year, and not only have I not paid a single penny in fees, they pay me to use the account (not to sound like a commercial). The interest rate on the account has fallen from 4.55% to under 3%, which is below the level of inflation, but far better than having my money sitting in a normal checking account losing a full 4% a year. It’s FDIC insured so there’s no risk and I even have a higher daily ATM limit than Wells Fargo would allow me, which means I no longer have to make two trips over two days to get enough money for rent. The only downside compared to a checking account is that I can only write 6 checks a month, but seeing as I’ve written only one check in the past three years, I think I’ll survive.

2. Pay Off the Credit Cards

   They say that paying off a $2,000 credit card balance at the monthly minimum at 16% interest will take around 14 years! If that doesn’t scare you into paying off those credit card balances ASAP, nothing will. From the money I’ve been saving by budgeting better, I’ve been making large monthly payments towards my sole credit card trying to knock that balance down to 0.

   What’s most surprising of all is not only is it easy to throw money at my credit card, I actually like doing it! Instead of feeling, “Oh no, there goes my new PS3!” I instead feel a sense of accomplishment watching my credit card balance drop like a rock and knowing that the faster I pay that off, the less of my money those bloodsuckers will get. And the money I save in interest payments will more than afford me the creature comforts I’ve been lusting over.

3. Make a Budget

   Not knowing where your money is going is the fastest way to end up completely broke. I couldn’t figure out where all my money was going every month or why I had very little to show for what I spent, and that’s a scary feeling. I began keeping all of my receipts and using Quicken to keep track of what money goes where. You can’t write a budget if you don’t know how much you’re spending.

   I then created a budget based on what I was currently spending and found ways to tighten up my outgoing budget. I’ve also begun setting aside a certain amount of money each month for the inevitable biannual insurance, heat payments, and annual events like Christmas. Instead of fretting the month before that money’s due, I slowly pay for it throughout the year by setting aside that money month by month. Paying those big biannual bills doesn’t seem so daunting anymore.

   Another advantage of keeping a close eye on my finances is that it helped me realize how much I was blowing on useless crap that I didn’t really need, which brings me to my next point.

   
   
4. Cancel Useless Subscriptions

   I brought a Vonage VOIP phone with me when I moved here that cost me $25 a month. The plan was that it would act as a cheap alternative to make and receive calls to the US once I had found a place to live and had DSL hooked up. The problem, however, was that I was stuck on dialup for the first 2 years that I was here, which made my shiny new VOIP phone completely useless. Even though I couldn’t use it, I didn’t cancel my Vonage subscription until after about 18 months of wishful thinking that DSL would arrive someday. By the time I decided to accept reality, I threw away $450 for something I never used once.

   To jab some salt to the wound, after I finally got DSL and called to reactivate my service with Vonage, they politely informed me that my equipment is so old that I’ll have to spend more money for new equipment before I could sign up again!

   Even the smaller subscriptions for various services that only cost a few Dollars a month add up over time. I reviewed everything that was sucking money out of my bank account on a recurring basis and canceled nearly everything, leaving only the bare necessities. And to be honest, I don’t miss any of it. If it’s not something you can’t live without, dump it. I gained an extra $100 a month doing this.

5. Telecom Italia Wants to Screw You Over

   I’ve gone from spending upwards of €600 every two months for phone and electricity to just under €90. One way I managed to do that was because I discovered that Telecom Italia offers the same products in a couple of different ways and will sell you, or automatically sign you up for the most expensive version if you don’t specify which one you want. For instance I was using pay-per-minute dialup for nearly 2 years, spending between €450-500 every billing cycle before I discovered that they offered an unadvertised dial-up service called Teleconomy that costs only €12 a month. I instantly started saving over €400 per billing cycle with a single phone call.

   To save on my electricity bill, I stopped running the electric heater when it gets a little too cold and instead learned to put on more clothes. I also try to run my laundry early in the morning or late at night during off-peak hours and have been a little more vigilant about turning off the lights when I leave a room. My most recent electricity bill for two months was only €56.31. My phone bill, a whopping €31.00.

6. Dave Ramsey is Smarter Than You

   I discovered Dave Ramsey through a well-known guy in a forum I frequent who described in detail how he got out of $40k in credit card debt in a little over two years after listening to Dave Ramsey’s CDs. Dave Ramsey is a financial guru who has a radio show on AM that I’d heard of, but never listened to. That testimonial changed all of that and I got my hands on his 14-CD Financial Peace University program and listened to it back to back over the course of a few days. The value of the knowledge I gained from the CDs is incalculable and listening to them was one of the best decisions I had made all year.

   He talks about budgeting, planning for financial emergencies, what types of investments are good, which ones you should avoid and all around strategies for not finding yourself on the corner begging for change. He shows how to budget if your monthly income fluctuates each month and solid planning tips for saving up for a new car or even a house. The CDs aren’t about how to make millions through shiesty scams, but instead talks about managing the money you have and discovering just how far you can stretch it. This is a highly recommended series to listen to and I wish I could’ve handed it out to everyone during Christmas. Listen to this man, he will save your sanity.

By doing those six things, I’ve become much more financially secure and the Dollar isn’t hitting nearly as hard as it could be. In fact, the pinch isn’t much harder than it was 3 years ago when I was fresh off the boat because I’ve found ways to stretch what I already have even further than I ever thought possible.