Instantly Italy

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Italians You Should Know: Photographer Lisetta Carmi and Her Many Lives

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Last month I started a new series of blog posts, focusing on the lives of some Italians that are really worth knowing. 

As I stated in the first post of the series, which was about Libereso Guglielmi, the gardener of Italo Calvino, the purpose of the series is to tell you about Italians that deserve to be known outside of Italy and to write about Italian culture from a different perspective.

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Italians You Should Know: Libereso Guglielmi, the gardener of Italo Calvino

This blog post has an Italian version and an audio version too. You can find them in Your Italian Toolbox, a section of Instantly Italy where you’ll find Italian learning materials. You can get access to it by subscribing here.

How many important Italians do you know?

I bet you know a lot of them! Lots of Italians – like Andrea Bocelli, Sophia Loren, and Federico Fellini, just to name the first three that come to my mind – are famous all over the world. But there are a lot of lesser-known Italians that have done incredible things in their lives and that are definitely worth knowing.

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Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo!

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It’s that time of the year, again!

We are getting ready to celebrate Christmas, the year is almost gone and it’s the perfect time to look back and reflect on what has happened this year.

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Some Things My Students Like About Italy and Italians

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Blogging about beautiful Italian things is quite common, I know. 

The Internet is full of posts and articles about the beauty of Italy, its amazing lifestyle, all the things you should learn from the Italian way of life and so on.

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A Unique Italian Easter Celebration: The Good Friday Procession in Savona

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This post has been fixed on my calendar since January.

Every three or four months, I sit down and brainstorm ideas about things I could write in my blog. I make a list of many things but only a few of them make it to the actual blog. Some of them become other things, some others just end up in the trash can, some others become blog posts.
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Italian Sayings That Come From American Movies and TV Series

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You probably already know that foreign movies are dubbed, here in Italy.  

This is a horrible habit and one of the reasons why Italians have such a low command of English but we can’t help it. That’s how it has always been, how it is and probably it’s a tradition that will never change. I am sure the future will bring significant changes in Italian society but movies will always be dubbed.

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Expats in Italy: An Interview With Tiffany Parks, A Writer Living in Rome, About Life in The City and Raising A Kid in Italy

It’s time to chat with an expat again and I am over the moon with joy!

I have been interviewing expats for a while now – you can find all interviews linked at the bottom of this post – but I never get tired of doing it. I love it because I am a very curious person and I want to know everything about other people’s lives but also because every interview, even if my questions are more or less similar, is an opportunity to learn more about my culture and reflect about it. 

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How Italians Celebrate Carnival: Three Traditional and Unique Festivals in Italy

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Carnival is a quintessential Italian festivity and there are a lot of festivals everywhere in the country at this time of the year.

Around mid-February, depending on when Carnival falls each year, every town – even the smallest one – celebrates Carnival. The most common way of doing it is having a parade with floats, music, and people wearing masks. People parade along the streets and then meet in the main city square for some frittelle (fritters) and drinks.

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Can a city be described by some objects? 15 items (plus one) that represent Genoa

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If you have been following me for a while, you may know how much I love Genoa and how hard I try to describe the city – and my region in general – from an authentic point of view. 

You may remember my most recent post about the city, where I gave you a list of reasons not to miss it when you come to Italy, the one about a food tour to discover its delicacies, or another one about the oldest confectionery shop in Italy, which is in Genoa.

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Do You Want To Be Happier? Live Life Like An Italian, Then!

Subscribe to the Vespa rides and get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of language learning materials that you can use to practice Italian.

The title of the post is intentionally exaggerated but I am sure that adopting some little Italian lifestyle habits can make your life if not happier definitely more relaxed.

No matter how I complain about Italian culture and lifestyle – we Italians always do it, every day – there are some traits of our culture that I really like and that I think can make life better, so I thought I might share them with you.

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