Ciao Ciao Italia

I'm a bit late with this post, but I wanted the blog to have an ending.  Most of you who have followed our adventures in Italy know that we did not have an easy time there.  Already during his first week of work, Jan had a clear feeling that his job there would not last long.  Indeed, after a couple of months it became clear that the Italians did not want any expats telling them what to do or trying to improve their inefficiency which in their minds was obviously non existent.

Anyway, life continued and we tried out best to adjust.  It wasn't always easy.  In our first "temporary" apartment, we were not connected to the water supply, so we had to have our water delivered by truck.  Yes, I kid you not.  Our water had to be delivered by a water tank truck that deposited x liters of waters (there is no meter to check just how much goes into your well) in your well at the property.  When the water is finished...  well.... it's finished and you have to wait for another delivery before you have water again.  Of course, you could anticipate when you will run out of water and therefore have the truck come BEFORE you run out of water, but trust me, this is not an easy process.  You could have a look into the well and see nothing but darkness.  You could calculate how long you lasted with a full well last time and go from there, but apparently they don't always give you the same amount of water - even though the payment is always the same....Our first residence also lacked another important luxury we are all used to having... WiFi...  After a while we figured out that most shopping centers had free WiFi, so we used to spend our time in the shopping centers downloading all sorts of movies and series to later cast them on our TV.

But it wasn't all negative.  We had always been the only Belgian expat family in Arcelormittal USA, but this was far from the case in Italy.  There were many other Belgian and other European expats and some had families with children the same ages as ours.  Having this extended family really helped get us through some very tough times, especially when we all had to leave in the end.

Our second residence seemed picture perfect on first sight.  A nice "villa" by Italian norms - small cottage by American norms - with a pool!!  However, when we started renting it in October, it was already too cold for the pool.  Soon it became even colder and it appeared that the heating in our splendid little villa was far from sufficient to heat up the house.  Furthermore, the HVAC unit was so old that it was off more than it was on.  As a result, heating and hot water were a rarity.  And I can ensure you that it gets COLD in Puglia in winter!

By December it became clear that the Italian bubble was going to burst soon, so Jan started checking what our options were.  He was offered options in Chicago, Quebec and Alabama.  An insider tip made us decide against Chicago - fortunately, as the plants in Chicago were sold a little over a year later - and Quebec and French schools were also not too appealing.  Yet another change in language for the kids and another type of schooling to get used to.  So we decided we should go for stability this time and go for Alabama.

In January 2020 Jan left for work as any other morning.  However, a little after his arrival he notified me that all expats were required to hand in their resignation.  It was a crazy day, but by the end of the day, all expats had given in and that was that.  Most of them went back to their home sites, some had been given alternative posts in other countries.  We were pretty much done with our planning and were only waiting for the VISA to arrive and we would be good to go.  A little over a month later we received the VISA and by March 1st we were back in Alabama after spending a nice week on holidays in Belgium.  

While we were in Belgium, some of our appointments got cancelled because some family members did not want to see us because they thought we might have brought COVID from Italy...  Little did we know that COVID was going to determine our lives for the next 2 years and that we would be on an empty flight back to Alabama and one of the last families to be admitted in the country before the complete shut down.