Dream, dare, do: on the way to Italy – part 5

'By the way, we also have acquaintances who are looking for a babysitter for their B&B for a few months…' I receive a WhatsApp message from Rob on 17 August. I am sitting in the garden with friends and at that moment we are just discussing how far my friend Pim and I are with regard to emigration plans.

We had discussed traveling through Italy for a few months in the spring to see where we could and want to live, but that it would go so quickly… No one had told us that. 

Back to the beginning

Maybe you already noticed. The Dream, Dare, Do series, where I would take you monthly in our emigration plans, was briefly mentioned hold. Because writing about a 5-year plan every month… Well, everyone would get tired of that at some point. Even I.

I would pick up the thread again as soon as high-profile things were planned. And that moment is now.

can you do it Greetings from the Boot-remember Rob and Monique's story in Ceglie Messapica? They left at the beginning of 2020 for their beautiful teal in the heel of the Boot and we kept in touch.

That Rob, when I texted him last August 17 to ask how they were doing, would turn into a real matchmakers between us and the B&B owners, most likely no one expected. 

Can we already tomorrow? 

We need to talk about the enjoyment of this digital society. Because despite the fact that it often also entails a lot of hatred and envy, there is also such a fantastically beautiful side to it.

At the dawn of the digital age, who would have thought that one day we would be able to connect with strangers only to be more or less familiar with each other a few months later to look after each other's homes? I don't think anyone.

Anyway: whether we go to Puglia want to move to babysit a B&B. Perhaps you know me a little by now and understand that I would have preferred to have gone yesterday. But, of course, we can't just leave everything behind and go to Italy. 

You can really learn to emigrate

That's why we call this adventure our test-emigration. It's not like we can leave in a hurry. You are getting older and you have the necessary responsibilities.

• For example, do we cancel our rent and do we really leave on spec, or do we look at other options?
• Can Pim take his work to Italy?
• How do we find a car that can take us 2.000 kilometers round trip?
• Can our parents live without us for that long? – if it were up to him, my father had already booked 3 return trips and is already stressed, because 'what if they stay?'

They are all questions that come to mind and 'things' that need to be arranged. But… after a month that was dominated by deliberation, consideration, blind infatuation and common sense, we can finally announce that we are really going to test emigration from the end of December! 

Are we overlooking something?

So we are now fully prepared. We get up and go to bed with the Duolingo sounds and have made a real countdown that puts us in the direction of Puglia every day.

I catch myself daydreaming about it a few times every day la dolce vita, which is closer than ever. You may be thinking: isn't all this a bit exaggerated? After all, it is 'only' 3 months. And you know, you're absolutely right.

But if you have an emigration in mind that not both parties fully support because too much is unclear, such a trial emigration is the solution. Although I have to admit that it didn't all seem so rosy and easy at first.

Leaving the Netherlands for 3 months may seem like child's play, because 'you work at home after all.' And so we thought. The message came that the Dutch offices here and there were allowed to 'open' a little further and that working from home is a thing of the past. We hadn't thought about that for a while.

It's not a holiday

We had to think about shortening, logistically different options or maybe let this pass us by completely… But in the meantime we were already so in our head in Puglia that the latter was certainly no longer an option. And besides: the month and a half don't go either.

After much bickering, or call it good discussions, we came to the conclusion that a month and a half was going to feel too much like a holiday. 'Work somewhere else for six weeks, long live the fun and then back again.'

And that is precisely not the intention, because we have to see if we can settle in Puglia. Earthen yes, the incense and moonstones are already packed. So: it will be 3 months.

When the green flag eventually went up, the plans were approved and our landlord used the word subletting remarkably often, all practical, important, grown-up things had been started or even arranged. 

I'll say it one more time

When I started this column series and gave it the name 'Dream, dare, do', I thought to myself: Martien, that is too vague and really a bit wrong. But time and time again I catch myself that you with a mindset (oh man, I'm going all over with the wrong terms) which is set to oh-just-do-in-the-worst-case-it's-it-not-right has the best things anyway.

Because anyone who had told me a month ago that we would live in the country of my dreams for 3 months from January, I would have looked at with a smile but also very hopeful.

Conversely, I must also say once again that love really makes blind and therefore my question to the experts on This is Italy: what should we take into account when traveling to Puglia in January, February and March?

Look, we won't be sitting there in the 40 degrees, baking in the sun, alla. But further? What do we need to know?

And, if there is someone who knows a football club near Ceglie Messapica or Ostuni or someone who is looking for a house in Groningen for 3 months: let us know!

For now I say see you next month, when hopefully we will have made even more preparations and the Duolingo medals are no longer available. Duty calls: I still have to take my daily lesson.