This series is a collection of my immediate thoughts on what I saw and lived through in Italy, where I moved for work in September 2025. Sometimes it's diary entries, sometimes it's poetry, sometimes just runts about everything and nothing. Enjoy.
Missed Logs 41-50? Read them here. ;)
LOG 51
My friend takes me to her favourite café for breakfast and I am happy to finally order a cappuccino. I’ve craved it since my arrival to Italy, but as a person who usually drinks it in the afternoon, I just couldn’t order it in Italy without breaking a cultural coffee rule.
As my Italian friends told me at the beginning of this year, when we were still in Malta, cappuccino is only drunk in the morning in Italy. They were cracking up when I ordered a cappuccino after lunch and that’s why, I’ve been holding back my cappuccino cravings since I arrived in Italy.
‘You know, you can order it in the afternoon. But be ready that in a small town like the one where you live, you will be ‘the cute foreign weirdo who drinks cappuccino in the afternoon,’ my friend tells me.
But it is morning now and I am ordering a pistachio cappuccino in The Rabbit Hole café without strange looks from anyone.
5-10-25 – Rabbit Hole café, Milan
LOG 52
When my friend and I were talking about meeting in Milan on Sunday, she asked me if I wanted to go to her favourite museum. Of course, I said yes, because exploring Milan with someone who actually knows the city is a different experience.
She’s taking me to the Poldi Pezzoli Museum—a collection of a private art collector from the nineteenth century.
The building is the original home of the collector, but a big part of it is a reconstruction, because it suffered during bombing in WWII.
As we are climbing up the staircase, I’m running my hand over the velvet cushioning of the railing and thinking about our old professor of art history, Miloš Stehlík, who always told us to perceive art with all of our senses.
I wish I could touch some of the marble statues in the collection, try on the exquisite jewellery, and hold one of the swords in the armory.
That railing cushioning stays the only thing I am allowed to touch in this place as in most museums. But that does not make the experience any less worth it.
The building is full of extraordinary art pieces.
5-10-25 – Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan
Some extraordinary art pieces from Poldi Pezzoli museum:
LOG 53
The Portrait of Martin Luther from Lucas Cranach is one of those art pieces that we learned about in high school and later studied at uni.
But none of the lectures were able to describe the extreme precision and detail that the painting and its sister Portrait of Katharina von Bora are depicted with.
I can see every single lash of Martin and Katharina and there is a reflection of a window in their eyes.
Incredible works of art.
Also, the background blue is not depicted accurately in any of the reproductions or online pictures. It’s blueish/turquoise.
5-10-25 – Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan
LOG 54
One of the reasons why I love this person so much is that even after months of separation, the conversation keeps flowing as if we saw each other yesterday. As if there was no pause in communication or news about each other’s lives. Friends like her are my safe heaven.
#friendshipgoals #gratitude
5-10-25 – Milan
LOG 55
I feel mute when I can’t sing.
When my voice is silent,
My emotions are locked inside.
The good, the bad.
When I can’t sing,
I don’t know how to let them out.
My voice is the price I pay
for getting to know the world.
9-10-25 – Undisclosed town near Bergamo
LOG 56
The tradition continues. My colleagues and I are having lunch together on Saturday after work. This time, we are sitting in our apartment, talking about various things. Eventually, it comes to the topic of phone signals in Italian buildings.
‘I wonder what the houses are made of, when it’s such a problem to catch a signal,’ says my colleague.
The signal inside of buildings here is really poor. The further from the window, the worse it gets.
My Italian friend had prepared me for that when we were on the phone about three months ago. She was like: ‘Wait, I’m entering the building, so I’m going to lose signal. I’ll call you back when I’m on wifi.’ Later she explained that it was normal in Italy.
But still, what the hell are these houses made of?
11-10-25 – Undisclosed town near Bergamo
LOG 57
Instead of going to Lake Garda on Sunday, as we planned with my flatmate, I’m spending the day in bed. My level of exhaustion reached a new low. My brain doesn’t want to switch on.
It only took three weeks on the job.
Wow.
12-10-25 – Undisclosed town near Bergamo
LOG 58
I’m looking at my lesson plans for today.
They are about half a page long and it’s mostly a list of exercises and pages I want to focus on. No aims, no extra useful notes or CCQs.
I didn’t even have time to read through the teacher’s book.
In only three weeks I went from full, two page long lesson plans to this sh*t.
This is not how I wanna do my job.
F*ck.
13-10-25 – Undisclosed town near Bergamo
LOG 59
‘Did you read the book?’ I ask my new teen student.
‘No,’ he says and I’m not at all surprised.
I’d been told that this boy’s been a regular in our school for a few years. He sometimes comes in with homework and today is one of those days. Tomorrow he’s having an oral test from literature in English and he was supposed to read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
He proceeds to explain the story of the book and some things he memorized from their literature course book. Then we get to the details, different themes and topics in the book and he starts running in circles.
As I am looking into his course book, I am stunned by the advanced vocabulary and terminology they are learning.
He’s only lucky that I read Frankenstein only two years ago. Otherwise I would never be able to make the connections between what they’re talking about in that course book and the story itself.
Next time, just read the book boy, just read the book!
13-10-25 – Undisclosed town near Bergamo
LOG 60
My student just told me she’s pregnant.
I’m the third person to know.
I feel honoured. ☺️
I hope everything will work out for her, because it’s too soon for her to even be talking about it. 🍀🍀🍀
15-10-25 – Undisclosed town near Bergamo
More photos in HQ in Italy through my lens: Lombardy and Veneto.
