$2 Italian

I haven't posted much about my semi-retirement plans because they have been a bit in flux. But thanks to some guidance from firSSt, I've narrowed my focus to one main goal: living in Italy for an extended period of time. I was originally planning to ride my bike in Asia in the spring but decided it was consuming too much planning time and would require intensive travel logistics.

So now I'm planning on doing some lighter trips in the winter/spring (heading to the Caribbean on vacation, visiting firSSt in Idaho, a buddy in LA, my parents in Fla, etc...) while I focus on the Italy move. The two biggest hurdles to living in Italy are learning Italian and getting a resident's visa (which would allow me to stay for more than 3 months). Getting the visa seems like more a paperwork issue than anything else. Learning Italian will be the biggest challenge.

I'm kicking around spending a month in Rome in April to do an "immersion" language program. I have some time before I need to commit to the language program so I'm going to give something else a try beforehand. I bought a used, older edition of the textbook they use in Italian level 1 at NYU. It cost me $2. It may be optimistic to think I can learn Italian on my own for $2, but at the very least, it will give me some foundation if I do the course in Rome.

I'll keep you updated on my progress.