When you move somewhere new, and aren’t really that “integrated”, one of the nice things initially is that you concentrate more on just living your life and tend to ignore stuff that you can’t do much about. That’s actually been one of the nicer aspects of living in Austria for us – it’s a nice, stable democracy where things basically work. Not speaking much of the language, we are pretty ignorant of the politics. Long term, that might not be such a good thing, but following US and Italian politics is enough for anyone, and in most cases, there isn’t a lot you can do besides voting sensibly.

When I first moved to Italy, life was that way: I didn’t follow the local politics much, nor did I follow things back home, as the internet was still not widely available. All things considered, I was probably better off than I am now, bombarded by the misdeeds of Bush and Berlusconi.