The Venice Experiment

After reading A Year in Provence, and Under the Tuscan Sun, Debbie and I became intrigued by the idea of living in a foreign country. Sure, it looked easy in these two books, but careful reading unearthed the fact that these couples purchased old farmhouses for probably half a million dollars each, and then spent another half a million renovating them.

But could a middle-class couple like us up and leave, and have as much success as they did? Did it really take a lot of money? We set out to find out, in a one-year experiment moving to Venice.

Throughout the unpredictable year, I kept in touch with family and friends via email, documenting almost daily the twists and turns, triumphs and struggles of our experiment. One of our neighbors, Carolyn Rosser kept these emails. At the end of the year, she bound these in a notebook, together with a table of contents, and a cover entitled, "I Could Write a Book".

The Venice Experiment is a direct result of her notebook and the encouragement of my two daughters to finish the project in the form of a book. The co-author Ben Robbins ensured that I did not leave out the best stories, while helping to craft a consistent story line missing from the stack of emails.

It was a crazy experiment not to be missed. My sincere hope is that the book motivates you to try it yourself for a year. When the time is over, you will have learned far more about yourself then about Venice, and she will have changed you forever.