Yeah that makes sense. I feel like I am most productive if I touch email twice a day.
Also attacking the hardest thing that I have to do between 9am - 11am seems to work well. I have more energy to get it done. Maybe that has to do with waking up at 7, who knows.
Not not exactly an Expat, but I spent 6 months living in Rome as a student. This doesn't answer all of your questions but I hope it helps.
Pro's:
- Great culture, great food. Groceries fresh and reasonably priced.
- Coming from english, Italian is a relatively easy language to learn and people are happy to speak it with you.
- Pretty good infrastructure. Good train systems to move around the country. Rome has a good subway system.
- Lots of walking/biking in daily life keeps you in shape.
Con's:
- Anything ivolving the government is a beaurcratic nightmare. We applied for student permits in August and didn't get them till after we returned home in January. Never tried it but starting a business is probably a lot of paper work.
- Nothing in the city runs on a schedule Buses, People, any type of meetings. The saying that Mussolini did bad things, but he made the trains run on time definatly makes sense after living there.
- Cost of housing his high, though the outskirts of the city are cheaper.
All in all I loved my time there as an experience, but working there may be a challenge.