You can tell...

You can tell you've been living in Italy for a bit when...

• you have a definite opinion re the Adriatic coast vs. the Mediterranean coast and can defend it intelligibly

• you have several "regular" cafes staked out where you have a solito and the people greet you (sometimes even by name)

• the woman in the bakery feels enough confidenza with you to tell you that you should put a sweater on (in June)

• you have strong opinions on where to get the best gelato in your town

• you can not only recognize and differentiate various types of cheese, but you also have preferences as to which ones are best and when and why

• with regards to cappuccino, you've passed through the various stages of "tourist: drink it mid-afternoon, because why not" to "omg, Italians never drink it after 10am so I can't either or else people will know I'm straniera!" (pro tip: they will know anyway) and finally to "I don't give a crap who sees me drinking cappuccino and when, but now I would usually rather have normal espresso anyway..."

• you can use direct and indirect object pronouns in everyday speech without thinking about it

• similarly, most verbs. In fact, sometimes you can get whole sentences out without too much effort, and occasionally even without mistakes.

• running out of olive oil provokes a brief flutter of mild panic

• you've finally taken to salting the water before boiling your pasta in it

• you agree that over-cooking pasta is akin to sacrilege, or, at the very least, kind of gross

• people speaking dialect don't faze you anymore; in fact, you sometimes understand them

• you answer the phone of an evening and hold a coherent conversation (in Italian) with the person all while stirring stuff that you're cooking

• the thought of the frozen "Lean Cuisine" meals you used to eat in college makes you feel mildly ill

• your ability to tell people off has evolved from "angry spluttering in a mix of English and Italian" through "crappy, grammatically horrifying Italian that may or may not get your point across" and "markedly un-eloquent due to lack of grammar finesse" to finish with "able to politely but effectively tell someone where they can shove it - even by phone, and even in the context of work"

• all the other expats are British, so you've started saying things like "car park" when you mean "parking lot", and "brilliant!" has become your go-to exclamatory expression

• you don't get freaked out when suddenly everyone starts speeding around the circonvallazione beeping and screaming; you just look outside and have a glance at the flags - and indeed, Inter/Milan/Juve/whatever have won again...

• similarly, you are no longer surprised to wake up to the sound of people singing "Bella, Ciao" at a so-left-it's-borderline-communist rally in the square near your house

• speaking of hearing things from your house, you don't feel that you've woken up properly on a Sunday until you've heard the church bells reminding you what day it is

• you browse through the newspapers for fun and actually understand what's going on - both in terms of the words and the social context

• the view from your bedroom window feels like home

• you know the smell of the sun-heated cobblestones intimately, and love it

And...

• you are just as excited about the results of the referendum today as you were three years ago when Obama was elected.
Brava, Italia! Today you've made me proud to live here and happy to have witnessed this.