Author: Rochelle

Writer and blogger living in Sicily.

Postcards from Sicily: Winter road

Categories About me, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Only in Sicily, Photography, Sicily, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

If I were an artist it would be perfect to sketch out these winter landscapes that I see in the countryside.

Blackbird days

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photography, Secluded Sicily, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

It’s a bleak time of year here in the mountain villages of the Nebrodi. The intermittent rain and hail is interrupted by tiny specks of sunshine quickly smudged out by the billowing charcoal clouds. The chill makes me want to shut myself up inside. My lips are chapped and my hands are rough and sandpapery…

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Postcards from Sicily: Pupi

Categories Arts, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photography, Secluded Sicily, Sicilian food, Sicilian History, Sicily, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

My son loves knights and dragons. He keeps begging me to buy him one of these marionette puppets, he would be drooling if he saw this big guy. I love the Pupi Siciliani as a form of Sicilian theatre that originated in the 18th Century and retold epic battles and tales of old. It nearly…

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Political intrigue in small town Sicily

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italian Politics, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Secluded Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian History, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

Small town life is always insidious, the reality in Sicily is ever more so. Not only do you find everyone knows about everyone else’s business but they have been sticking in their noses for generations and so if you are a newcomer you will be a target for gossip. I’ve been living here for a…

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Literary Islands: Vitaliano Brancati

Categories About me, Arts, Culture Shock, Italian Culture, Italy, Life in Sicily, Literary Islands, Literature, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian History, Sicilian Writers, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel Sicily

I stumbled upon Vitaliano Brancati quite by accident in a bookstore at Messina. I was attracted by the title of one his books, I discovered after he was quite a prolific novelist and later his most famous novel Il Bel Antonio was developed into a movie starring Marcello Mastroianni, which became a classic of Italian…

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Postcards: Thinking of home

Categories About me, Arts, Expat, Expat experiences, Life in Sicily, Photography, Tastes of Australia, Tastes of Home, Travel

The reflective and somewhat haunting Swan River, near my native home in Perth, Western Australia seems a world away. This time of year always makes me homesick ...

An Expat’s Open Letter to Babbo Natale

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Uncategorized

    Dear Father Christmas,   As you know every Christmas I experience away from my family and friends is always tinged with guilt and melancholy. Even if the blessings of my children and new friends distract me from dwelling on negativity. Such is the life of an expat.   I don’t particularly want any…

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Postcards from Sicily: Nativity

Categories About me, Arts, Beautiful Italy, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photo Essay, Photography, Postcards from Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicily, Travel, Travel Sicily

It's that time of year again. Getting into the Christmas spirit with a ceramic nativity from Santo Stefano di Camastra.

The Sicilian art of the incomplete

Categories About me, Authentic Sicily, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photo Essay, Photography, Postcards from Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Tastes of Sicily, The truth about Sicily, Travel, Travel Sicily, Uncategorized

It is common in Sicily to see people living in unfinished houses or apartments with exposed bricks, cement and reinforced steel poking out dangerously like rusty modern sculptures on roofs left behind as it to say: ‘I could build a second storey if I feel like it, ora vediamo ...' Yes, the quintessential loitering phrase…

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Literary Islands: Giovanni Verga

Categories Arts, Beautiful Italy, Cinema, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Language Concerns, Life in Sicily, Literary Islands, Living in Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian History, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel Sicily, Uncategorized

  Most language students who study Italian at university level are familiar with Giovanni Verga as his short stories in the simple realist style are a perfect introduction to Italian Literature as they are easy for first-year students to follow. Verga’s short tale Cavalleria Rusticana was made into an opera libretto which together with the…

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The inspiration of Etna

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photo Essay, Photography, Postcards from Sicily, Sicily, Travel, Travel Sicily

  I’ve been wanting to post about my visits to Etna and how the volcano has always been a rich source of inspiration for me. Her latest eruptions have given me the motivation to get to writing about her.   Yes to the Sicilian’s Etna, is very much a ‘she,’ a strong female symbol of…

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This month in the garden: the Kiwi

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photography, Secluded Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian food, Sicily, Travel Sicily

  I’ve never been a green thumb, actually I’m the direct polar opposite. If you name a plant I’ve probably killed it. One time I even managed to liquidate two cacti whom I had named Iglesias and Beniamino, they strangely rotted to death after I over watered them (yes I managed to over water a…

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A coffee temptation

Categories About me, Authentic Sicily, Beautiful Italy, C.O.S.I (Crazy Observations by Stranieri in Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italian Culture, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Italy, Living in Sicily, Opinion piece, Photography, Sicilian Cuisine, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian food, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Tastes of Sicily, Travel, Travel Sicily, Uncategorized

I’ve always been a coffee drinker. I started off with instant stuff, then graduated to frothy cappuccino, milky latte and now I live in Italy it’s one hundred percent hardcore espresso. I briefly flirted with tea drinking in my youth, in the anglo saxon tradition of taking afternoon tea, so common in England loving Australia…

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Five reasons not to book your holiday to Italy in August

Categories Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photography, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicily, Travel, Travel Sicily

  Some friends have told me they are finally coming to Italy next year and I’m over the moon to get to see them! They are coming in August, a time of year I’d really encourage people to avoid. I don’t understand why travel agents encourage people to book holidays to Italy in August or…

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Postcards from Sicily: Doll houses

Categories Arts, Beautiful Italy, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photo Essay, Photography, Postcards from Sicily, Sicily, Travel, Travel Sicily

Today's friday photos are dedicated to quirky Italian homes which look like doll houses:     and Italian's flare for street names.    Enjoy your weekend!