All Sicilians have this blinding obsessive love of there Sicilia which exists beyond any hardships, lack of education, lack of economic betterment or even famines which have occurred on the island, everyone holds onto their beloved Sicily despite everything. Of course until they were pushed away from their homeland when things on the island became…
Continue reading ➞ Drawn to Sicily
This table on Wikipedia compares monthly salaries in different countries. Italy’s average wage is notably much less than most of the other wealthy or economically powerful European countries (such as France, Switzerland and Germany. The Nordic countries, in particular, have much more generous stipend levels). Italy looks pretty comfortable compared to the former Eastern bloc…
Continue reading ➞ Working for free and the arte di arrangarsi in Italy
People love Italy, they fantasies about it, they want to live here but never realise how broken a place it is. It is slow in mentality, stubborn to change and frustrating for someone who is used to living in a younger faster moving, more efficient country. One day when the rest of the world is…
Continue reading ➞ Coming back to Sicily: contrasting reflections
I have been following Veronica Di Grigoli’s blog for a few years now, laughing along at the Sicilian Housewife’s struggles and humorous confusion associated with day-to-day life in Sicily as an expat. Now the blog has become a wonderfully polished and hilarious laugh-out-loud-belly-laughing-thigh-slapping book and I cannot resist expressing my absolute delight! The Dangerously truthful diary…
Continue reading ➞ The Dangerously Truthful Diary of A Sicilian Housewife
One of my favorite new blogs about this complex isle I live on is Secret Sicily written by a fab virtual friend of mine named Oriana. I love meeting new people through their blogs and I think good blogging is about bringing out your own personality, passions and interests. It was great to have a…
Continue reading ➞ Visit Secret Sicily with Oriana
I am constantly sitting down and planning out trips to do through Sicily. Often I don’t do everything on my list as I run out of money but I am generally happy if I do one of the trips every year as they are based on my experiences living here on the island. Sicily is…
Continue reading ➞ Things to do in Sicily
1) Don’t complain too much So it really doesn’t matter if you can’t track down your favorite candy bar or if they do things differently here. Italy is an old country so things are kinda slow, it will be dusty and a little dirty but that’s to be expected. Nothing is going to be…
Continue reading ➞ 5 easy steps to becoming a good tourist in Italy
Every time I go home for a visit I get terribly excited, start making lists of what I want to do, who I need to see and what I should buy so I can make the most of my three months in Australia (as my Italian husband travels on a short tourist visa- I’m sure…
Continue reading ➞ Going home: an expat’s internal conflict
Yes, there is a difference between Northern and Southern Italy; in fact, it took a major political and social movement to merge the different states of the Italian peninsula in the nineteenth century. The process began with the Congress of Vienna at the end of Napoleon’s reign in 1815 and continued with various…
Continue reading ➞ North verses South in Italy: from stereotypes to rampant individualism
My friends and family think I am totally insane to be living my life in Italy, they are waiting for me to come to my senses and move back to Australia, like I’ve been playing around for the past decade of my life. The truth is it’s been more than chasing a dream, I’m not…
Continue reading ➞ Leading an authentic life in Sicily
A skeptic Valentine As for me I think I am in serious danger of falling flat on my face here, you see I’ve never been the romantic type. I’m the one who encouraged my brother and his former girlfriend many years ago on Valentine’s day to fake a wedding proposal to get a free meal…
Continue reading ➞ Searching for San Valentino
The Sanremo Italian song Festival is classic Italian television at its best wonderfully hyperactive, ostentatious, trashy and irrational all at the same time. This year the festival is in its sixty-fifth edition making it a dinosaur compared to the continually evolving landscape of the small screen. Sanremo is always filled with controversy as the song…
Continue reading ➞ A basic guide to the Sanremo Festival (2015 edition)
This year on Blogging around the World we have been to Barcelona with Rob Dobson on Homage to Barcelona, to the Maldives with Irene from Maldives Dreamer, Saudi Arabia and around the globe with Tahira on Tahira's Shenanigans, enjoyed some fun tid bits from France with Joanna of Multifarious Meanderings, Florence with Misty at Surviving…
Continue reading ➞ Blogging around the world with Kate from Driving Like a Maniac
I love how children are so easily infected with the Christmas spirit. My son has prepared for his Christmas play at school over the past couple of weeks, spontaneously bursting into song and looking forward to speaking his part at the microphone. He even made me download some songs, so we have been ‘jingle bell…
Continue reading ➞ A Christmas song going around in my head
I grew up eating Panettone, every Christmas, at my Sicilian grandparents place it was traditional fare to cut slices, for afternoon tea, of this gigantic aromatic Christmas cake filled with sultanas, dried lemon and orange zest. Every year that Panettone deceived me with it’s light and fluffy appearance, I’d bite into it’s tall and slender…
Continue reading ➞ The humble Panettone
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