I’ve been compiling a list of my fave Italian words on my phone for a while with a half-baked idea for a post, and I am grateful to this months Dolce Vita Bloggers theme of ‘five Italian words’, which has jogged my memory and allowed me to finally sit down and write about the Italian…
Continue reading ➞ Five Random Italian Words
As the weather begins to warm the first fruits of spring literally ‘spring’ up from the new foliage. A favourite has to be wild asparagus which grows randomly and abundant throughout Italy. Asparagus is a member of the Lily family and is sought after for its tender, succulent, edible shoots. This plant has been cultivated for…
Continue reading ➞ Springtime Asparagus
According to UN statistics, there are 232 million expatriates in the world a steadily rising number of people who have chosen to move overseas from 154 million in 1990 and 175 million in 2000. The motives for becoming an expat are quite varied whether it be economic or personal many people choose to move out…
Continue reading ➞ Culture Shock in Italy: Friendship
I’ve always been challenged by the mountainous landscape in Sicily. The boundless slopes disorient me, I have problems finding my bearings and the horizon is blocked out by them. When I go hiking down steep hillsides I am constantly holding on for dear life, grappling white-knuckled onto the flimsiest blade of grass. I’ve lost count…
Continue reading ➞ Sicilian Mountain Lessons
By far the most spectacular time of year to visit Sicily has to be in the springtime, as it is filled with sunshine, freshness and the pageantry of Easter adds a distinctive colour and theatricality to the island. Easter in Italy certainly isn't all chocolate eggs and bunnies (even though they have them here…
Continue reading ➞ An early Easter in 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
July in Sicily is pleasant, the heat is more persistent and less of a novelty, in fact, people begin to take summer for granted after spending June lying on a warm rock soaking up vitamin D, like a scaly lizard who has just hatched out of its winter shell. The wind is fluctuating bringing bursts…
Continue reading ➞ Caronte & Circe
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 often exchange stories with other ex-pats about the Italians who have lied and cheated us with ease and nonchalance which is both infuriating and puzzling. Not to say other countries don’t have problems with corruption as the world is rife, but in most Anglo-Saxon countries a politician or public servant or any other…
Continue reading ➞ The complexity of Italy’s cheating heart
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
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 San Remo 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. San Remo is always filled with controversy as…
Continue reading ➞ A basic guide to the San Remo Festival
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
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