This year it is election time in my small Sicilian town. I've never been one to follow politics on any level unless it has to do with a particular issue or social problem. I can never muster the energy to pursue it. Yet, I am constantly surprised at how deeply political everyone is in Italy.…
Continue reading ➞ A taste of local politics
Sometimes, living in Italy is like being inside an awful soap opera; it's a vibrant, quirky, melodramatic place filled with controversies, corruption, and paradoxes. Italy is a place of great beauty, creativity and unique experiences, overshadowed by equally abhorrent ugliness, criminality and hypocrisy. The Italian people themselves manifest these conflicting traits. I have come across…
Continue reading ➞ Flamboyant Italians: Vittorio Sgarbi
The Italian language is so visual, it has an ability to take an image or object and use it as a metaphor for a something much greater than itself. In English it would be akin to the literary term metonymy (from the Greek change of name) which is the term for one thing as applied…
Continue reading ➞ The imagery of Italian language
Sicilian maccheroni, are the ultimate feast. Served with rich Bolognese sauces for every occasion from birthdays to Christmas to New Year. Not for the faint hearted ... your waistline will suffer for them but your taste buds will be in heaven. Maccheroni season is just around the corner ...
Sometimes, living in Italy is like being inside an awful soap opera; it's a vibrant, quirky, melodramatic place filled with controversies, corruption, and paradoxes. Italy is a place of great beauty, creativity and unique experiences, overshadowed by equally abhorrent ugliness, criminality and hypocrisy. The Italian people themselves manifest these conflicting traits. I have come across…
Continue reading ➞ Flamboyant Italians: Vittorio Sgarbi
The concept of ‘multiculturalism’ is a source of debate throughout the world, whether it is possible for a country to become truly multicultural and if different cultures really can exist peacefully side by side or is it simply a utopia. Italy in particular resists other cultures mixing with the domineering Italian one. Minister of Integration,…
Continue reading ➞ Multicultural Sicily (whether they like it or not)
One of the most inspiring expat blogs I’ve come across in Italy must be Mozzarella Mamma which is the creation of Trisha, an American journalist who has been living and working in Rome for the past two decades. She’s an inspiration simply because she has managed to juggle being a professional, bringing up three…
Continue reading ➞ Blogging around the world: Mozzarella Mamma
Living in Italy for many years has made me fluent in many things. I negotiate the nuances of the Italian language, roll my ‘r’s’ with the best of them, I navigate my way around the kitchen with a respectable repertoire of Mediterranean dishes, I can steer my way through the traffic of any chaotic city,…
Continue reading ➞ Why Italy will never be ‘normal’
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…
Continue reading ➞ Political intrigue in small town Sicily
It looks like Friday Photo's have become weekend Pics in the Italian style of letting things slide. Today I'm thinking about Rome which has become an inhospitable place, filled with violent protests. I was shocked to see police pushing protesters along this very road near the Colosseum. Dangerous times in Italy.
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