Goethe once said to have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything. But in order to understand Sicily you need to go to its geographical centre because the key to the island’s identity is there. The province…
Continue reading ➞ Leonforte at the beating heart of Sicily
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
There is no need to be offended about an article about the ridiculousness of life in Italy and how to survive it. All expats dive into life’s absurdity with a relish that is slightly abnormal, because we are all a little mentally unstable. Our posts are written with a wink of an eye, extravagantly wild…
Continue reading ➞ Culture shock in Sicily
The weight of Sicily’s history makes it an inherently sad place, like all places with long human histories she laments her past glories which in turn give her a unique melancholy. Yes, Sicilia is defiantly as feminine as her beating heart, Etna. Sicily’s infinite stories shape her own sorrowful character which are absorbed into…
Continue reading ➞ How history shapes Sicily’s character
Sicilian people have a unique rapport with religion and superstition which binds the two seemingly conflicting doctrines together. The connection between the two can be traced back to the struggle the early Catholic Church in Sicily had against pagan religions. The Roman Catholic Church always had a tremendous amount of power over Sicilian’s spiritual, cultural…
Continue reading ➞ Sicilian Patron Saints
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
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
This summer I photographed this Sicilian Oregano drying in the sun. Oregano grows wild in amongst the Mediterranean scrub of Sicily and is gathered and saved to add flavor to meats and other dishes. As I was taking this photo I was struck by the rustic almost dirty look of the rocks and the herbs,…
Continue reading ➞ Postcards from Sicily: Oregano
The terrifying sound of a jet roaring over our heads is becoming a regular occurrence. It is a military exercise but I imagine the terror of it speeding towards a real mission. The nightmare of hearing a fleet of such monsters heading towards you announcing death in life’s final moments, a chilling thought which haunts…
Continue reading ➞ What is happening above our heads?
When I was a child I had an Uncle who was terribly capricious, a real joker (he still is until this day) and he took great pleasure in teaching my brother and I all the colourful Italian swear words possible. My Uncle thought it was all terribly funny and hoped we’d use them in front…
Continue reading ➞ Sicilian’s flare for uttering profanities
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…
Continue reading ➞ The Sicilian art of the incomplete
