Off south to Sicily

Bel fidanzato and I are off to my old home of Taormina tomorrow and I cannot wait. Hmmm....cannoli siciliani YUMMY!

You may recall that I was lucky enough to live and work there for about 7 months a few years ago. My ex-colleague is still working there, and living in my old apartment which still has the old couch/fold out bed which will be perfect for us for 1 night. Sicily is so close to us here that hopefully this will be the first of many trips back there.

To be or not to be...in Italy that is?

The other day I mentioned here that bel ragazzo and I want to leave Italy for the winter. Some place far away and exotic is hopefully calling us...or at least somewhere different for a while.

We have also put in our summer requests and after a lot of thought the choice was simple really...we have applied to go to...

A place where I can eat as many of these are a like:



and these:



and not to forget these:



Or this - one of my favourite pasta dishes!



Food is not the only thing I am looking forward to. How you can say no to a town that...

Has streets like this:



And this:




and this:



And in this place mother nature looks something like this:



and this:



and this:



Have you guessed yet? If you think I have lived here before then yes - you are correct. I only left this place so the bel ragazzo and I could live together...and now that we work together then we can both (hopefully) go back to...this place. It is one of the most beautiful parts of Italy, one of the most picteresque towns on one of the most incredible islands...I am talking about:



Hopefully we'll be seeing you in Sicily!

Rotten Fruit at Italian Markets

Yesterday my parents and I went to a little market in the centre of Rome and bought some fruit. The prices were very reasonable and the quality seemed fresh and wholesome - but here in Italy normally you cannot touch the fruit and vegetables, you ask for what you want and the shop attendant places them in a bag for you.

All good and well if you are a local, however the Italian's are notorious for ripping off the poor tourists. I know this so once we had our goods I opened the bag to inspect my fruit. Just as I guessed they had put the nice peaches up the top and two rotten ones down the bottom. It is always the same old story and believe me it is not just the tourists who get this treatment, but the 'foreign Italians' too. I marched promptly back from the shop and in a loud voice told the lady that she had given me rotten fruit! 'Oh scusi, scusi...' Sorry...sorry...she says rushing over and asking me to select my own replacements.

Scusi...scusi...She was not sorry! I am however not a tourist and I will not be ripped off!

My colleague from Sicily who is from the north of Italy tells me she was treated the same in Taormina at the local market. She used to go and buy her vegetables then walk home, and each week they put rotten tomatoes in her bag. Furious, one day she marched down to the market and told the old fruit vendor that she was not a tourist and that even though her accent is clearly from the north, she lived just up the road. Red faced he apologised and from then on she only got the best tomatoes.

How to tell if a house is 'abusivo'

I live quite close to the centre of Rome, only 5 metro stops from the Colosseum. I do not have to pay rent, bills or anything costly like that as thankfully with my job this is all included. What isn't included however if living in a (perhaps) abusivo apartment. Abusivo is the Italian term used when a building, construction or alteration to a building has been made illegally.

I first learnt about abusivo houses when living in Taormina. Near my apartment there was a skeleton building that was perched dangerously close to the edge of the cliff (in my opinion.) As the months went by this house remained just a few pillars here and there...no one was ever seen to be working on it. I asked my colleague who told me that the house was abusivo and that sometimes you could catch work-men there during the night trying to lay some more foundations. They worked at night as obviously the house was illegal as in this case they were building the house on the council's land! My colleague told me their goal was to put the roof on the house, as once there is a roof then it is harder to knock the house down... I asked her why the government did not come and knock the house down immediately since it was illegal, and she said that there were so many of these abusivo houses that it would cost too much to knock them down. (And that also the council liked to wait until the house was finished before destroying it...then the abusivo people lose even more money.)

If you look around, you will see there are many abusivo homes in Italy (and other countries) from the Gypsy encampments that the governments are continuously bulldozing, to the odd house extension here and there that has not been authorised by the council...and perhaps my apartment here in Rome. Basically I live on the 6th floor of a large complex and the 6th floor used to be the roof top terrace. The owner built a house, apparently with the permission of the condominium but it was her who made the roof. The problem is that water leaks in one of the bedrooms, the bathroom and the living room so when it rains we have little floods all over the place. Some workmen from the condominium came to view the house today. They were muttering away in Italian (most of which I could not understand...plumbing words are not yet in my vocabulary but I did hear abusivo mentioned a few times.) saying that if the leak had been near the front door then that would be their problem, but since the leak is further away, where the owner made the roof then the problem is hers, and hers alone. I got the feeling that no one likes our land lady as we are on the 6th floor, and the lift stops at level 5. Why you ask? Because the lady would not pay the condominium fees and therefore they refused to put a lift up to our floor.

Half naked men caught on camera

I have mentioned in previous posts that tourists here in Taormina (and all over the world) leave common sense and clothing at home when they come to a foreign land. Every Wednesday morning, the piazza below my balcony is transformed from our normal residential haven into a frenzy of fruit, vegetables, clothes, shoes etc...as the weekly market comes to town. Here is a before shot:



From my balcony I spotted these two men:





Let me point out that this is a rather small market, frequented by locals, locals who come to buy fruit, vegetables and other household items. I normally walk down my stairs with €10 in my pocket to see how much I can buy. Yesterday for €12.50 I purchased: 1 x tracksuit pants, 2 x long sleeve tops, tomatoes and peaches, clothes all new and fruit and veggies very nice! The tourists it seems go so they can strip off...or let's hope these old, unsightly men went to the market to buy a top since they forgot them in their home land.

Fashion police in Taormina

Is it wrong to despise tourists if that is my job? I should clarify, I do not dislike all tourist, just that Taormina is so busy at the moment that it is hard to find nice tourists. One amazing thing that I saw a few days ago was the 'fashion police' on the main pedestrian street.

My common complaint is why must some tourists walk around Taormina wear just their bikinis? No t-shirts, too tight speedos and I'm talking about the ancient hilltop medieval town, not down by the sea!  Firstly, it is disrespectful and secondly, the medieval town is 700m above sea level, meaning that from the beach to the hill top town you have 700m worth of time to get dressed before walking into shops and even restaurants dressed (or should I say not dressed) like this.

The other day I felt like cheering aloud as I saw a polizia on the Corso Umberto, our main street, stopping these fashion offenders and asking them to cover up. Not content with a 'yes' the police man stood there and watched while the many embarrassed people put on t-shirts, shorts, shoes - you name it.

I have so many entertaining stories about the customers I work with...I had a complaint the other day that Stromboli (one of the Aeolian Islands, which is also an active volcano) did not erupt. We sell excursions to this island and tell people most of the time they should see some form of eruption or explosion from the volcano. Obviously not being mother nature I cannot guarantee the eruptions. These guests made an official complaint, asking for a full refund as they saw no activity from the volcano that night.

The other night a customer complained that the antipasto is always cold, there were no potatoes on the menu and that at many of the restaurant staff cannot speak English. Sorry - but what country are you visiting again? 

When will the scirocco end?

It is still very hot here in Sicily. The winds from Africa don't seem to want to return to their homeland. The weather forecast says the change should come by Friday, but who know...?

Onto better things, Luisa and I went to see a concert at the Teatro Greco on Sunday night. It's pretty amazing listening to live music in an ancient Greek Theatre, with the sea and beyond that Mount Etna as the backdrop. We saw an Italian 'leftist' singer called Fioreall Mannoia and it was great. http://www.fiorellamannoia.it/

She has produced a new album with a Brazilian influence. It did not matter that I had never heard of her or her music before. After listening to her deep, rich voice with the Latin beats, Luisa and I have both decided to go and live in Brazil. The next concert we have is in a few weeks also at the Greek Theatre.

Other then there is nothing to report today from Sicily. I will update you all when there is something more interesting to say!