Monday - Carini, Capaci & Terrasini

Monday

So after a good nights sleep, Monday morning arrived as per normal on our first day on holiday we go and suss out the local places, the beach etc.  We first found the local supermarket in Carini, it was quite an experience because the locals can spot the tourists a mile away, and the first thing you get asked when you speak English is "Americano?" seems like Sicily only know of one English speaking country in the world and this is America, do you think this might have anything to do with the Mafia?  But it was great fun, what would normally have taken about 10 minutes in our grocery store back home, took over an hour.

 In the supermarket each section e.g. Fresh Fruit is run by a person and you have to tell her what you want, she then wraps this all in a bag and puts a tally slip onto it.  But while she is doing that she is helping you to say the items in Italian and in return you have to help her with the English word.  Most of the younger generation are learning to speak English in school, but a lot of the older generation would not know any English at all.  Then it was off to the cold meats & cheese counter, and we had to wait in a queue which took ages, because the guy behind the counter is having a conversation with each of the customers.  Then off to the Fresh meat counter, where the gentleman is so friendly and tries to sell hubby some kind of sausage that looks a bit like boerewors, and to top it he cuts each of us a small piece to try (RAW), of course being polite we eat it with long teeth but Em just says YUK and spits it out, not to offend him I buy some mince meat which I need anyway, a couple of days later when I went in to buy mince he actually took a prime cut of beef and minced it up for me.  Anyway it turned out that this old guy new a little bit of English because he lived in New Jersey in the United States, so I had to hear his story before I could leave, it would have been rude to walk away.  I wondered there and then if he had any connections to the Mafia, you know having been in New Jersey?

After a little shopping expedition, we dropped our purchases at home, made a sandwich and then headed down to the local beach in Capaci.  I didn't check the brochure but we could have had access to a private beach, the local beach was filthy, litter everywhere which did not stop little Miss Em, no sooner had we stripped down to our costume and we were running in the Ocean, sand and water everywhere.  Em always looks for other people to play with, and headed down the beach to befriend 3 boys, she had great fun playing with them and although they could hardly speak any English they all got on really well and understood each other in child language, the two young boys took a shine to her.  It turned out they were from Milan and on holiday, with their mums as there were no sign of any dads.  I told D this is because all Italian men have affairs once they are married, so the mums and kids were sent on holiday while the dad was with his mistress (only kidding).

After her swim it was a promise of ice-cream and her first or was it the second Italian Gelato since we arrived.  Actually D & I had the nice Gelato and Em settled for a yukkie factory made one, which she never did again that holiday.  Then of course we had to sit near the "boys" which resulted in them taking many pictures of us and vice verso.  We left with promises of meeting them again on the beach, but which never materialised.

Once home Em was in the bath to get all the sand and sea out of her hair, while mom made a pot of Spaghetti bolognaise and then it was off to bed, or did we watch friends in Italian first?  Can't Remember...

Wait I almost forgot, before we went home, we took a drive along the coast into some small villages and ended up stopping at the sea front in Terrasini outside the archaeological museum.  D & I had a coffee and Em wanted a ride on one of those machines that cost money.  While I was watching her and drinking my coffee an Italian guy who heard me speaking English, started chatting to me he then invited Em to the park to play with his daughter, turns out they recently returned to Sicily after being away for 10 years.  Em went and played with Melina while D, this guy and I had a conversation about Florida in the States where he had lived for the past 10 years.  I think he was quite grateful to have other English speaking people, as was his daughter who now had to adjust to life speaking mainly Italian and nothing else.  When we left I felt quite sorry for them, but I guess we all have choices in life and theirs was to return to Sicily to their family.

From Island to Island

So where do I start ... we had an awesome week in Sicily and escaped the really bad weather in Ireland.  Although Spring had arrived the week before we went away, apparently it was taken away the Monday after we left for Sicily and on the Tuesday they had snow.  Must admit I saw something on the Italian news about an Atlantic cold front but it engulfed the whole of Europe and left the Southern parts of Italy alone.

Day Light Saving

It just so happened that our flight was leaving on the Sunday morning that the clocks were changing as well.  And the flight was at 6:50 so I booked the taxi for 7:00 a.m. before we went to bed at 10 p.m. D changed all the clocks in the house to an hour forward and we both changed our mobile phones as well.  I set my alarm for 3:30 so that I could have a nice shower and not rush.  I woke at 2:00 a.m. as this always happens, and then went back to sleep at 3:30 the alarm went off, I got up got showered and got D out of bed.  Once I was dressed I went down stairs to put the kettle on, only to see that the clocks on the Microwave and the Stove both said 3:00 a.m. which was not possible because my alarm had gone off at 3:30, which made me realise then that the mobile phone time changed automatically and was another hour ahead, so in fact I had gotten up at 2:30 and not 3:30, oh well, we phone the taxi and told them to come earlier may as well get to the airport.

Sicily - Catania

Our plane was delayed so by the time we touched down it was midday, the ride coming in was very bumpy and not pleasant at all. But the view of Etna was stunning, we would try and get to see her.  By the time we got the car and found our way out of Catania it was almost 2:00 p.m. but time didn't matter anymore because now we were on holiday.  The Sun was shining and it was probably in the 20's - hot for someone from Ireland.

Palermo / Capaci

We had rented an apartment in Capaci, a nice very reasonably priced apartment.  Driving into Palermo was an experience, it made me thing of Egypt because I had heard how unruly the drivers are, well this was the same, drivers making 4 lanes out of 2.  We managed to find Capaci where we were to meet the owners parents which we did and they took us to the apartment, there was not much time to do anything so we unpacked and went to find a supermarket to get the basic essentials.  By then we were all hungry and found this delightful pizzeria that had the most divine Pizza's they had a Calzone pizza that tasted like the Gino's Calzone pizza from oh so long ago.  It had been a long day, so after our pizza it was back to the apartment to sleep.

Sicily

I have just been onto http://www.accuweather.com/ to check out the weather in Sicily for the next 15 days, and boy now I can't wait to go, it is mainly dry and partly sunny but the tempreture is up in the 18's and higher - An Irish Summer!  Roll on Easter.

We got it ...

We finally received our brand spanking new Irish passports, whilst sitting at the computer yesterday, the post flap on the door opened and 2 big brown envelopes fell to the floor, I looked over my shoulder to see what was there and said to myself could it be, no ... yes ... you see, I had taken them in on the 10th of Feb and the lady said to me they would be ready on the 23rd if I wanted to fetch them, or should they post them, I said post.  Then after I finished my contract last week, I wished I had said yes I will pick them up because now they would probably take and extra month to get to us.  But lone behold, they were obviously ready on the 23rd, posted out and arrived the morning of the 24th.

So in order to initiate them and make sure they work properly, we have booked a short break to Sicily at the end of March, should be fun!