February 8, 2010
The building permit for my little dream house in Sicily has finally been issued. I’m wildly happy.
…
…
Work begins.
Or does it? I’ve taken a job way up in Rome to finance the dream, so I cannot be sure.
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But I know one thing: the scaffolding is up in the back of the house. A neighbor sends me this picture.
I am now the neighborhood eyesore. Not at all bella figura. Neighbors whose main entrance is on the alleyway can barely shoehorn their way into their own homes.
“Just a few weeks,” says the project manager when I call to ask how long it has to stay up.
But January turns to February, and February fades into March. I’m preoccupied with my job in Rome. My mason is in the hospital. My project manager busy with an illness in the family. The scaffolding stands forgotten.
I get a call in Rome from my Sicilian neighbor. “Gianna,” she says, “the neighborhood is complaining. People are arrabiati, angry. They’re afraid of thieves climbing on the scaffolding and breaking into their houses. And did you know the permit is about to expire?”
“Really?” I yelp.
I don’t expect what comes next.
“Neighbors are talking about filing a denucia, a formal complaint to the police.”
I take a deep breath and catch the next plane down.
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February 5, 2010
I don’t claim to be the world’s best driver. Not by a long shot.
But I never had actual accidents till I started driving in Sicily.
Look at this. It’s the center of Ragusa Ibla. Could you squeeze through these streets?
I feel little stabs of fear bumping over the S-shaped lanes of Sicilian hill towns.
I’ve torn off a side-view mirror or two. A bumper or two. Never hit anybody, though.
You can’t blame me. There was this one time when a wall came out of nowhere and hit me. Then there was the time a mirror jutting out from a parked Fiat struck my car.
 This guy has the right idea. Drive a motorcycle in Sicilian hill towns. It’s really the only vehicle that fits.
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Here I am–a straniera of a certain age–trying on a little Vespa for size. What do you think? Should I? Could I? Darest I?
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Tourist tip: Get full collision coverage when driving in Sicily. But don’t let the idea of driving on the island worry you unnecessarily: it’s an absolute joy to drive on the open road in Sicily. By the way, Kemwel is the cheapest car rental consolidator I’ve found for Sicily. They’re professional and fast about following up on accidents and suchlike. Ask for your AAA, ARP, whatever discount AFTER they quote a price.(Just please don’t mention me or this post if you contact them! Yikes. They’ll never let me rent again. )
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February 3, 2010
She hoped to read Dante in the original, my sister did, to discuss him in his native tongue.
But first she needed to pick up some basics.
So she came all the way from Los Angeles to enroll in ibla!, a tiny Italian language school housed in a palazzo just steps from Ragusa Ibla’s cathedral.
I’d already spoken with the director and head teacher. They’d assured me that their teaching method was “communicative” and “fun” and “modern.” But I wondered. I’d seen language classes in Italy where teachers clung to an approach as antiquated as the Roman Forum itself.
But here’s what Linda has to say about the experience: I spent a week studying Italian at ibla! school in spring 2009 and loved it! The teachers were hip and fun and tailored the classes to our level. They used conversation, games, interesting exercises and homework and really helped us become more skilled in speaking Italian. I made some good friends, loved the comfortable classrooms and also the historic setting (Ragusa Ibla is beautiful). I recommend this school and am looking forward to returning and taking more classes.
The classes at ibla! are very small, especially in off-season—sometimes just two people. This can be a beautiful thing if you like lots of practice and individual attention. But the downside—at least for some people—might be that you don’t get to meet many classmates, and you may be hanging out alone in your free time.
Haven’t you always wanted to speak the language of love? It’s never too late to learn. ibla! runs a special “Over50 Program” that combines Italian with the study of culture, wine and food. Yum. What are you waiting for?
If you’re lucky, you may end up speaking Italian with a baroque accent. Sicilians love exaggeration. Baroque is in their bones. Consider this: no food in Sicily is merely good, buono, it’s always buonissimo, to die for. No human being is just plain ugly, brutto, he’s bruttissimo, hideous. No car or view or cake or shoe in Sicily is ever beautiful, bella, it’s always bellissima, drop-dead gorgeous.
If it’s excitement and glitterati you’re after, study Italian in Florence or Rome. If you’re looking for baroque charm and hospitality in a sweet (and relatively inexpensive) stone village, I recommend ibla!
Here’s ibla!’s website.
If you can’t make it to Sicily to study Italian, if you can’t leave home at all, think about taking advantage of a distance-learning program to polish your language skills. Cyberitalian is a website devoted to teaching Italian and Italian culture. The director, Maura Garau, once headed the Italian program at the United Nations Circolo Culturale Italiano, and she knows what she’s doing when it comes to language instruction.
If you’re already at an intermediate level of Italian and want to speak more idiomatically, enjoy and learn from Dianne Hales’ fun (free) blog Becoming Italian Word by Word.
Follow your own star, as Dante would say, or more precisely, “Se segui tua stella, non fallirai a glorioso porto.”
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Do you have a yen to speak Italian? If you already know Italian, do you have a secret to help the rest of us?
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January 30, 2010
I hire a team of architects.
I fire a team of architects.
I leave my husband in New Mexico and take a job in Rome in order to be “close” to Sicily.
And, oh, what a job it is (why don’t I have any luck with Italian bosses?).
The whammies start to add up.
I hire a project manager (the handsomest of men) with a swagger, cool sunglasses, a Range Rover, a mop of curls, an Etna-like temper and—how best to put this?—a hands-off management style. Which I only learn later. His mantras are Non sono d’accordo and Non e possibile.
My Roman job swallows me whole, but on rare occasions I sneak down to Sicily to prod, cajole, wring my hands, and gnash my teeth. I prowl around the damp house—it’s twice as cold inside as outside—and wonder how it’ll ever be livable. Why in the world is the building permit taking so long?
Pazienza, Sicilians tell me. I’m not a patient person, but I’m beginning to suspect I’ll need some endurance to get the life I want to lead.
What is the life I want to lead, anyway?
A stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off life, a turn-back-the-clock-a-century life. A new life. A second life.
A friend forwards an email from a British guy who is temporarily living in Italy: “Anyone buying any kind of property in Italy needs counseling. I send my deepest sympathies to the lady in Sicily…”
New Roman friends respond with audible gasps, like in a comic book, when I tell them I’m renovating a house in Sicily. They call me coraggiosa and then laugh themselves silly.
My husband remains reluctant, though not opposed.
Lo and behold, 8 months after I buy the damp old house and after endless phone calls, faxes, and DHLs (my project manager avoids email), I am in possession of a building permit. The legitimacy of my existence is confirmed.
“It’s your Christmas present,” says my best friend on the island, an expat Sicilian-American upon whom I lean like a crutch.
Never mind that the dollar is at an all-time low. Or that our retirement nest egg is about to dissolve like salt in water. Or that I feel I’m flying off a cliff.
Let the work begin.
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January 27, 2010
Picture endless groves so laden with blood oranges that the orbs fall with abandon, rolling around in flowering fields and bouncing onto roadways. Fiats and Ferraris roar by, mashing the ruby-red flesh to a bloody pulp.
That’s what it’s like around Catania this time of year. Etna smokes away in the distance, aloof to the carnage at her feet.
I was surprised the first time I saw what Sicilians do with their luscious blood oranges (besides squashing them on highways). They mix them up with onions and call it a salad!
This is all you need for blood orange salad: blood oranges, onions, and a good olive oil. (I found these California blood oranges at Whole Foods.)
Peel the oranges, getting rid of as much of the white pith as you can. Slice them, sprinkle with onions, a good olive oil, and course black pepper, and voilà, you’ve got the quintessential Sicilian salad.
California blood oranges can’t quite compare with the Sicilian varieties (Sanguigno, Tarocco and Moro), but they’re still pretty good. Substitute thin slices of red onion for spring onions if you prefer.
What do you think? Let me know if you try it. Do you have another favorite recipe with blood oranges?
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Suzette Hodges has written me to share her blood orange recipe. Thanks, Suzette!
Here’s a wonderful salad using blood red oranges:
Dice up one blood red orange (large pieces); sliver 1/2 red onion (or any type onion); chop some figs (as much or little as you like); crumble goat cheese; top a plate with spring greens; add each of the ingredients atop the salad, as much or little as you like; drizzle and olive oil/mustard dressing over all. Delicious!!!
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