Sicily Oh Sicily- When Have I Been Here Before?

Whose life is this anyway? Touching down on these distant shores stirred up something inside of me. Today, I felt like I was in real familiar, familia, territory. From the first encounter, I felt like I was in the Italian world that I grew up with: The openness of the faces, a friendliness waiting to happen, old people with tears of joy talking loudly to one another. The Sicilian race has fire, has schtic (How do you spell Schtic in Yiddish?) The Tuscan Italians were cordial and some very friendly, but on the whole very different, keeping their distance. Today, from the very first encounter, people were eyeing me up and down, smiling, and completely animated, and very, very engaging and friendly. So, my scorecard reads: Tuscan food- A+  Sicilian people- A+.

 No, Sicily is not the picture perfect postcard waiting to happen that Tuscany is, but the ancient Moroccan type streets of Old Town Trapani and the liveliness of the people combined with the mysteries of these ancient seas make this a most interesting place. I can see why Rick Steves says: "That you haven't visited Italy until you have gone to Sicily." And, this place has pace and style too. Each shop is more high end than the previous one. They make the Suburban Square stores in Ardmore look substandard! So, what is it about the flare and the air and the atmosphere? I'm sure as the week unfolds, that there will be more depth and basis to my initial instincts that will help fill in the gaps that my intuition cannot fully do.....

Now, about the particulars of our whereabouts: We are right on the Mediterranean Oceanfront in a very modern apartment. It is beautifully tiled with marble and alabaster, as is most of Italy, I would assume, and it is much more modern than most of our homes in America. The Italians have the best toilet and shower systems. The flush panels look like tiles nicely inserted in the walls. The electric conservation is also outstanding. Every place that we have been so far has had a superior timing system for turning on and off the lights than anything that I have seen in the States.