Life in Sicila

It was always easy to write about life in England.  There were so many little everyday things that were just plain odd to me after Australia.  You'd think that here in Sicilia it would be even easier.  However, I feel so much more at home here that fewer things stand out, despite the fact that I'm usually speaking Italian!

Of course, the overiding factor has to be the sun.  Having lived without the sun for 3 years I can safely say that it makes a huge difference to life in general.  Another factor is that here I'm working on a big industrial site, different but in many ways familiar from my time at Hamersley Iron.  Even the landscape around the industrial plant is somewhat familiar, with all the gum trees and many plants that look like they were transplanted directly from the Pilbara (bizarre but true; I don't know how this is possible).  Plus the sparkling sea helps

The food is thoroughly edible, another big difference from England!  Also I have a car here.  Not having a car in England is absolutely the right decision because the public transport is adequate and cars are expensive and largely unnecessary in my life.  But there's no denying that I've missed driving a lot.  The sense of freedom and movement is very relaxing.

Then there are the people.  I like many English people.  I like many English cultural products.  But somehow England itself is just gloomy.  The Italians on the other hand, at least those down south here in Sicilia, are lively, laughing, boisterous, friendly and just generally lots of fun to be around.  Of course there are those I like and those I like less, but the cultural impact here is to make people more open and ready to laugh which also makes me feel at home.  Whenever I travel to Australia I realise how in England I always feel slightly restricted by the faint but discernible gloominess all around me.

That's not to say that there's nothing to talk about of course.  The people here are still emerging from centuries of poverty and deprivation.  The workplace culture is like that in Australia was about 40 years ago in terms of safety, procedures etc.  There's a rather unpleasant undercurrent of politics and game playing sometimes and the beaurocracy is legendary (I still don't have my visa).  The traffic chaos is just plain unbelievable until you see - basically throw away all possible road rules and see what happens is the general rule.

People go out for pizza at 9pm rather than going to the pub after work and really nobody drinks much at all.  Nobody would ever dream of stepping out of their front door without being perfectly dressed and made up - in fact people here at work look at me in astonishment because I go to and from home already in my work clothes instead of changing (and so who knows what they think of me leaving the gym in my gym clothes!).  In some ways it's a very traditional Catholic culture - every woman must have her big white wedding in a church and the men here tut tut at me when I use a bad word (that's always funny) but on the other hand nearly everyone lives together before marriage and seem to otherwise live a pretty free and easy life.  There are stray dogs everywhere which nobody minds and everyone kisses a lot.  The kids are particularly cute at this :).

So there you go.  Life in Siracusa in a nutshell.  Wouldn't want to live here forever but I'm certainly enjoying it now.

Busy busy

It's been a long time since I last blogged because I've been absolutely flat out like a lizard drinking.  The project that I'm working on has reached the stage best thought of as "intense".  We're commissioning and that increases the risk level considerably as well as the amount of things going on at the same time.

When I found out that I was coming to Sicily for a while, I renamed this blog after the most famous local landmark, Mt Etna. What I didn’t realise is just how appropriate that would be.

Mt Etna is amazing. Just amazing. It looms over the land, a single landmark visible from many miles around. Every day as I drive from Siracusa north towards the plant I am driving directly towards it and at least twice I’ve missed my turnoff, lost in awe at the sight. Throughout winter it’s been covered in snow and even more beautiful than ever, whether from a distance or up close glittering in the sunshine.


So when another friend from Mossley, Scott, came for a visit, naturally we had to tackle this monster. We went up the northern face to a ski resort, then followed the skidoo tracks up as far as they went. After that we were on our own to trudge through the 4m deep snow up to the nearest peak (still 1000 m from the top).

These photos show the view looking down at the clouds coming up behind us and up to the peak still to be reached. All up a round trip of 6 exhausting but fun hours.

The funny thing was that it wasn’t possible to make it all the way to the smoking crater… the closer we got, the more the snow had melted from the heat underneath. Because that mean that there was still a crust of snow on top, every step become more and more hazardous. So finally we stopped for a break in a mini crater and warmed up in the steam. Kind of scary, but at least you know you're not likely to die of exposure on the mountain.

A few weeks ago (back when I had Sundays clear!), I went about an hour south to a local nature reserve. I’ve talked about this blog before, in fact it was the first place I went to when I first arrived here. At that time I marvelled at the gum trees and feeling quite at home. This time was even better!  This is a normal sort of sign at a nature reserve, no camping, no fires, no rubbish…. no pet kangaroos!!! (Actually the sign says no introduction of foreign species, with the kangaroo on a leash as an illustration). I laughed till tears ran down my face when I saw this.

The weather’s starting to get very nice here. It’s been a strange year: snow in Manchester over xmas and temperatures 10 degrees above normal here. I still haven’t really been skiing in Europe which is just ridiculous but I’m still hoping that one day I’ll get there. I was sorry to miss most of the snow in England but I really am having fun in Sicily.