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.