A list of things noticed during our 2-week trip in Sicily:
- People saying "bombastic"
- Traffic rules seem to simply be suggestions (especially speed limits)
- Savory or sweet, everything is fried
- Arancina or arancino, that is the question1
- Pani câ meusa (or spleen sandwich) is surprisingly good
- Breakfast (when there is one) should be sweet
- Bread is yellow, not sure why
- Cassata might be one of the rare "layered cake" I like
- Recycling is going strong (or theoretically at least with all these different bins)
- So many stray cats
- A few stray dogs
- A carb with carb with carb sandwich2
- Clear turquoise water that are postcard-worthy
- The landscape looks similar to some parts of the Ardèche region in France (but as a drier version most of the time)
- Some people wearing winter jackets even though it's more than 25 °C
- A mix of overpopulated cities and lands only inhabited by cows and sheeps
- Olive trees
- Orange trees
- Lemon trees
- Fresh lemons that you can practically eat like apples
- Empty streets from 1–3pm, except for the occasional tourist
- A very strong pride in being Sicilian
- No one cares about the Italian national day
- Churches
- 24 hours vending machine clusters everywhere
- Lots of precise hand gestures
- Much more tourism than what I would have expected
- Very cool pebble beaches (sand is overrated)
- Toilets that flush with a manual tap system
- Terrible napkins that feel like paper
- Natural reserves where you can swim just like at a regular beach3
- A very poor public transportation system — the car is king
- An obsession with the Moor's heads4 as: ceramic vases, book holders, tablecloth decoration, bed sheet pattern, pillow cases, magnets, mugs, ...
- Many archeological monuments (a.k.a. lots of protected old rocks that are expensive to see)
- Ficuses, my new favorite type of tree!5
Footnotes
There is apparently a strong debate between West (arancina team) and East (arancino team) Sicily on how to call these delicious rice balls. ↩
Thinking of the panelle e crocchè sandwich that is made with bread, chickpea fritters and fried potato balls ↩
This feels weird to me, aren't natural reserves usually supposed to be protected from any kind of human impact? ↩
The Moor's heads are symbolic of Sicily. The story is about an impossible love between a Moor young woman and a man. Spoiler: She cuts his head and makes a vase with it when she learns that he is married with kids. #romantic #truelove ↩
The coolest ficus tree is in the Palermo botanical garden. ↩
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