Catania, Sicily July 2009Catania’s alien problem
Apparently Sicily’s city of Catania has an alien problem (or a renegade sperm). Every other block or so I saw this guy… Looking fierce, looking lost, looking like a naughty Peeping Tom (image included above). How do residents feel about this white alien?
Catania, Sicily June 2009
Catania, Sicily July 2009More smart urban planning
Bike Rental Station in parking lot, Syracuse, Sicily
Another example of good urban planning. In the city of Syracuse, Sicily, there are bike rental stations in places like parking lots and town squares near the cafes. No attendant needed, just use it like a vending machine. That way, when you’re done sitting on your butt for 3 hours driving to Syracuse you can pedal to the café for a pistachio gelato with brioche, espresso, cannoli, eclair (insert additional foodie obsessions here to add to list) and then pedal back, burning off your meal. Really smart, guys.
Obama in Italy
Obama Posting, Caltagirone, Sicily June 2009
We couldn’t figure out what it said, guessing it had to do with a political party. Anyone know?
Space used right
Condom Vending Machine in Trecastagni, Sicily June 2009
This is good use of public space. forget the soda, candy bars and cigarettes that’ll either “plump you up” or give you lung cancer. Get something good out a vending machine for once.
Et en Arcadia
The most memorable moment of our recent Sicilian odyssey did not happen in a city, but between cities. We were on one of those two hour car drives, this time our destination was ceramics from Caltagirone and chocolate from the city of Modica. We were winding our way through the Sicilian countryside. Our cars followed a well paved highway. We were surrounded by fields of golden wheat, distant hills with olive trees, and flattened sun-dried grass with bundled haystacks that looked like round suitcases left long ago by the Cyclopean race. The highway served as an unlikely wormhole through an Arcadian landscape; we passed through it encased in our vehicles. For a long while the only reminder of human contact with the land was passing trucks. They swayed with heavy loads of agricultural bounties I imagined harvested from these golden fields. I was entranced by paradise. Et en Arcadia – continue reading …
Siciliano Street Cookie
Had my eye out for Street Cookie in Sicily. Surely in the land of Don Corleone Street Cookie would lurk. Spent a good deal of my excursions with a special eye on the sidewalk, looking for a face peering out from the concrete for some seemingly misplaced random object sitting lonely on the surface of the ground.
A true mafioso, Street Cookie was incognito. But I knew I found him in a market in the Sicilian city of Syracuse. Here he is: Siciliano Street Cookie – continue reading …
