Sicilian Trip Reflections - The Traditional Navel-Gazing Post

So we are back in the homeland, Albuquerque, New Mexico after our ordeal of getting back. An we've started the next part of our test...how would we feel about being back after this extended time living in a different country, with an entirely different lifestyle and life pattern. Well the initial reaction on both our parts has been, we are ready to move on. So let's go into this in greater detail.

We Don't Want To Deal With A House

I think this is a big one. During the time we were building the tower, it was all about creating a space which gave us joy. AND IT DID! It is a magnificent place. It has so much beauty associated with it. BUT, it also requires a LOT of maintenance. Just the regular maintenance of cleaning it, washing windows, having the yard maintained is extremely time-consuming. Is that what we really want to be doing with our lives? And then there is the upcoming age of property related maintenance one can expect. There is tons. None will be inexpensive. And it will take a great effort to find and oversee those to do the work. Is that what we really want to be doing with our lives. Both Wife and I seem to be at a point where the answer is no.

The Attraction Of Time Zone Change

I am going to be as explicit as possible. My involvement with Theodora Africa is going to go on for as long as I humanly can do it. I have never, NEVER been involved with something that both is doing so much good and has so much potential. And as we continue to evolve, my work becomes less and less of what I don't like and more and more of what I do like. What does this have to do with the physical location of where I live? A lot

When I am in New Mexico, I am six or seven hours behind Ghana. If I get up a 4am, it is 10 or 11am in Ghana. If there are things that need my attention, I am going to be doing them during my early hours. I can work three hours in the morning before anyone here is ready to even think about starting their day. What did we find in Sicily. I was two hours ahead of Ghana. If I came to work at 3pm, it was 1pm in Ghana, plenty of time to work on their important stuff. That left almost a half a day where Wife and I could just interact. That leads to...

A Different Life Pattern

 It means that I essentially have hours and hours of time in the morning and early afternoon to myself. I applied these to reinventing our daily lifestyle and refocusing my energy and attention on Wife. I went for walks virtually every day. I shopped and cooked daily. We ate breakfast together daily. Instead of working 10 hours +,  My work day was maybe 6 to 7 hours. It was wonderful. 

We Want To Do More, Not Less - Elder Adventurers

Wife and I are simply not ready to pack it in. I don't care what our age is. All those crazy driving experiences? We feel it is great that we can deal with them. We want to keep seeing and doing new things. Staying in Albuquerque and in our house is not going to give us that. At some point, our physical/mental capabilities will collapse and we will have to pack it in. But we are not going to facilitate it by staying in our long-term home that has (honestly) become a rut.

I Want To Live In Another Country 

Living a year in France as a college student was one of the most profound and enjoyable experiences of my life. Early on I had hoped to work in another country, but that was not to be. Fast forward, when we started traveling, I had hoped to capture that long ago feeling. But nothing we did was like that. It was fun. But it was not living in a country. Partly it was a result of our desire to want to see and experience so much. But as age has reduced our ability runaround, the attractiveness of being in one place has grown. Our two months living in a single location, a town, a community, brought all this back. I LOVED just walking around, enjoying daily life, imbibing the total difference of sights, sounds and energy of this different environment. I am ready for this again!

So Wife and I are now in deep discussion and research on how we make our desire a reality. Stay Tuned.

Cefalú Finale

 We are done. We are on our way home. Just a few shots from some final walks around town.

A few last pictures of the incredible calm of the early morning walks.

With the end of the 'official' tourist season has started the Remodel/Construction season!

They are redoing a coffee, bakery place right on our corner! Major remodel!

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And they are doing some major, major work on a big area of town abutting the water.

And a last meal. Two months and we have barely scratched the surface of what the town has to offer. This is a place that offered a variety of pasta sauces that you matched yourself with the specific pastas, all made in house.

Wife was really in the mood for Lasagna.

I enjoyed a simple pasta with cured, smoked ham called speck and mushrooms. Simple and delicious.

 

A mixed salad and roasted eggplant, zucchini, and fennel.

No more eating like this for a while.

A Lesson In Linguistics

 With only a week to go, Wife and I are suddenly of the opinion we need to do a bunch of things that we'd passed over on in our zeal to practice living in a foreign country. One of these was going to a local cafe/pastry shop for a more traditional Sicilian breakfast. So if was off we went today. Here it was that I learned that what something is called in your own country often means something different in another country.

Breakfast

So you see the chocolate croissant, Wife's hot chocolate, my wurstel (hot dog in a blanket with ham and cheese and...

A Latte...

Yes that white drink.

Evidently if you want the 'Coffee' drink we call a 'latte' in the U.S., you have to say a Caffe Latte. Otherwise you get warm milk. 

It was pretty good warm milk

And I was happy to take a nap afterwards

Touring Time - Monreale

As we are coming to the end of our experiment, we are finding we would like to do a little touring. So we decided to rent a car for a week and get out and about. Kind of want to see how I feel about driving as I have been so anti-car so far. To my surprise, I found that adjusting to driving here again was not that big a deal. I still am happy to not need a car for day-to-day living. But it is nice to be able to get out-of-town.

Visit to Monreale

Monreale is a town located outside of Palermo and is home to one of the three great cathedrals (Duomo) of the Norman period of rule (the others being Palermo and Cefalú. I wrote about this at length last year and have put the link to that post above). It is renowned for the extent and quality of its mosaics done by Byzantine artists.

After the normal drive during which we mist the requisite number of turns and end up parking somewhere other than where we intended, we were greeted by a dear, dear friend.

I downloaded EasyPark last year when we arrived in Sicily and have now happily used it in Portugal and Denmark. I am always happy to see and use it as it saves figuring out strange parking meters.

We arrive at the Duomo

Like many we've seen in the southern Med area, the exterior is not necessarily that which stands out.

As mentioned above, it is the interior that is the star

One of the significant learning experiences I've had during our travel period was in 2017 when we visited Firenze and had a photographic tour that taught us to look at art from different perspectives and another tour of the Uffizi gallery that taught us to look at the detail of the people in artwork. Now this has become a standard way in which I observe art.

If you notice in these detail pictures, they are telling stories of the life of Jesus and there are numerous repeating figures. I always wonder who the models were when we see these.

It is always interesting to me how the artist has some characters with different expressions or looking away from the direction that all the others are looking.

Long time students of de-I know my preferences for certain types of photographic themes. And when you can get more than one in a picture, well, that's just a bonus.

Lamp, Dome & Scaffolding (Sigh - Bliss)

Another popular de-I theme - Statuary and Pigeons

This work was a classic example of how the emotional impact and look of the work changed as you looked at it from different angles

Not to mention the great pigeon shots

Now I'd like to draw your attention to something I noticed as I was working my way around the statue

Might I say that the placement of those fish tales is a bit 'fishy'. Maybe they are just to cover up certain parts. But if you ask me it seems a tad intimate 😮

After lunch we went back into the Duomo and mounted up to a walkway that went all around the building. It was spectacular! Worth the price of admission. We got great views of the cloisters, the town, detailed decoration of the building, etc. It nearly killed us to getting down the steep medieval stairs.

It is nice to know that enlightened rulers like the Normand kings of Palermo would give you a nice view when they imprisoned you.

Yikes! Esposous Fotograficus!

Cafe stop with hot chocolate like a pudding and fresh squeezed orange juice

And last but not least

SIGNS OF THE WORLD

It is so sad. In the old days when they invaded us we just dropped stones on their head and set up barriers for them to trip over. The damn EU now says we have to put up warning signs! 😡😡

WARNING Remove clothes before going down escape route!

A Photographic Day

We are getting down toward the end of our stay. We have 17 days left before we leave. Isn't that funny? Most people in the U.S., with our work uber alles mentality, would fine a total vacation of 17 days to be extravagant. Here we are saying two and half weeks is the countdown. Well it has been a great experiment. We've been super glad we did it and it has opened our mind to possibilities we'd not considered. 

But having done our 'practice living somewhere', we've decided to do some good ole fashioned traditional de-I & Wife travel stuff. So today we went out for a few hours during the late morning just to wander and be photographic. It was cool because we went to places I've covered in my morning walks except now everything was open and hopping. I was kind of amazed because where there are only closed off buildings there were now a bizillion jewelry and clothing stores. I hadn't really been in 'wandering photographic' mode this trip. It was fun to be into it.

Pictures

Old Churches - Come on. We're in one of the longest populated places in Europe. Of course, there's old. In fact, the things shot here being 17th and 18th century are practically new construction by local standards.

Patterns - Oh so many with all the stone work and tiles

I love the lanterns here

BONANZA! Lamps, Laundry and Ruins in one shot!

Perspectives

Stalking the Rare

One of my favorites when I am lucky enough the find it

Esposous Fotograficus

To get even one shot of this rare beauty is amazing but two in one day?

I'd heard that Esposous Fotograficus can be upset when its privacy is disturbed...

And, of course

Signs of the World

Yes, I know you don't like tourists. But no, you can't dump shit on them!

No. We really mean it. You can't