Now Sicilian Residents

Eating Cannoli in Sicily - what else could there be in life......

Today's drive was completely uneventful.  This is because we spent most on it on the highways.  There were a lot of miles to cover and we didn't want to be driving in the dark for too long. It was tough.  Chalks was often on the nod, and we were both slamming coffees like an all weekend partier who started work at 7am on Monday.   I was really getting into little shots of that crema stuff.  Do you know what I mean?  The really creamy frozen milky espresso they have in those dispensers behind the gas station's counter.  By god that shit is delicious.  It tastes like half melted coffee-flavoured soft serve icecream....unbelievable.  Anyway, one thing to mention that was the very opposite of the frozen coffee delight, i.e. - exceedingly repulsive - was when we had to stop in one of those those bays on the side of the highway, so the girls could do a wee wee.  They just don't have "holding on" perfected yet.  It's like, "Mumma, I have to go to the toilet", then immediately - swerve, apply brakes, grinding halt, drag child from car, rip down their pants..... Anyway as I lifted Valli out, and prepared to give her a squat and wee lesson, I suddenly noticed significant amounts of human feces dotting the area.  It was disgusting.  And I don't think they'd really gone the toilet paper option either (I suppose it's rare that you have a roll of poo paper in the glovie - but maybe more people should).  Who does a poo on the side of a highway anyway? It's a pretty filthy move....

My Wizzie!

All I can say is thank god none of us trod in any of it.  Getting human shit on your shoe is a whole level up in disgustingness.  The last time this happened to me was at Glastonbury in '97 when people just started shitting everywhere (including next to our tent).  The trees on the side of us became known as "Shit Valley" and never did a moment go by without some hippy stumbling out of the bushes looking guilty.  The Hare-Krishna tent was also near by, those free curries just can't have had a positive effect on people's guts after five days straight of partying.  The wind down of a large festival is a lesson in human putridness.  The poor dudes who had to suction up the port-a-loos.  You'd have to be paid a lot wouldn't you?  How much an hour would you want?  I wouldn't do it for less than $2000, plus they'd need to provide me with a completely sealed bio-hazard suit and a peg.  However, I have never seen festival order and cleanliness like the Fuji Rock Festival about five years ago.  Not one bit of rubbish on the ground, and every last bit separated into different bins.  People were even taking the labels off their water bottles and putting them in a separate bin to the actual bottles.  The toilets were of course immaculate, not even a whiff of human excrement or that heinous deodoriser that they try and cover it up well with.  Maybe they should put a port-a-loo in each Italian highway bay - to be cleaned by a Japanese immigrant.

What festival floor is this clean?

Yep, our car couldn't have taken a floor spreading of feces.  It was already looking pretty ghetto in there, and it certainly hadn't taken long.  My feet were resting on about 30 finished water bottles, empty paper coffee cups, screwed up paper bags, dockets, half the contents of my handbag and some calenders featuring a celebrity rabbi (somehow they made it from Israel, I'm still trying to work out how).  The back seat was a complete sea of empty sticker sheets, pen lids, crayons, half eaten baguettes, pieces of cheese,  pear juice bottles, pear juice, the entire toy contents of  both mini backbacks, half finished drawings, underpants, and baby wipes.  The girls had more crumbs on their torsos than the floor of a Salada factory after a bored employee yelled "FOOD FIGHT".   It was a disgrace.

The resemblance to our car floor is uncanny

That's the thing about rental cars, you have no respect for them.  All you care about is dropping them off, and not being charged for any scratches.  I don't think we have ever checked the oil, or the water, or tyres.  Why would you?  If anything goes wrong, you just ring up Avis and demand help, and/or another car.  Even when you get a flat.  Unless you want to wait around for an hour or six, if you can compel yourself to change it, it's a good thing.  Don't even think about getting it repaired though.  Just drive it back to your rental company.  They won't give you a new spare, oh no!  Instead you will get a new car, that you can re-mess up all over again, and puncture another one, which of course I did.

This double tyre-fuck happened last year when we were living in Federal near Byron Bay for ten weeks last year.  The road to Federal is full of potholes, and I would always get a flat in the very darkest, most remote part of the road home.  It was always after Bikram Yoga too when I sweating, soaking wet and wearing sports bra and pair of mini shorts.  Look, I can change a tyre, I had to learn, I've driven shitheaps all my life.  But in new cars, the jack is incomprehensible to operate.  Both times I had to seek help.  The first time I rang Chalks, but while I was waiting for him, a neighbour came out to help and started trying to jack up my car in the mud.  It wasn't a success.  The second time, I was in a no mobile range zone in the pitch black, with not a friendly helpful neighbour in sight.  I had to drive on the deflated tyre, to the first driveway I saw.  I was greeted by a pack of mental dogs, and then three strange men came out blinking in my car headlights.  One was a giant with a square head, one was kind of young with a flanny and bad skin, and the last one was a tiny little man with buck teeth and coke bottle glasses.  I had a pang of "Should I have done this?".  They could have had a special cellar designated to half-wits who couldn't change tyres, and came begging for help.  Hell, they could have even dug the offending pot hole and sat back and waited....I explained my dilemma, and before I could say "So, just a random question - has anyone present ever been arrested for kidnapping, torture and/or rape?", they had my tyre off and the other one on.  It was like the pit stop at a Formula One event.  They seemed proud when I complimented them on their speedy change.  Then came the small talk "So, you're not from around here are you love".  I found out that the giant drove the local firetruck, the young dude had a speech impediment,  and out that little coke bottle Mickey was born in the hills of Federal and hadn't really left since.  I made my exit, over thanking and being charming, and zipped off into the night - remembering to be eternally thankful that I wasn't chained up and being ordered to rub lotion on my skin; while simultaneously making a mental note that I really should change at yoga before driving home.

Mickey looked exactly like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys

It's amazing how much my brain can get side-tracked with the topic at hand.  It's like I'm a three year old with a bong habit trying to tell an extremely complicated tale.  Ah that's right - we were driving to Sicily.  Amazingly, the ferry across from the "toe" of Italy to the "ball", is less than half an hour long.  No sooner had we hauled the rat pack up twenty flights of stairs to the top deck, we then had to haul them down again to drive off.  And then there we were, and here we are.....Sicily.  We couldn't see shit as it was dark, and we had an rental property manager to meet.  We had time to stop for snacks from what looked like a crappy joint in a mostly closed town.  Of course it wasn't.  This is Sicily.  The dude behind the counter cut thick slabs of the Gorgonzola pizza, and the olive, tomato and basil one as well.  He used secateurs.  Then he weighed it, heated it and served it up in a take-away foil tray.  I have no words.  It was out of control.  A few failed attempts to find our new place, two sleeping children, and two overfull guts later we finally made it.  It was dark, so we couldn't see much.  The place we have for the next month is a duplex in a large complex which is mostly empty.   It sits on the edge of a cliff over the Ionian Sea.   It is small, but perfect for us, has a garden with olive trees in it, and it's clean and comfortable.  When we woke up, we saw that Chalks had pulled it off again.  The view....oh my god.....Once again we are living in a postcard.....It's going to be a great month....

Beautiful Capotaormina