Scicli Day 1.

Us At The Airport

Buongiorno.

I am in Scicli now. (Pronounced Sheeklee) with the appropriate hand gesturing or at least emphatic body contortions). It has taken me a bit to get this blog going since I had to first get the internet up and running and I don't speak Italian let alone Sicilian. I did manage however to interweave French and Italian and English and a guy came to mi casa today and fixed it. Quelle surprise!

It is nothing short of spectacular here. There are orchards and orchards of orange, lemon, grape and cherry. Fields of artichoke and tomato. There are wildflowers blooming everywhere.

The villa is more like an old stone farm complex than what I expected. It is bloody freezing until the sun warms everything up. The bedrooms are small and the principle rooms are medium sized but the ceilings are vaulted and very high - 20 ft at least so it feels enormous. I have set up Mommy Dearest School in one of the Dependences. The kids asked me if they could start tomorrow but I said no because I needed to experience March Break first.

Today the cleaning lady took us to a toy store in Scili (pronounced Shicli). I consented to purchasing some little green army men, and a tank and a fighter jet. At least it wasn't the rifle that he wanted. I am pretending that I had no alternative. Equally depressing (at least when up against my pre-parental ideals regarding "play time" ) is the blue-eyed blond baby with the stroller. The redeeming factor is that I am certain the only reason my three year old really wanted the doll was because it had a binky/soother. We recently ripped hers from her mouth one night when she was sleeping and threw it and all the others out. We have no idea where they went. She was just hoping this toy soother would fit in her mouth. My middle child chose my favorite toy and so obviously I like him the best - it was a stuffed animal - a little penguin. It only cost me five euros. He told me he wanted many more and I cooed. After dinner he noted, with a dramatic sigh of resignation, that he would have preferred some green army men so that he could kill his brother's.

Romina is a lovely woman. She is fluent in Sicilian, Italian and probably most helpfully, French. Not because I speak French fluently, but because Serena does. This mish mash of languages garnered us quite a bit of information about Romina. She is perhaps in her early forties, with two difficult divorces behind her, and three children. Tomorrow she is bringing her kids here and will leave them with Serena and when she goes to work at her second job. On Saturday we are all going to her mother's B&B in Modica on the ocean. I even get to bring the beasts. I am really excited. However as I type, I realize we have a small problemo.

Tomorrow at 9.30am Ellena, who I also met my first day, is coming to pick us up to take us to the local junior school where we will drop my three kids along with her daughter off for two hours. (I am really looking forward to that for obvious reasons). Then Ellena is going to show me the essentials of Scicli - namely, the vet, the doctor, the place where I can dye my hair, the place where I can get waxed, the place for yoga, the tennis courts and the gym. I have declined her offer of a personal trainer coming to my villa. Ellena's husband is in the oil business and is currently in Kazakhstan. She designs swimming suits for La Perla. Imagine!

OK - now I am sufficiently stressed out about my agreeing to take on the three kids who don't speak English, and going with Ellena to the school. OH shit, then we are all going to her house for lunch. I guess there might be double the number of expected guests. Crazy Canadians! They are so polite they don't know when (or how) to say no. Oh well. Buenosera.