Posts Tagged ‘Giovanni’
{ December 18, 2008 @ 1:14 PM }
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{ Kiss My Fishy }
{ Tags: abnormal, airport, atchoo, aunt, bags, bear, binoculars, car, check-in, coca-cola, coffee, duvets, England, enormous, explained, fire, fist, flight, freezing, front, gesture, giggles, Giovanni, Gizmo, glass, hug, ice, ireland, jack-change-it, jackets, jumpers, karen, lake, laughter, lemons, lifetime, milkshake, MP3, Natalie, night, packed, Palermo, Palermo Univercit, passports, pathetic, powerless, quarter, queue, refrigerator, Robert, Scotland, shine, shiver, shoes, side-tracked, SIM card, squashed, street, suitcases, sun, swing, teenagers, tickets, traipsing, trampled, tree, trolley, U.K., Venetia, washing-machine, wife }
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Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Hey everyone!
Well yes, it was the night before we left we were all packed up and ready to go. It was really strange leaving that house. Now that I think about it I didn’t actually leave that much behind in Sicily. It was strange not doing anything with the refrigerator and the washing-machine. We just left them in the house for Giovanni to have.
I left a few “warm” (… not light) clothes, thinking that I wouldn’t need them in south-west France… wow, I was wrong! That giant, jumper thing really could’ve come in handy today. It’s been absolutely FREEZING *shivers*! But it can’t get much worse because all of the French are already in giant jackets and jumpers… unless they just stay wrapped up in duvets next to a cosy fire in winter… and even if they do, I’m up for that 
!
So anyway we were all packed with the things we actually needed. Now going back we only had 3 suitcases… I wanted to bring the swing that we’d got in Sicily… it was such a cool swing; see what I mean about not being so great with leaving things behind! But in the end the swing was still swinging silently on its own, hanging from the tree that I had tied it to 
.
Yeah, we only had three suitcases because my mom was in England and therefore wasn’t flying with us. The flight we’d taken was only one suitcase per person… my mom had to leave most of her things behind (my dad was packing 
)… but it was mainly just her jumpers and shoes.
The lemons in Sicily were absolutely enormous (I just remembered how much I miss them)! If you make a fist with your hand that’s the size they were! Okay, if you make a fist with my hand … The first day in England I walked into Karen’s dining room where my sister and my aunt (Natalie) were.
There was this… thing on the table. It was like a Sicilian lemon… but a million times smaller. I burst into fits of laughter and asked “What is that thing?!”… yes that was a lemon, Natalie seemed pretty confused, but Venetia joined in with my fits of giggles and then explained to Natalie. We’d only been away from the U.K. for two months, but really… this is what I used to think was a lemon! Ha! You’d get at least a quarter of a tall glass filled with lemon juice from one! Four would make a whole jug of lemon juice… here you’d have to use like twenty! Pathetic !
Right, yes back to Sicily. Sorry keep getting side-tracked! On the last night in Sicily, we drank an abnormal amount of milkshake (since we had a lot of milk in the fridge… and coincidently a lot of chocolate powder) and played jack-change-it to pass the time. We got to bed pretty early, then I was woken up at… okay I can’t remember the exact time, but it was much earlier than early for me. It was around about two am-ish… maybe four.
Once we were all ready we packed up the car and off we went. I was cramped in the back with suitcases sticking into my sides and a heavy carry-on-case on my lap. After an hour of being stuck like this we arrived at the airport, had a nice long stretch and then brought our bags inside.
So you’re wondering what we did with the car? Well even if you’re not I’m going to tell you anyway . Do you remember that guy I told you about I think it was eight blogs ago, the one that we met in the small electrical shop on the first day of being in Sicily, where we wanted to buy a SIM card from? He had moved to Sicily 11 years ago from Scotland and was teaching in Palermo University. Yeah, him! Well let’s just say Robert. Well Robert’s son had just turned 18 and Robert had wanted to buy a car for him. My dad had found this out when he’d phoned him to ask if he wanted our car. What are the odds, eh?
So Robert met us up in the airport, had coffee (what else?… Sicilians drink far too much coffee… but being in Sicily it’s difficult not to get hooked on the strong stuff with a coffee bar on every single street… I even did) with his wife and my dad, signed the papers then drove off in the car. Now it was just a waiting game for the check-in and then the flight to finally see my mom, who I hadn’t seen for almost a month now and then there was also Gizmo!!!
We had our last Sicilian coffee and breakfast then went off to check-in. Not again! Our bags were the correct weight combined but not separately… it was like so what’s the difference… apparently there is a difference . So we spread out the weights into the different bags, and then finally checked in… I had to leave my binoculars behind, which I’d been traipsing around with me since Ireland .
After an hour of waiting in the waiting area, the woman announced that it was “All Aboard Time” okay she didn’t actually say this but it was something in Italian and then everyone started moving quickly towards the doors… so this was sort of a gesture that we could start lining up to show our passports and tickets.
If you every go to Sicily be warned! Most Sicilians do not like waiting in a queue, so either stand your ground or move to the back before you get trampled on… or ultimately squashed between people.
We buckled ourselves in and with a smooth start (and no ear popping) we were off. My mom told us to look out for an ice lake shaped like a bears head somewhere to the north of Italy or south of France during the flight, but it was too cloudy… or it could have just been when I was busy concentrating on my coca cola and I didn’t notice it .
The flight was actually a lot of fun. There were a few teenagers more to the front that got down their electric guitars and started playing (not plugged in of course). Later on I turned my MP3 player up really loud, over the voices of the cabin, then I heard this ATCHOO! Turned to Venetia knowing it would’ve been her and said “I heard that even OVER my loud music!”… we burst into fits of giggles.
Later on we landed, stood around like everyone else waiting for the bags to come through. When they did we grabbed them. Adjusted them so that they’d stop slipping off the trolley and off we went to see my mom! As we came around the corner I couldn’t see her no matter how many times Venetia said, “There she is, no Bianca over there! That way!” Then I spotter her… right in front of everyone else, ran up to her and gave her a gianormous hug… or rather she gave me the gianormous hug… I was left powerless .
We went over to the car and drove south for a good hour or so, stopping at a fast food place on the way. Since I’d only been once in Sicily and was craving milkshake… you’d think I would’ve had enough on the last night in Sicily for me to never want any more for a lifetime … I hadn’t.
We finally arrived in a nice little village, then went to Karen’s house, I could hear Gizmo barking before the car had even stopped. I jumped out and Gizmo was already out to greet me. I had missed him so much!
Gizmo wants to play now and the sun’s starting to shine again. So going to leave it at that and will be back soon . Hope to hear from you all.
- Bianca
{ December 18, 2008 @ 1:02 PM }
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{ Kiss My Fishy }
{ Tags: Alfonso, Bageria, barbeque, Bianca, birthday, brother-in-law, domani, England, experience, father, fiance, foreigner, France, Giovanni, gorgeous, green, high, hmmm, incorrect, internet, job, Jovanna, kill, lines, lucky, lunch, May, Mazara del Vallo, offer, patio, phone, phone booth, planted, poisonous, ramshackle, refresh, serpente, slithering, sly, snake, south, south-west, South-west Sicily, spade, spirits, summer, telephone, tile-less, tomorrow, unorignial, west, wheelbarrow, words }
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Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Hey everyone!
Trying to think of where we were last … oh right yeah! Okay well once my mom left for England, a week or two later my dad got a job offer. I’m pretty sure I’ve told you this before but I’ll just refresh your memories… and mine !
In our Sicilian house since we were in what they called the country side and too far away from any phone lines so we didn’t even have a telephone or the internet in that house! Giovanni promised it would be within the first week… then domani, domani, domani (tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow). Per sempre domani (always tomorrow)!
The telephone guys came, looked and said “Yes, too far away for a telephone line”. We’ll need to put more in. The next time they came, they measured the distance, then after 15 minutes of being at the house went for a two hour lunch break!
They never came again, so the whole time in Sicily we didn’t have internet or telephone. Except for when we went to an internet café or telephone place. So anyway to get on with my original story, my dad received the job offer in a tiny, ramshackle-like telephone booth place since it was the closest to our house… and generally like most of the telephone places in Mazara del Vallo.
And of course in case you haven’t noticed or read in previous posts it was in south-west France 
. My dad accepted, and then my mom booked us tickets out of Sicily for the forth of May. You see my mom had to be in Sicily or we had to be in England before the eighth of May because it would have been my sister’s 18th birthday.
I was barely able to bring myself to stay in that house for the last three weeks. It was so boring!
We did have a little bit of fun though, even though we were stuck in the middle of a family fight between Jovanna, Giovanni’s fiancé, also given a random name made up by, yours truly… me! Okay, okay I got it off an Italian girls name site … and it’s just the girl version of Giovanni… I know I’m so unoriginal… and Jovanna’s brother-in-law. They wanted the house for summer… don’t ask me why they’d want that house, but whatever their reason was, they wanted it.
I’m using the word “they” because it was Jovanna’s brother-in-law’s father as well as the brother-in-law. Those two were really sly things. First off they made Jovanna’s mother pay them to fix up the house for us… which they did NOT do such a great job of… in my opinion. Is there actually a point to painting the outside of the house… and then just leaving the kitchen floor tile-less because they’d done “their work” . Secondly they planted a snake in our garden! Yes it was them… I reckon so anyway.
They came to paint the walls on the patio one day and went into the garden to get the wheelbarrow, but when they left they just stood around waiting for my dad to come up and they left the wheelbarrow outside the garden instead of putting it back.
That day, my dad and Giovanni were sitting in the garden. My dad spotted a giant green snake slithering across the ground, calmly told Giovanni… Giovanni jumped up looked around then ran to my dad’s side… I hope you know the descriptive word for Giovanni that I’m thinking because I’d really rather not write it out .
My dad asked him if he should kill it, if it was poisonous. Giovanni said yes. So my dad got the spade…. And you can imagine what happened next I’m sure.
Later that day Giovanni said that the last time he saw a snake was at a barbeque seven years ago… and THEN told my dad that green snakes aren’t poisonous… this from the guy that ran to my dad when he saw the snake and told my dad to kill it!
A few days later Jovanna’s brother-in-law… I can’t even remember his real name… so let’s say Alfonso. So Alfonso came around with his wife. My dad said in Italian “I found your snake!” he said “Mio serpente?!” (my snake) “Yes, your snake”, was my dad’s reply. So now Alfonso didn’t know if it was just a foreigner to the Italian language with the incorrect words… or of course that we knew it was him who placed it there . Mind boggling!
After he got over the confusing-ness of my dad’s comment he asked what colour it was. And then proved that it must have been them because his wife and he said “Oooh green, it is very, very poisonous! Brown is okay but GREEN!”… So who to believe now… hmmm.
My dad told Giovanni about them saying this and he said… yes… but no it was not green it was brown! Since it was clearly green . We went down to the farmer by us and asked him. Green is not poisonous. We decided to believe him .
So now you can see that we had good enough reasons to leave Sicily. Even though it was gorgeous… some of the people that we met weren’t. So I guess if we had had a better experience and had found a nice house, we would never have left and I wouldn’t be writing this… lucky I had that experience then, eh?
(South-west Sicily, Bageria)
Tomorrow I’ll write about leaving Sicily . See you all then. Hope to hear from you soon (spirits still high ).
- Bianca
ojp
{ December 18, 2008 @ 12:51 PM }
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{ Kiss My Fishy }
{ Tags: amber, bed, Bianca, box, centipede, crazy, creature, devestated, disturbed, England, fainted, fiat uno, fly, funny, furnishing, garden, gecko, Giovanni, Gizmo, great escape, heart attack, house, inches, increased, jack-change-it, jewellery, karen, kitchen, legs, lemon, lightning, millions, moaning, mom, mom's mom, orange, overgrown, packing, pastimes, prickly pear cacti, rip, room, rules, shocked, sicily, small, smile, snake, swept, tea cup, thunder, tile, ushered, utterly, Venetia, wall, white }
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Monday, November 5, 2007
Hey everyone!
Before I start remember that you have to start reading from the next page and work your way backwards …
In Sicily at Giovanni’s place we didn’t really do much. For three days there, there were bad thunder and lightning storms, but it was really cool to watch because you could see the ocean from the room my parents were in.
Since we still didn’t have a car, Giovanni found one for us and brought my parents to go see it… when they came back I was utterly shocked at what they had bought… it was one of those little, white fiat-unos… it did the job though and was very handy for our great escape of Sicily !
Giovanni also said that he’d help find us a house… what he found is not quite what I’d call a house…
We stayed at his bed and breakfast for three weeks, our pastimes usually long, late barbeques. After we got the car though we did go out and about seeing places a lot. Giovanni’s fiancé’s mother was fixing up a “house” for rent and we just happened to be in need of a house. So Giovanni, like any sales person would put two and two together and brought us around to this so-called “house”…
We went around it… this took a very short time as to how small it was. Apparently it was furnished, which consisted of 4 beds, the bathroom, a dining table… and a stove. WOW, great going with the furnishing .
It had five rooms (in total, yes in total, not just the bedrooms). Three bedrooms, the bathroom and the kitchen/dining room which she promised she’d tile and never got around to it. It did have a good sized garden though and a grape vineyard 2 minutes walk from the house. The garden was full of orange and lemon trees and even prickly pear cacti… the rest of the garden though was absolutely overgrown… everywhere.
We took the house since it was the only thing we could find, I know it was a stupid decision but awk well too late now .
We were in soon enough (the picture dates tell me that it was 16th of April, and we’d only taken these at least a week of being in the house) and had settled down. My mom decided to fly back to England to her mom and Gizmo since Karen (my mom’s mom) was taking so long in packing to get herself over to Sicily with us.
My mom kissed us goodbye, she got on the plane and off she went. The next three weeks droned on and on and on for the three of us. We were sick of sitting in the house, or playing jack-change-it (a card game, the rules continuously increased as we got more bored… in the end it was hard to keep up ).
To understand Giovanni you’d have to have known him… he was like a snake with a smile. He’d become your friend and rip you off at the same time in fact one of his favourite phrases to use on us was “my friend”… it’s very frustrated to think that we fell for him. Then again the more that I think about I don’t think he realised. Some Sicilians (mainly Giovanni ) are the type like I help you, now you must help me… or in Giovanni’s case it was more like I help you… now you must pay me .
The first few days in the house were… there’s actually no real word to describe it. I just sat here for 5 minutes trying to think of one and… none! Well… in the third day or so I was about to go run a bath for myself and ended up running to my parents room yelling “There’s an ALIEN in the bath!!!”… it was not funny at the time .
It was seriously an alien-like creature. It was light amber-brown, had a long-spindly body with… literally millions of LONG legs and antennas. I know you’re thinking oh that’s just a centipede… that was NOT a centipede!
We found tonnes in that Sicilian house, so since I found the first one it has adopted the name of “alien” so from now on don’t be alarmed if I refer to something like, “there was an alien in the tea-cup!” … this did happen once. My sister almost had a heat attack when she was making tea … now that was funny!
Actually one night in our room (we were sharing one in that house) there was an alien on the wall and a gecko on the other. Venetia refused to sleep unless I got at least the gecko out. So I got my jewellery box, dumped everything on my bed, made the gecko come down of the wall. By about a few inches of the ground the poor thing fainted and fell to the floor. I was so devastated and just wanted to leave it alone. Venetia on the other hand kept moaning and wouldn’t go to sleep >:-(! So I ushered the gecko into the box and put the lid on top. Now Venetia wanted me to put the gecko outside. No way that I was going out there at this time of night! So I let it loose in the kitchen .
Of course Venetia was not happy about this but I was too tired. I climbed into bed and was almost asleep when I was disturbed by a crazy creature… known as, yes that’s right, Venetia. Apparently now I had to get the alien out. I got up dragged Venetia’s bed with her still on it to my side of the room and tried to go to sleep again. Nope this wasn’t good enough . I said that I’d get the alien down but she’d have to put it in a box.
I put Venetia’s bed back, got the broom and swept the alien off the wall, then climbed back into bed…now the alien had gone under the wall… after Venetia doing what she needed to do, even though I said if she did it I’d never talk to her again, we went to sleep. The next morning I was talking again >.<.
As I’m sure you can see I talk far too much . So I’m going to leave it at that and get back on track with it tomorrow.
Still hoping to hear from you all soon !
- Bianca
{ December 18, 2008 @ 12:34 PM }
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{ Kiss My Fishy }
{ Tags: attic, beach, bell, Bianca, boxes, Christmas, cousins, decorations, devil, ghosts, gift, Giovanni, Gizmo, gorgeous, grandmother, hardl, headband, horde, ireland, Louisville, measure, memories, miniature, nice, ocean, octopus, Ohio, Ohio River, orange, picnic, pumpkins, rocks, school, sending, seven, six foot, snorkelling, spear, sweet, ten, tree, twin, werewolves, witches, woo }
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Thursday, November 1, 2007
Hey there!
Well yesterday I said about Halloween and the French calling before they came, so my impression was that they had to know you to trick or treat. Last night I found out that trick or treating here is like anywhere . Except they all just go in big groups with a few parents. They were all so CUTE! It was like a horde of … deadly things . None of them rang the bell… they might have been too small to reach… there were miniature ghosts, werewolves, bright, orange pumpkins and even twin witches! . So that was nice .
Well now that Halloween is over it’s time to look forward to CHRISTMAS! Woo! The only thing that’s worrying me is my grandmother. She’s in Ireland at the moment and was supposed to be sending us our Christmas decorations from my cousins’ house. She still hasn’t and keeps putting it off >.<. It’s not too difficult, one of my cousins just has to go up get the decorations down from their attic, measure the boxes and send them… we’ve had them since we arrived in Ireland, so it’s ten years of memories.
There’s even a clay Christmas tree and bright florescent pink present decoration that I made in school when I was seven! Oh and these little gift boxes made out of old Christmas cards. I just wanted to get a hold of one to see how I made it . They’re really cute, we made little sweet things at school to put inside… of course the sweet thing was long gone before the box arrived home . I’m really looking forward to Christmas, but this is the first year that my sister’s been working. She’s applied for Christmas week off so I really hope she gets it . Back to now though. I made Gizmo a devil headband thing for Halloween but forgot to put it on him when the trick or treat-ers came >.<, oh well. I’ll get a picture of him for all of you guys to see ! Back to Sicily now! (I just can’t seem to make up my mind )
Well we stayed with Giovanni for three weeks. His bed and breakfast was a 5 minute walk from the ocean… on his website it said from a beach. But in Sicily you can hardly ever find any beaches that are clean enough or… well generally beach-y enough… by beach-y I mean sandy. Usually it’s just all rocks.
We did find a few gorgeous beaches though, on one we had a picnic and watched a guy go fishing for octopus! That was so cool, he actually caught one as well! He was just snorkelling around and was holding a cage. I didn’t see any spear so I get the impression that he just grabbed it… didn’t get too close to see what colour it was though.
I was just reading some stories about people going fishing and I found quite an interesting one. A man was going fishing for catfish in the Ohio River near Louisville but instead of catching the catfish that he wanted, he caught a six foot octopus!
Well I’m going to leave it at that. Hope to hear from you all soon!
- Bianca
