Archive for the ‘Sicily’ Category
What I’m reading… Undaunted Courage
What I’m reading is;
Another book by Stephen Ambrose, author of “Band of Brothers”. This one’s about the expedition by Lewis and Clarke across the continental United States in 1803. Difficult to get into but getting more interesting now that I’m into the actual expedition part.
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After de Mendes – Ian Tomlinson
Awful enough that no-one has been held responsible for the death of Jean Charles de Mendes (remember, that guy shot in the head 8 times in Stockton tube station due to a catalogue of screw-ups?), now we have an ordinary bloke getting floored by physced up cops and dying. What the fuck???
It’s clear that Tomlinson is not a happy man in this encounter. It’s clear that he’s pissed about something. He’s surly. He’s not exactly co-operative. He’s not walking away at the pace that the police want him to walk at. Witnesses have alleged that there was another encounter shortly before that film was taken when he was again pushed to the ground.
But he is WALKING AWAY. He has his back turned to the police. He has his hands IN HIS POCKET.
He was not a threat. He was not resisting arrest. He was no disobeying police orders.
What the hell is that cop doing knocking him to the ground? I don’t normally use bad language in my blog – but what the FUCK!?!?!
That’s assault, is what that is. Pure, outright, vicious, assault. And all the other cops standing around, sworn to uphold the law. What do they do? Nothing. They look the other way.
Then the usual Met bullshit PR gets trotted out. Our officers weren’t involved. Protesters pelted us when we tried to help. Terrible incident.
The same BS they trotted out after they shot de Mendes – an innocent man – in the fucking head. “Directly related to terrorism” etc. etc. even when they absolutely knew that he was nothing of the sort. Dirty the name. Introduce doubt. Blur the lines.
The officer that assaulted Tomlinson crossed the line. One giant fucking step across the line. He should be put on leave straight away and put through disciplinary proceedings. The police inspectorate have already fucked up. They were too quick to close the case, hand it off to the police to investigate. With all the CCTV cameras in London, you would have thought that they’d check one or two to see what happened. Now, it must complete the investigation asap and publish the report without delay. The other officers should also be put through disciplinary proceedings for their part. The whole fucking Met should be put through retraining.
They’re supposed to be there to protect citizens – not assault and kill them.
Seriously, he was just a bloke making his way home. Just like you, and just like me.
Ian Tomlinson – RIP.
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The Thin Blue Line
I saw this photo on Flickr and I just had this news headline flash through my head;
Leinster House, April 7 2009 – Uniformed Police picket outside the Irish parliament building. The government today confirmed that civil servants are expected to pay a little more for their defined benefits pensions, receive less overtime and, most controversially, pay for their own Gimp outfits.
The high-visiblity belts, however, will continue to be supplied from Central Stores.
IMAGE REMOVED AS REQUESTED.
Johnny Cash – Hurt
My friend Filippo posted on Facebook the video of “Hurt”, the Johnny Cash version. What a great video. My dad was a big Johnny Cash fan, and I remember listening to him when I was a little kid. Of course, we broke all the records over the years, vinyl being so brittle. Eventually Johnny Cash was no more in the Cassidy household, and stayed like that a long time.
I remember then, sometime in 2001/2002, hearing the “Personal Jesus” cover that Cash did for American IV (The Man Comes Around) on the car radio. I wasn’t impressed – let’s blame the car radio instead of me 🙂 I thought – man, what an awful song – what the hell happened to him?
I dunno when I heard another song from his Rick Rubin-produced albums, but something grabbed my attention. I went out and bought American Recordings, the 1994 album. Hey, I was only 10 years late to the Cash revival 🙂 I think maybe it was my interest in blues guitars, and in American Recordings it was just Cash and his guitar. Maybe it was “Thirteen” that struck me.
Anyway, I loved that album, and went straight out and got all the other ‘American Recording’ albums. Some songs I loved, some not so much.
Anyway, Hurt blew ’em all away. He took a song about heroin and turned it into a song about life. Johnny Cash had the experiences to sing this song with conviction and weight. He knew all about the down side of life, he’d been there and he’d come through. All the fame he had, all the things he had, were transitory. He’s won and lost more times, he’d been down and got back up. At least, at the end, he was on a high, and not one of the too many lows.
For anyone interested in Johnny Cash, if you have to get one album, I recommend Folsom Blues. Cash at his darndest crowd-playing entertainer best.
RIP Johnny Cash.
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Hotels Hotels Hotels
One of the big things still outstanding after all the planning, is the honeymoon. In this, Sonia and I have some conflicting ideas.
I’ve done a lot of travelling, been to a lot of places, some nice, some not so nice.
One thing I’ve learned is that to get the best prices for the best stuff – you need to do it yourself.
This doesn’t fly for a honeymoon, especially if you want your guests to chip in and help pay for it. In Sicily for sure, you can’t just ask everyone to hand you brown envelopes. It’s just not educato.
So per forza we have to use an agency. And then you start paying agency prices. Which, for the first agency we tried, was an average markup of 300% on the published rates.
Yep, that’s NOT a type – 300%. €165 a night for the Travelodge Wynyard, which, if I book it myself, will today cost me €55.
OK, so we’ve decided to not use that agency for the hotels. Marangolo are happy to book the flights for us themselves, and the price is the same for everyone for flights. Our friend Vicenzo of Around-Sicily.com explained that on flights the margins are almost invisible, and that it’s on hotel bookings and tours that agents make money.
As such, we’ve asked Vincenzo to book our hotels – he won’t gouge as much as another agent. Of course he needs to make a profit, and that’s fine, but I’m not paying anyone 300% if I can help it!
As a result of my preference to book everything myself, and if I can’t specify to the smallest detail what I want and how much I know it’ll cost, I’ve done a lot of research on hotels and I’ve definate favourites. I was thinking of using the Shangri-La chain for all our stays, and I’ve sent an email to their booking office to see what discount they’ll offer if we do that. The Shangri-La in Sydney has (reportedly) the best views in Sydney, of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Otherwise I’m also considering the Observatory hotel, and lastly the humble (in my opinion) Four Points by Sheraton, which at best has views only of Darling Harbour – BORING!
For Katoomba I’m just not at all convinced by the option – there’s some very expensive boutique hotels, but the TripAdvisor reviews are very mixed – there’s the usual gushing happiness, and then some very detailed and very negative reviews. The more detailed the review, the higher my opinion is of it, so I’ve come away with a fairly negative opinion. As such, I reckon I’ll be booking the YHA – ‘what?’ I hear you all scream – but youse haven’t been to the YHA in Katoomba, it’s great. Combined with a private double-room ensuite, what more do you want? The room will just be used for bathing after hours-long bushwalks along the Escarpment – although I don’t know if Sonia has quite understood that yet 🙂
In Cairns I was thinking Shangri-La again, or Il Palazzo Apartment Hotel, which looks nice. Lastly, the Tradewinds by Rydges is the economic option. We might be all luxury-ed out by Sydney and Paradise Bay!
Hong Kong proves to be a difficult one – my friend Peter Wong strongly recommended that we stay on the Island – he dismissed Kowloon as being just for stupid tourists. All the real people stay on the Island, and it’s much nicer 🙂 But the best reviews are on Kowloon side – hmm, maybe the type of people who stay on the Hong Kong side aren’t the type who write reviews in TripAdvisor?
Anyway, Peter’s from Hong Kong so he knows what he’s talking about, and better yet, he has friends on Hong Kong island which maybe we can meet up with and get an insider’s guide. So I’ll follow his advice and stay on the Island. I’m thinking Shangri-La again, or the Conrad or Marriott, and the economic option is the L’Hotel Causeway Bay Harbour View.
There’s a big difference in price obviously between the best and the cheapest. Mind you, the cheapest options here aren’t all that cheap, and they’re definately not low-grade hotels. I think the lowest is the Four-Points by Sheraton, which is probably a bit posher than my favourite hotel, Jurys Inn on Parnell Street, in Dublin.  Going with the best rooms in the all the Shangri-La hotels, it works out to about €224 a night. Going to the most economic options, it works out to about €65 a night.
Honestly I think we’re going to mix and match – start out with the Shangri-La in Sydney to get over the jetlag and for the great views, and then opt for the more economic hotels as we go along. That knocks the price up to about €89 a night, which isn’t at all bad.
Of course, once I include Paradise Bay… aiya! BUT Paradise Bay includes the transfers from the airport and all food & drink, so that’s something to consider.
Which reminds me, I must write them and tell them I don’t like fish very much…
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Wedding in Sicily – done with the planning, now begins the paying!
After a couple of months of planning, my wedding is really starting to get close. So close in fact, that now they paying begins 🙂
Obviously Sonia has already found and paid for her dress. She has to make an appointment for a fitting in April, but she wants to see it sooner so she can refresh her memory and buy all the girly accessories that she needs.
The reception is being held at a place called Villa Mantegna in Trecastagni – these guys have a famed bar in Catania, so they’ve a reputation. Plus, Sonia’s aunt and mum have heard good things about Mantegna, so hopefully all will go down well there! We’ve got a few hundred euro on account, and Ignazio and I will split the final bill based on the headcount.
We’ve completed the hand-made invitations. Ignazio is delivering them by ones and twos to his relatives in far-flung and remote corners of Sicily. I need to figure out how much the invites cost us in the end, but that’s the subject for another post.
The bomboniere have been selected, by Cascella on Via Giuffrida, which everyone approves of, and whilst not Caltigirone (of which we found undeniably beautiful pieces with an undeniably high price-tag) it’s very typical of the Sicilian style and equally useful for our Irish guests as well as the Italian ones. We’ve put down a few hundred euro on account and have to pick them up late in April. We’re splitting that bill based on headcount too – Ignazio ordered up 40 more than Sonia and I wanted, plus another 20 sets of the flower-thingie-with-sweets, to give to relatives and friends who don’t make the wedding.
The florist has been hired, Di Fiore in Fiore. As they are friends of Andrea, they gave us a really good price, plus the security of knowing that we can trust them to deliver. Contact details on the website. We went for a minimal classical package, as the church is really small, so too many flowers would overwhelm everything.
I went out yesterday with Sergio and Allessia to find myself a suit. After humming and hawing a bit, I decided on a suit in Albanese, on Corso Italia – the classic Catanese gentlemen’s outfitters. The other on offer was a Burburry, in Papini, another classic Catanese outfitters. That one I liked quite a bit, but it was Burburry, and it was more expensive. So, um, thanks, but no thanks. I left a few hundred on account with Albanese and have to go back next Saturday for fitting and paying half, then have to pick it up before the wedding and pay the rest.
So now I have to buy shoes, 1 pair, black. Had a look today in Portalis and didn’t find anything I liked, only one shop had anything remotely decent, and they had plastic soles. Um. No thanks.
I did however find some lovely watches for gifts… but that’s another blog too 🙂 Speaking of watches, Ignazio is insisting on buying me a watch for the wedding, which is traditional here. Insisting, I say, but I’m not protesting too much 🙂 And that’s another blog – sorry, but I can’t write everything in this blog, can I???
So all in all, I’m nearly done with the wedding prep.
Except that I also have to buy cufflinks in steel, silver or white gold.
And a belt, black, leather. And that’s it…
Oh yeah, rings. Gold. Two. Must get down to DiStefanos again. Um, I think that’s it.
Oops, almost forgot to organise the B&B for the family. Jeez, I’m not nearly done at all! Aiuuuuuuto!
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Getting Married in Italy!
So anyone who hasn’t realised, Sonia and I are getting married. 🙂
That’s the good news. The bad news is now I have to deal with Italian bureaucracy. After two years of successfully (largely) avoiding the organs of State, this is anything but a pleasant experience. For the most part. Yes, there are exceptions, generally speaking the actual clerks and officials are quite nice, but it’s the process that’s long, painful, tedious, and stressful. Especially for Sonia, as she’s having to take care of most of it. Oh the pleasures of being a non-citizen!
Firstly there’s the issue with the Nulla Osta. Italy requires this for non-citizens. Just to make sure I’m not already married in 18 different places. I’m not sure why they care, but they do.
Getting the Nulla Osta isn’t particularly hard, one just downloads the form, sends it off with €20, and the lovely people at the Department of Foreign Affairs take care of everything. Thanks Peggy!
I’ve already written about how extremely lucky we were to find a notaio who actually knew what the law was and what he was doing, and didn’t even charge us for it. It’s Sicilians like him who rescue the reputation of the island, when I’ve had a day full of people blocking paths and behaving badly. So again, thanks to Notaio Vigneri.
So off went the Nulla Osta application, and off went Sonia to talk to her parish priest, Padre Longitano, who promptly informed her that we were already late and he needed the Nulla Osta immediately. Bit of a communication lapse there, because the Irish embassy in Rome issue Nulla Osta one month in advance of the wedding, but usually the Italian guys need it 3 months in advance. I guess most Irish people get married in the Irish collegiate in Rome and thus have an expedited process or something.
Anyway a call to the Embassy soon sorted it out – I sent off the required email, asking them to hurry the process along and send it directly to me (instead of the priest). We even got a call-back confirming all the details before they printed it out and sent it. Great stuff – Sonia remains very impressed with the speed and professionalism of Irish bureaucrats! I said “I told you so!” and left it at that.
Anyway next stop, Padre Longitano again, who took all the forms (my long-form birth certificate, the Nulla Osta, the certificate from the Pre-Marriage course, an inspection of my passport and €10) and gave us two notices to hand out, one for the local priest where I live, and the other for the Commune.
The local priest was a doddle (the church is in fact a donated villa and very plush too, thank you…) and the Commune wasn’t much harder, despite this bitch who asked Sonia questions and them promptly jumped the queue. Anyway once I’d satisfied the clerks that I understood Italian, and that Co. Roscommon and Co. Galway were proper places of residence (here they use the city or commune) they where happy to proceed. And they promptly found that Galway was already registered on their system as a place of residence, as apparently there’s another Irish bloke here in Catania that married a Sicilian girl. Wow, I’m not all that unique so??
So now we have to go back to both the local church and the Commune on March 10th, get receipts to say that they’ve published the notices for the required two Sundays, and we can go to Padre Longitano and he’ll give us something to take to the Curia. And then on April 26th we can attend the Commune with witnesses to do the civil ceremony, and that’s that.
Except for the big white wedding of course.
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How much will an English-speaking Notaio charge for a signature?
One of the perils of living in Italy is the endless beaurocracy. The lines. Taking a number and waiting your turn. The paperwork. The forms. The lines. The correct way of doing things, and the quick way (if you know the right people).
Getting married, of course, is no different. One of the many forms I have to produce is the Nulla Osta, saying that I’m free to get married (not already being married to some other unlucky lass). Which is easy enough, I just download the form from the Department of Foreign Affairs at home. I even have the name of the extremely helpful lady in the department who looks after these things (here’s a shoutout to Peggy Dingley!). There is a catch though. Of course there is!
The form comes with a statutory declaration, which needs to be authenticated. In Italy that means a Notaio. But does it? Sonia had her doubts. So I called up the Embassy and got a call back from another helpful lady (what is it about Irish civil servants and helpfulness? Are they insane? They clearly went to a different orientation class than their Italian counterparts!) who explained that an Italian notary is perfectly acceptable. Except…
“Most of them won’t do it because the form is in English”
And in fact we called up a local notary who refused point-blank to authenticate anything in English. The secretary did however point us to a notary in Catania city centre who might help.
So Sonia and I went along one rainy evening to Via Carcaci and ended up in front of the very same crumbling palace where recently we’d been to a food exhibition. Deja Vu! In fact I’d noticed a sign for a notary public there and thought “jeez, that guy must be around for decades!” and had visions of an ancient guy behind a huge desk, with towers of dusty paperwork files all over the place, like a film noir.
Anyway the office of Notaio Vigneri were nothing like what I’d imagined. After waiting an age for the secretary to finish on the phone, she informed us that the notaio would authenticate a foreign-language document, that we should complete it and return when we were done. So Sonia (clever Sonia) asked “So if we complete it now, could Notaio Vigneri look at it today?” Of course he could! After another short wait we were introduced to Notaio Vigneri, a very distinguished looking gent about 60, who readily agreed and thus we were escorted to a beautiful library filled with at least 20 years of bound records.
Meanwhile I started thinking “Hang on, how much is this gonna cost?” I was thinking €50, or maybe €60. Sonia laughed. She was thinking in the hundreds. Hundreds of euro for a signature?? I coulda got a plane to Dublin! I should have gotten a plane to Dublin! Damn.
Notaio Vigneri took us into his office, a big room full of dark antique furniture and a massive desk. Not a dusty pile of paper in sight. He read the document and fill out his part and give it to another secretary to type up. As he went out of the room, this second secretary asked me to look at what she had typed to make sure it was ok. I gave it the once over and scratched out a line (“or has been identified to me by ___ who is personally known to me”), but Sonia admonished me “No, he left that in, so leave it alone!” Oh, ok.
When Notaio Vigneri returned, he scrutinised the secretary’s handiwork – and scratched out the same line! Then he corrected a few spelling mistakes – in English mind you – and grammer errors. The secretary looked at me with daggers in her eyes! Sonia died trying not to laugh – the poor secretary was probably hoping that I would save her from public embarrassment, and I’d failed completely. Oh well.
So the corrected document arrived, got stamped, got signed, all done, thank you. Notaio Vigneri talked to us briefly about why I was in Sicily, work or what? I pointed at Sonia and said “For her” and Sonia melted. 🙂 I mentioned that the Embassy had said it might be difficult to get a notaio to authorise the document, and he explained an old law meant that Notai could only authorise documents in Italian, but that had been repealed several years ago and now a notaio is allowed to authorise documents in any language, but most notai are still reluctant to do so for various reasons.
After all that, we were again at the reception desk and asked the secretary for the bill. The Notaio popped out of his office in a flash.
“Oh no, I said you could go.” Sonia didn’t quite understand so he went on; “Nothing. Congratulations for your wedding!”
Sonia insisted on paying but he refused. I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I shook his hand, said “Grazie, Notaio”, and scarpered.
Afterwards we spoke to Sergio who confirmed that for something like this, a Notaio could ask for up to €500.
So here’s a big thanks to Notaio Vignere, Via Caraci, Catania. If you need a helpful notaio in Catania who speaks excellent English, we’re recommending him. Because sometimes, when I’m tired of being the stupid foreigner that everyone rips off at every turn, someone like Notaio Vigneri reminds me that the average Sicilian has a huge heart, just like my Sonia.
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Olives
Spending a lot of time trying to get the olives in before the roads become impassible. For reasons beyond my ken, Ignazio didn’t get around to organising it for November, the usual time, so now it’s already the New Year and the harvest still isn’t finished.
I’ve been riding shotgun with Sergio up and down the mountains, and one of the things I’m learning is that it’s amazing how little I knew about 4WD vehicles. Starting with “what do 4L and 4H mean anyway?”
For example, it’s incredible how far one can get in 2WD. I always naturally assumed that as soon as one got off the paved road, we’d switch straightaway to 4WD, but that’s not the case at all.
For one thing, 4WD drinks diesel, and even though it’s quite cheap right now, saving fuel is always a good thing.
So Sergio gets quite far on the unpaved road before switching. Somedays, he gets all the way to the farm, before throwing in 4H to make the last 50 meters offroad. Yesterday, for instance, he climbed a good few hundred meters before the hard track became washed out, and only then did he kick in 4H. He made another few kilometers like that until the wheels started slipping in deep mud, and then he switched down to 4L.
Of course, he could have switched to 4L beforehand, but 4L is designed for Low Speed, as a means of getting all the engine power to the wheels without losing traction, so it’d take forever to get anywhere. Thus he uses 4H (4WD-High Speed) to get power to all 4 wheels without loosing the speed.
As soon as we got out of the deep mud, he switched right back to 4H again.
Today, he had to kick in the 4H as soon as we got off the road, because the laste few days have seen a lot of rain. We had one hairy moment when we got stuck trying to get over a rocky bump on the edge of a mud-hole, but changing to 4L and backing up a few meters got us enough momemtum and traction to climb over it.
The next thing I learned is that after crawling through deep mud, when one gets back to the main road, one has to clean the sticky, clinging mud off the brake disks, axle bearings etc. and even then, the bloody fourbie vibrates like crazy because the weight of the mud is throwing the drive train out of balance (or something).
Still, I think I looked cool in my mucky combats cleaning the mud out of the wheels of a filthy 4×4. I looked like I was on a trip across Africa, or something. Or else I just looked very silly.
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Sean\'s Sicily 