Cracked mirrors; or, On having a minivan in Sicily

"I thought you were bringing a car, but you brought a ship!" -Owner of an apartment where we stayed on our trip to Cefalu. Yep, that's about right. When we announced that we were moving to Sicily, we got a surprising number of questions about whether we were bringing our van. Now, something like seven months aft [...]

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Reunited and it feels so good

Reunited with our car, that is. It arrived while we were away, and we got custody of it last Friday. Yay! Unfortunately, of course, it is missing its driver's side wing mirror. You'd think when they noticed it was messed up in the shipping container, they might have picked up the mirror and chucked it into the car. [...]

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A weekend away — Modica

The scene: The four of us are driving along, enjoying the scenery as we traveled south and discussing whether the extensive stacked-stone fences we saw might have been built with rubble from old buildings. And then our car got literally showered with golf ball-sized rocks. And we yelled.

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Day trip to Catania

No day trip to Catania is complete without a visit to the Catania fish market and Elephant Square! Despite some insane driving "techniques" common in Catania, we enjoyed our day trip here. If you are visiting Sicily, a day trip to Catania is worth the hassle of driving!

It’s only about 3 p.m. here* at the m [...]

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Google Maps is dead to me

... ok, Chris keeps insisting that I'm being unfair to Google Maps here because it is (probably) not its fault. But my phone's entire GPS system is dead to me, at any rate. The good things from today: -We had a great play date with our friends/sponsors! Owen and Fiona had a blast playing with their kids, and I ha [...]

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On driving: A for effort, B for execution

Yesterday, I tried driving somewhere other than to the two bases and I'm pleased to say it went pretty well! We made it to McDonald's at a local mall a few miles from our hotel, and you know what my fries tasted like? VICTORY. That's what. Anyway, the trip was not without some minor misadventures and an unreasonabl [...]

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