Dear ECS,
After a week vacation in Sicily, we all wish we lived in
Italy. Not that life in Addis is bad,
just that vacation life in northeast Sicily was so sublime. So it wasn't such a surprise, when you said – “I wish we lived in Italy.” Life since the last blog post has
been good, and busy. Ethiopia continues
to be endlessly interesting during a period of enormous changes; we are very
fortunate to be here as history happens seemingly weekly.
But, as you have personified all of your three years on
earth, the Korol family still loves vacations and hence we took advantage of the
4th of July to head to Sicily, with a sprinkling of Dubai. The short sweet vacation was with two
other couples and your buddies--their three year olds. Surprisingly, the travel from Ethiopia to Sicily was relatively easy -- we flew to Catania, Sicily with
just one lay over in Dubai.
Our vacation was that delicious combination of lingering while
also feeling like we took advantage of pretty much every moment. Of course, many of those moments were sitting
in the back patio of our agri-tourismo farmhouse looking up at Etna volcano
with the tangerine trees in the foreground.
Breakfasts that take 2-3 hours in that setting are so sublime, and
different from the way we tend to eat back breakfast back home in Addis. You tend to love the strawberry yogurt, which
is not a shock, but also the wonderful fruit on offer everywhere.
Your parents enjoyed those breakfasts immensely, but we
really embraced the seafood. Addis and
Ethiopia are landlocked, so the only fish that is regularly around is Nile
perch. Nile perch is good, but nothing like
the swordfish, octopus, tuna, clams, and mussels your mom and dad tried to fit
in any chance we could. I had anticipated
the food in Sicily to be the heavy version of Italian food, without any
rationale basis for that assumption. Nope,
I was wrong. Thankfully. The best meals were lighter fish stews and
combination platters, with the light touch of fresh sun kissed tomatoes and
capers. Interestingly the land-based
food nearly always had a sprinkling of pistachios, which is a another
delightful staple of the Sicilian diet.
Beyond the food, it was wonderful to be immersed with our
friends, a non-stop play date for kiddos, moms and dads. We found a nice mix of enjoying the tranquil
farm in the northeast of the island (which is surprisingly large), checking out
different towns and villages in this area as well as a day trip to the north
coast. The variety of the spots was
really enjoyable, one day exploring one of the main villages used in the
filming of the Godfather movies, maybe a thousand or 1,500 feet of relief above
the sea and still quaint and small with the World Cup watching on a grand patio
overlooking the landscape, and then the next day at equally charming village to
the south, this one right on the water with a huge castle right over the sea,
the walls of the castle merging seamlessly into the limestone cliffs. It was also cool to wander to the north,
which was unexpectedly an entirely different bio with lush, verdant hills,
which had your parents thinking of Jamaica as opposed to a landscape more akin
to drier Southern California on the northeast coast. Cool to see the difference of climate just
40-50 miles apart.
Watching you play with your friends was endlessly enjoyable,
be it you snuggling with your friend as you slept while your parents dined or playing tug of war playfully with your other friend on
the pebble beach at the Isola Bella nature reserve. One cool thing in seeing the you play was
how fellowship and love transcends language, as each of you three kids have
various native languages (German, Italian, English). There was some
overlap, but not a ton, and so you guys communicated with laughter and squeals
of delight and hugs.
Love,
dad
