Why I Fell in Love with Sicily

As Sicily is one of the only places in Italy I’ve traveled so far (Rome, Umbria and Venice are coming up in the next few weeks!), I don’t know if I have the authority or the experience to comment on Italian culture as a whole, however Sicilian culture has left me with culture shock, in the best possible way. There’s a certain aspect of grunge to the island, the free-spirited, liberating kind of grunge. It has the kind of grunge you’d expect from a second or third world country, while still maintaining the certain level of class expected from a first world country. It struck me so much because it’s so different from the United States, where everything is kept pristine and neat, or at least seems that way after experiencing Sicily. Walking around Cefalù, a beach town on the northern coast of Sicily, the houses and buildings all touch, as if they are all one building, like they do in much of Europe.

Florida Keys Vacation: Favorite Things

Last Monday, we drove down to the Florida Keys and stayed down in Key West for a few days. Even though we were only there for a few days, it was an amazing vacation. Now we are back up on the eastern coast of Florida and will be heading back home to the Midwest in a few days, but Key West is still fresh in my mind. Here are some of the things that made it such an amazing few days.