Random shots from Sicily

In playing catch up, I have a bunch of random pictures that need a home, so I am grouping them together.  I apologize if any of them actually were included earlier, but I'd rather repeat than miss out.  I'll fix it when I put the book together.

Purple Cauliflower.  It's unique to the region around Mt. Etna in Sicily because of all the ash in the soil.  A special kind of Blood Orange too is grown here too.  If you boil the cauliflower, it looses a lot of it's color.  We first had it at Thanksgiving dinner with the McEwens.  She baked it.  It was so tasty and beautiful. 

I don't know who took this shot, but I'm including it because  Jess has her sleeping cap, you can see school books jammed in under the TV, you can see the borrowed piano where Isaac practiced hymns for playing in church, and our zip it up shopping bag.

The kids and I fell in love with hot chocolate on top of Mt Etna and also every morning in Rome.  We got the recommendation to buy some from Lindt's in the mall and thought we did.  Isaac is already dreaming of making a cup.  But. . . . it was just cocoa, not hot chocolate.  

Here is Jess in the parking lot, after we exchanged it.  Big pain when reduced to using hand signs and an italian/english dictionary.  

This is at one of the markets where I bough lots of the fun fun yarn to knit the fancy scarves.  I have not found any yarn stores in Dubai, but have learned where to get it online--way more expensive than the market. 

These next few shots are all too common.  I stopped on the side of the road on one of our daily drives.  On one side you see this.

On the other you see this.

Gross and sad.  Sicily has so much potential, but "va bene".  Trash heaps are all over the place.  The few times I tried to run on the roads (before I got scared off by the lack of a shoulder and crazy drivers) I had to step off into the trash to avoid cars.  Sad.  

This is how Mt. Etna looked the day of the scout hike, as seen from our backyard.  It had been brown/black the day before, but snowed over night so they had a snowy trek.