Today I visited Catania, the second largest city in Sicily. It was a perfect day. I took the train back to Taormina. The train hugs the coast. The downside? I have to get from the train station up the hill to Taormina. This is why most people travel by bus. The bus from the train…

The best way to learn Italian is to watch television on an Italian TV station. Italian immersion school is a place to meet interesting and diverse people. It’s not a perfect place to learn Italian. Would I do it again? Absolutely! The Italian version of antiques roadshow is on the Italian version of HDTV. I…

The school has offered all of this week’s students a trip to a nature preserve about a two hour drive from Taormina. It is south of Siracusa and therefore an unexplored part of the island for me. The trip is free if we can come up with 5 questions about the preserve that will be…

Language immersion is not for the feint of heart. My class of ten are quite a hodgepodge. (Did anyone other than Marlene know hodgepodge was one word?) Japanese, Swedish, Austrian, Lithuanian, Brazilian, and Flemish all aged 22 to mid 60’s. Yes, we about half pensioners. And half youngsters. And we have no idea what we…

I am steeping myself in Italy, so I decided to turn on the local news. Well, it’s not exactly local. Taormina is a tourist town. It’s cable. I don’t understand much of the news at home in the US. I am constantly asking myself, Huh? He did what? Who thought that was ok? But at…