About
About me and In their shoes: Sicily
Hi, I’m Melissa.
I am Australian-Italian, I live in Sicily and in actual fact I’ve moved here twice! What does that mean? It means that I moved to Sicily the first time in my 20s, when I couldn’t speak Italian and had never seen Sicily before (nope! not even once). It wasn’t such an easy time for me and after a few years I moved to another country.
But Sicily has a way of getting in your blood (or in my case maybe it was always there) and sooner or later it calls you back. And so now in my 30s I moved to Sicily a second time. Will I live in Sicily for the rest of my life? Yes, and maybe no, my current plans are to remain here permanently, but I have always been a never say never person and life is full of surprises.
This is my first ever blog and is the creation of something that I have had in mind for a long time but never really knew how to get it started. Shortly after my re-entry to Sicily, I enrolled to the University of Catania to study for a Master’s Degree in Economics (yes it’s taught in Italian) and in this course I had the opportunity to choose an elective subject. I chose Digital Marketing and I’m currently learning about how one makes a blog – so please stop by over the next weeks and months and you will see how this blog changes and evolves as I learn more about how to be a blogger.
The main idea for this blog came about from questions I would be asked from people about Sicily and the Sicilian people, as there are some misconceptions and stereotypes or even just lack of first hand information. Since living here I have come to know many wonderful Sicilians and I thought, wouldn’t it be great if everyone could get to know Sicily from those who know it best – the Sicilians themselves. So on this blog you will find interviews with Sicilians from all walks of life talking about a variety of topics – from the good to the bad and the ugly.
The name for the blog In Their Shoes Sicily, combines two ideas – the idea of getting to know Sicily from the perspective of the Sicilians and secondly, instead of pictures of their faces I will have pictures of their shoes. Why their shoes you ask? As I will be sometimes asking questions of a personal nature I will not ask the interviewees to have their portraits published.
I will be building a bank of questions, as I will not be using always the same questions with each person, so if there are any questions that you have about Sicily, Sicilians or Sicilian life, please write your name (first name is fine), place of origin and your question in the comments below and I will try to add these to my interviews.
I hope you enjoy. Please stop by again soon!