Trapani, and Expectations...
Expectations are funny things. Sometimes you don't even realize that you have them. When you travel as a tourist, you expect to see the sites, eat the food, take a lot of photos, and come home with your memories. But when you travel with the goal of exploring your roots? You have all those same expectations and do all those things, but there is something more, another element added. For me, it's a yearning to see life here in Sicily beyond the glimpses that tourism allows and I am finding that difficult. I can't express myself in the language. Also, I am not even sure that what I am looking for still exists -- the Sicily of 110 years ago when my grandparents lived here? A simpler Sicily? A more real Sicily, without the veneer of tourism? Family dinners around the table from movies I've seen? Paul and I were talking about it the other day and he said it well: "It's hard to find where the real is." There is also some sense of disappointment fo...