My favorite thing about Sicily, apart from seeing my mother, was driving across the island in the Alfa Romeo that beeped every time I exceeded the speed limit. Italian street signs almost made the voyage more complicated and open routes inevitably threw us blind into the middle of little towns with roads reaching every direction, toward churches, toward the beach, toward the center of town, but never clearly back onto the highway again. But the hillsides, green with winter rain, looked like the pages in children’s books. They were soft and rounded with years of civilization, a million warriors and nomads and farmers feet having smoothed them over with time. Those skinny European trees poked up from their corners and valleys and occasional farmhouses made of stone stood alone looking out toward the Mediterranean, blue, blue, blue under the sun.

My second favorite thing about Sicily, and Italy in general, is the chipping stucco. I think about how silly this must be to them while I drool over their dirty orange buildings, so romantically crumbling apart into the street. What, exactly, is it about Italy that sets the scene for typical American romantic dreams? It must be the haphazard cobblestone finding its way from old church to old church, the strings of lights softening the night pavement and that language - it falls out of their mouths, cart-wheeling about, and we the Anglophones of the world can’t help hanging on the syllables, knowing its expressiveness can not be matched by our own frumpy words. Yeah, I like that. I thought French was romantic, I mean they do have the most beautiful word for trashcan, (la poubelle) but those Italians have really mastered the use of the tongue, you can just tell.

Also: on Italians. They are the best dressed Europeans, in my opinion. We stepped off the plane in Rome and I fell immediately in love with their shoes, softly shining and polished, all of them. All the men had gel in their hair, and every young lady wore tight jeans hugging her slim figure. I thought maybe this was a product of a big city and would fade as we moved farther from Rome but even in Sicily, jewels glinted on young men’s noses underneath sets of perfectly pruned eyebrows.

Traveling in Sicily in the winter is beautiful but it’s also very quiet. You get the impression that the locals retreat into their homes for a month or two, waiting for the clouds to burn off. Even the restaurants were pretty slow and quiet except for a television in the corner, entertaining the owners as they ate with the family, waiting for a customer or two to come in. But everyone was very kind and the food was the kind that comes from a mother’s kitchen so we didn’t mind.

When we had seen ruins and ocean and crumbling stucco enough, it was off to Paris where I honed my Parisian metro navigational skills. Like two silly girls we played in the shops and the streets, bought chocolate crêpes and discovered artsy districts. It was a great gift, this vacation, and it went by too quickly. I miss my mom.