When in Rome…

…or Toronto, to be exact.

So, my cousin just decided to take a big step in her life and move to Toronto from sunny Sicily. Unfortunately, although her mother was born here and she holds a Canadian passport, she knows very little English. However, she does have a degree in something to do with medicine. Anyway, she’s like many other young, educated Italians that have decided to just get up and leave the peninsula in a mass exodus. There’s certainly a brain-drain in Italy going on at the moment and unfortunately it seems like it may continue to go that way for the near future unless the politicians change the landscape for young people (YEAH RIGHT…) Although Italy is an awesome place, it does have its problems. Some run through the entire peninsula but I must admit that as a southerner,  the Southern regions really and truly have more problems than the North. Between mafia problems, political and judicial corruption, garbage collection disruptions, social inequality and disdain for progressive policies among many other things, the South seems worlds apart from the North, and probably galaxies apart from Toronto.

In a way, I’m really lucky to be here, where I have so many possibilities available if only I screw my head on right.

But this blog isn’t about Italian politics so I digress. My cousin came over today and I made her a pretty sexy espresso if I do say so myself. I told her I was doing a blog on authentic Italian caffe in Toronto and asked her to join me as I find new and exciting bars. Of course, she said yes. But today she was asking me a lot of questions regarding life and school here, and then she mentioned how she was a “curvy model” back in Italy… So naturally she suggested taking a picture with my espresso, and naturally I agreed, so we got this:

She’s definitely a Sicilian woman: strong, independent, opinionated, and brave. It takes a lot of balls (pardon my expression) to just get up and leave the small town you’ve known practically your whole life to move to a big city half-way across the world.

Here’s a secret about me: I want to do that, I want to move to Italy and do what she’s doing. But I think I’d need more than a big pair of balls to move there. I’d need some sort of security…

Who knows. Chissa’. In the meantime, I’m here–although very fortunate to be here.

Just having some midnight thoughts.

Buonanotte, sognatori.

-Gigi.