via Michelangelo La Rosa Buccheri

We spent weeks finding this place to live. We call it La Rosa. This is our playhouse, as you might call it, because our other house, is our schoolhouse, via Malta. In via Malta, we sleep, eat breakfast, go to school, and get dressed. At La Rosa, we cook a big dinner with our Nonni and we eat our on the beautiful terrace. Here is one of the reasons why it is a beautiful terrace.

We do our homework there, which usually takes about two hours or more, even with our Dad's help! And we play games there, like Catan, Ping Pong, and card games. Here is a picture of me playing Catan.

It took us a long time to find furniture, like couches that could be used as beds, getting the big table for the inside to do our homework on, and a big glass table for the outside terrace, and some chairs. There are rope chairs for outside around the table, four red and two orange. For inside, we have four white and two black cane chairs. Thanks to Nonni, now we have lots of plants on the terrace and inside. She and Domenica went to a lot of nurseries to look for a citrus tree, lemon or orange. There weren't any. So, Nonni was going on the bus, when she found this nursery, which had really cool plants. No citrus, but tall vines, with really pretty white flowers. She got a couple of palms, and one pot of rosemary. She got hibiscus with orange flowers and streaks of red.

One day, we were looking for lamps. And we called Livio, our landlord, if he had any ideas for lamp places. And he said yes, he actually had two old lamps from his grandparents, that he might be able to hang from the ceiling. One had about ten oil lamps in a circle, and the other one had glass diamonds with a central bulb, so that all the light would sparkle off it like a fancy hotel light. It turns out we didn't get the ten oil lamps, but we got the other glass diamond one. It hangs in the room where Nonni sleeps, next to the terrace.

The place feel like our home, because we fixed it up ourselves, and put all the things in there, so it feels like it ours. Even though the place is 600 years old and there are water leaks in the ceiling.

Nero Di Seppie

(black squid ink and meat)

Today my mom was walking around and she came upon a nero di seppie stand. Nero di seppie is a type of pasta made from the black ink that the squid squirts out when it is frightened. My mom's favorite Sicilian books, by Andrea Camilleri, are about Inspector Montalbano, and he loves Nero di Seppie.

There were a few men seperating the ink sack from the meat. Here are some pictures. Our mom bought some and we are going to have it for dinner tonight.