Siracusa- where our hero makes a stand

Oh I have been a very irresponsible blogger- its been almost a week since my last post. Where to begin? "I cant go on- I'll go on"- Beckett (and me most mornings)
Well my watch broke shortly after I arrived in Siracusa on Friday. And in this land of omens, superstitions (MALEocchio=the evil eye) and oracles, I took it as a sign. I'd arrived and time had stopped. Either I was going to die here, or live here...
The rents are very low- I'm afraid to mention precisely HOW low for fear of sparking a massive counter emigration from New York back to Sicily... so I won't. However, I have spent the past two days looking at apartments in Ortygia, the beautiful old section of Siracusa. I am looking to rent (affittasi) per un brevi period... one or two months. One of the curiousities about Sicily- I don't know if it's true in the rest of Italy- the Sicilians don't like to live in the gorgeous old neighborhoods in their ancient cities. They like new- new apartments, new furniture, new fixtures, new appliances and especially new cars and motos. There are legitimate concerns with some of these buildings which are centuries old- but for the most part, they're fine. I've spoke to people who live in Ortygia- people live there, it's nice. But in Palermo the neighborhoods are rigidly defined by class (I've heard) and only the untouchables live in the old city.
Ortygia is a little dew drop of land, almost an island, that hangs off the bay. It's surrounded by the Ionian sea. The mare is translucent green/blue and Ortygia is almost heartbreakingly beautiful. THe buildings are constructed of this very chalky white limestone. The Duomo here was actually constructed around the ruins of an ancient greek temple- The piazzas glow in the dark- and the baroque buildings along the narrow streets, the tiles, at times it looks like frosting on a cake... difficult to describe the sensation of walking around in this weird abandoned crystal palace on a monday or tuesday evening in the off season, when there's almost no one around.
Anyway, this blog needs to catch up. I will post every day from now on. Next up, Dionisio- the tyrant of Siracusa- an aspiring playwright, not content to subjegate the population he subjected them to his abysmal plays.
I should mention that I'm trying to post more pictures on a flickr page that you can go to. It should be the flickr url - whatever that is... and then /noahonthego so go there to see more of beautiful Sicilia/2011!