OBSERVATIONS OF SARDINIA and CORISCA

Many moons ago I used worked in Sardinia. I loved it so much I tried to get a job there so I could live there on a permanent basis. Alas it didn’t work out. But I was excited to be able to go back and explore the parts of the island I didn’t get a chance to see when I lived there. Corsica had always been on my list and I decided it was now or never. These are my observations of these two incredible islands that even though very close together are worlds apart due to their food, culture and landscapes. 

SARDINIA

When I worked in Sardinia I was always at the very south, Cagliari. On this trip I decided to explore the North around Olbia. Here are the things I noticed about North Sardinia. Well, the first thing I noticed was on the plane from Berlin and it wasn’t a very nice observation for me. There were A LOT of young kids on the plane ride over, young meaning 5 and under. “What’s his problem with young kids?”. Nothing, I have absolutely no problem with young children. I hope to have at least one of my own one day in the near future. But I can’t STAND loud screaming obnoxious  spoiled kicking my seat like it’s a football rotten kids. Luckily the flight was only about 2 hours. Any longer and I might’ve hurt a parent for allowing their little monsters to run around the plane like that. Another passenger told me that a lot of German families hit Costa Smeralda for their vacations. Costa Smeralda is close to the major city of Olbia and very close to the airport. Needless to say I knew I wasn’t going to be spending too much time there. I did however spend most of my time in a small town called San Teodoro. It’s about 30 minutes south of Olbia and in my opinion the best place to use as a base to discover the Northern part of Sardinia. 

As I used to live and work in Italy I learned enough Italian to get by without any problems which is always helpful in Italy. If you don’t speak any Italian you’ll be able to get by, but you are going to have to work for it. Most menus are in multiple languages, but whether or not the waiter will be able to understand your questions about the menu is a totally different thing. But hey, vacation stories are always better with one funny story about misunderstanding something on the menu. I lucked out through and my roommate spent many summers in San Teodoro and told his friends to expect me. The town was READY when I got there. At the restaurant he told me his friends owned they had a table reserved when I got there, WHA WHA!! Seriously, what is in the water that makes island people so dang nice!? I have yet to visit an island where the people weren’t super friendly and welcoming. Somebody needs to breakdown the chemical components so I can bring it here to Berlin and sell it! Friends of my roommate dropped by to talk and give advice on the best places to go and compare schedules to see if they had time to give private tours. Lovely lovely people all of them. I went at the end of May beginning of June so the island was preparing for the tourist season. When I’d worked in Cagliari it was always the end of August beginning of September. This leads me to my second observation of Sardinia.

End of May/early part of June take a sweater or light jacket. It gets a bit nippy in the evenings. On the very tip of Sardinia where you can see Corsica in the distance it was even dare I say, cold in the evenings. That wind is no joke! I’m not a bodybuilder, but I’m not small either. The wind was strong enough to push me along a few times. Bring something warm or you’ll be adding to the local economy buying warm clothes for the evening. I came from Berlin so I had a jacket and sweater but there were a lot of tourists who were surprised.

Me at Santa Terese di Gallura

The beaches in Sardinia are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Period. I haven’t visited Southeast Asia yet or the Philippines. Hence me using “I’ve ever seen.” You could go to a beach, be amazed, then go to another beach just 2 minutes away from that first beach and it would look totally completely different! Felt like you were moving from country to country and not just beach to beach. Another great thing about Sardinian beaches is the color of the water. Whoa! I’ve seen photoshopped images of water that color before but in real life? The greenest greens and the bluest blues I’d ever seen. And CLEAR! Went on a boat tour and you end up at a secluded beach you can only reach by boat. One poor kid thought since the boat was close to shore he could just jump out and walk the rest of the way. It looked like knee deep water and I almost did the same thing he did. Luckily I move slower in my older age and the kid jumped out first. WOOSH! Looked like he was in a special effects movie with how far he kept going down. Talk about a WTF moment! Boat driver said the water was over 6 meters deep! That’s almost 20ft for my US readers ;-) But that was the only beach like that. All the other beaches I visited you could walk out half a mile into the sea and still be only in waist deep water. For a black person you can’t ask for better beaches than that! Super clear water so I can see sharks and super shallow so I can run back to shore just in case I do see something I’m afraid of. Only sorta kinda bad thing? The water was COLD! I think in the 6 or 7 days I was in Sardinia I went into the water maybe 2 times. When I say in the water I mean walking into it at all. My feet went instantly numb the first time I went in so that was pretty much enough for me. I took some nice photos of me standing directly at the waters edge. More than enough thank you very much.  

I know I already spoke about how nice the people are but it deserves special attention. The people were so nice a part of you thought they were trying to scam you. At one point I missed a bus I needed to catch after the rental car was turned in. No surprise I missed some form of transportation. A taxi driver offered to drive me where I needed to go but it was like €85 for what was a €7 bus trip. I decided to wait for the next bus which was like 5 hours later. When the taxi driver realized I was OK with waiting he kept on trying to give me tips for things I could do while I waited. At first I was like, “Back up homie.” I get uncomfortable when people invade my personal space! But he kept recommending and I finally relaxed and caved. He told me about a restaurant close by and I went. One of the BEST decisions I made on the whole trip! Was a REAL husband & wife place. While the wife cooked the kids did their homework in the kitchen with her. Talk about home cooking! The husband was telling me about all these places I needed to visit and people I should call once I got there. It was like visiting cousins family introduced you to online and you were meeting for the first time. In other places I visited things you had to pay for were not only free in Sardinia, but they were a little offended you thought they would charge you for it. How can you not love that!? 

Ok, my last observation of Sardinia is the food. Very very simple menu but always cooked with such a high skill it made it seem like you were eating at a Michelin restaurant. Perfect example of why people should be using fresh and local ingredients when they cook. Basic stuff I cook myself just tasted 20 times better when I was there. 

CORSICA

Ok, so let me begin my observations of Corsica what I ended with Sardinia, food. But before I begin I

Bonifacio, Corsica

have to say I didn’t spend as many days there as I planned. Due to loving Sardinia more than I thought and staying an extra day I didn’t see nearly enough of Corsica. Also an unexpected French holiday which meant absolutely no public transportation happening also limited my Corsican experience. 

So, Corsica is a French island while Sardinia is Italian. Italian food is amazing. I love it thru and thru. French food is a cuisine as I always tell people. It’s more complicated with many more layers. Some people like it, some think it’s too much. I lived in France before so I knew what to expect. In saying that, the food in Corsica was on some nother other level! Steak was rarely on the menu in Sardinia, but in Corsica it was always one of the main dishes. When in Rome.. Lord have mercy that steak I had in Corsica! If my mom would’ve asked me for a bite I would’ve had to think long and hard before I gave her a piece. I never knew beef could melt in your mouth like that! I could cut the dang meat with my SPOON it was so tender! Every restaurant had proper COURSES. The last place I ate in Corsica I ordered Guinea fowl on what I would have to describe as a golden lawyered potato cake. The waitress tried to take it before I’d eaten licked the plate clean and I almost karate chopped her in the throat! When food makes you consider resorting to being stingy with your momma and violence you know it’s good! Say what you want to about the French, but they throw DOWN in the kitchen!

Another thing you notice very quickly about Corsica is that it has more class and this definite elegant undertone that Sardinia doesn’t have. It’s not better, just different. Without anyone saying anything you automatically want to dress up a bit more when you go out for dinner in the evening. Coming from Berlin with its constant laid back casual style it was a nice change. I personally liked it and appreciated the people there stepping out looking well put together. Normally island folk are always casually dressed, not so much in Corsica. If anyone was dressed super casual you knew they were a tourist and not a local. All the time would be a bit too much for me but for the time I was there I appreciated it. 

The people. Yes. Well Corsicans are certainly nice, I mean it is an island after all. But at the end of the day they are French. There was still this very palpable distance with the people in Corsica. Could’ve had something to do with the language. Very few people spoke English and I don’t speak French. Normally you go somewhere where you don’t speak the language you ask young people. In this day and age most young people listen to English music and have contact with the language often enough they have a basic command, normally. No, not in Corsica. I would ask people, in French, did they speak English. They would answer “A little bit”, then proceed to speak in very fast French to answer my question. Wait. What? How does that work?? I ask you if you speak English, you say yes then proceed to only speak to me in French? And they didn’t even try to speak to me like I was deaf and dumb, meaning veeeery slooooow and loudly. Nope. They just spoke to me like I was born and raised in Paris and would understand everything they said to me. The only places people spoke English was in the hotels. As soon as you left the hotels French. Yeah, a bit more difficult to communicate than in Sardinia. 

What’s interesting is, as cultured as the cities and towns of Corsica are, the nature and landscape is WILD. In Sardinia you get the feeling the island has been run through with a comb. Like it’s been tamed to a certain degree, not in Corsica at all. Has this very real sense of wildness and rawness to it. I personally loved the contrast it creates between the cities and open spaces. That wildness though? Fucked my allergies UP! The last time I had an allergy attach THAT bad was well… in France! Years ago when I lived there near Lyon. I took allergy medicine the entire time I was in Corsica and double the normal dose when I felt the attack coming on. Didn’t help in the least. My eyes swole up so bad it looked like I’d smoked out on purple haze for 2 days straight! I was so congested I had to breathe through my mouth and still sounded like Darth Vader. I sneezed 19 times in a row with no break, TWICE! Just achooachooachooachooachooachooachooachooachoo. I was a HOT mess! To make matters worse, that was the day I was trying to catch a bus to another town and no one told me that it was a French holiday so nothing was running and all the car rental places were closed. I was standing at a bus station all alone looking like homeless junky cause I couldn’t see well enough to walk back to the city center to get another hotel. I had to wait it out until the swelling went down in my eyes enough for me to see which was oooh about 3hrs. Surprised no one called the police on me! Not the best memory of Corsica but I go back I’m taking a kilo of medicine in case that happens again! 

Observations of France

FRENCH OBSERVATIONS

This will be a two part observation for France. I am working in a very small village so I am sure once I get to a bigger city I will have more things that catch my eye. With that, in France I have noticed….

1.) France has been invaded twice by Germany in the last 90 years, had German troops marching down the main avenue in Paris and everything. You would think that they hate Germans more than anything right? Wrong! They hate people from England with a passion. And it was the English who helped them out in both World Wars. I don’t get it. You ask a Frenchman about Germans and he says they are OK people. Ask him about an Englishman and they get so upset they get foamed at the mouth and go on for hours. They talk about wars that happened 400 hundred years ago!! Get over it already! MAYBE, the French are afraid of the Germans like Craig and Smokey are afraid of Devo in Friday the movie! And they think if they talk about the Germans they will invade them once again! They know if they talk about the English, they won’t do a damn thing about it. It would explain a lot of things.

2.) Everyone talks about how smelly the French are and how they don’t take showers. I am here to tell you that it is not true. Actually, it isn’t completely true. The French just have really weak deodorant. If they barely break a sweat it wears off, after 5pm it’s worn off. I think, that people who think French people are stank met a French person AFTER 5pm who was running late and had to run to the meeting place! If they made their deodorant stronger people wouldn’t have that assumption of Frenchies.

3.) One VERY interesting thing here I have observed. The site I am at has French cable. Having French cable you would assume all the stations are in French right? Wrong! Most of the stations are in GERMAN! At first, I couldn’t figure it out. Then I thought about it. If your country bordered another country that was always invading you, wouldn’t you want to know what the hell they were doing?? I guess the French figure that if they watch German TV; the Germans might broadcast the attack plans if they ever get the urge to march through Paris again. News at 11 on German CNN, “Ve are gozing to attack Franze againz. Pleaze makez outz a list of French perfumez and wines you wish to have on our soldierz triumphant return.” After that announcement, the French decide to hold a serious of talks and discussions if they are going to mobilize their military or hope the U.S. and U.K. save their asses yet again. Sounds crazy? Yes. But how else do you explain it??

4.) French Cuisine isn’t all it is made out to be. Maybe because I am ghetto and am still happy with Kool-aid, fish and cheese grits and Now & Laters. The food is so bland. They only seasoning they use is garlic. Garlic in the mashed potatoes, garlic in the scrambled eggs, garlic in the salad. Making me think there are vampires in the area and they are just trying to protect us or something. Also, French people have the weakest tongues. The director here got some BBQ sauce sent from the states. We had the French counselors and students try some. They all acted like we had put fire on their tongues. They said it was too hot. When we have chili con carne, same thing. They act like they are eating straight chili peppers. While we are on French cuisine I need to talk about their love of bread! They eat bread with their meals here like it’s going out of style. That is kind of whatever. How they use their bread is interesting to me. First of all, they never put it on their plate. It’s always placed on the side of the plate on the table. Second, it has to be broken up before eating the first bite. They use their bread like knives to get that last little bit of rice or pasta on to their forks. And after that they literally use the bread to clean their plate. They almost scrub the plate with their bread to get every last single molecule of food off of it. Doesn’t matter if it is salad dressing, corn juice or pasta sauce, they do it with anything.

5.) French people are white. I mean that in the sense that they can’t dance and when you ask them to clap they can’t keep it going for more than 10 seconds without them going faster and faster and faster. And their showers are built for skinny white people. I take a shower and if I turn around at all, my big black ass hits the shower knob and turns the water off or to cold. So I alternate between hot and cold all the time, probably why I caught a cold. I try and not move left or right when I shower, but I always forget and turn and bam! My ass turns the knob to freezing. I know other black and Latin people in France have problems just like I do.

Those are my observations so far of this country. The area I am in is beautiful. I am 30 minutes from the border of Spain up in the Pyrenees Mountains. All the homes are hundreds of years old and passed down through the families. These villages are very poor are very traditional Catholics so the churches and cathedrals are amazing with all the gold and jewels in the alters. Don’t need to tell you no black and Puerto Ricans are around here! We would see Tyrone walking down the street….”Hey boy, where in the hell did you get that big ass gold cross from hanging from yo neck! You stole it from da church!”