Milan Muste|02-04-2026|v4b
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So I arrived in Sicily on a Friday evening and honestly the first thing I noticed was how warm it was compared to the Netherlands. I was pretty tired from travelling but literally as soon as I got there we went straight to a birthday party of someone my exchange partner knew. I didn't really know anyone there but it was actually fun and the people were really welcoming. I was exhausted by the end of it but it was a good first impression of Sicilian social life. People here just seem really social and easy to be around.
On Saturday we slept in which we really needed after the night before. After waking up we went to get arancini which is basically a fried rice ball with meat inside and it's one of Sicily's most traditional dishes. I wasn't sure what to expect but I actually really liked it. After that we went to watch a handball match which was fun even though one team was clearly way better than the other so it wasn't exactly a close game. We ended the day at a pizzeria (also really good) and then hung out with some friends in the evening. Pretty solid day overall.
Sunday was probably my first real experience of how important family is in Sicilian culture. We had lunch with my exchange partner's whole family and the food just kept coming. Every time I thought we were done eating another dish showed up. It was all really good but I was absolutely stuffed by the end of it. It felt really welcoming though, like they genuinely wanted to make sure I was comfortable and well fed. In the afternoon we went to a football match which started fine but then it started raining pretty heavily. The whole field basically turned into a swamp and all of the players were getting covered in mud. It sounds bad but it was actually hilarious to watch. Definitely one of those moments you don't plan but end up remembering the most from the trip.
Monday was my first day at school in Sicily and it was a pretty different experience from school back home. We started the day in the auditorium with dancing and singing which is not something that ever happens at my school in the Netherlands. It was fun but also a bit weird because I had no idea what to expect. The school in general felt more expressive and less structured than what I'm used to. We had a lot of free time in the gym which we used to play games and just hang out which was a nice way to actually get to know some of the other students. After school we went to my exchange partner's house with some friends and then finished the day with bowling. I was not very good at bowling but it didn't really matter, it was just a fun evening.
On Tuesday we went on a day trip to Palermo which is the capital of Sicily. It was a lot busier and more chaotic than Marsala and not really my kind of environment since I'm not a huge fan of big cities. That said I have to admit the architecture was really impressive. You could tell just from the buildings that Sicily has a really rich history with influences from lots of different cultures including Arabic, Norman and Baroque styles all mixed together which you don't really see anywhere else. We spent the whole day there just walking around and exploring. It wasn't the most relaxing day but visually it was probably one of the most interesting of the whole trip.
Wednesday was spent at school and I honestly had a bit of mixed feelings about it. In the morning we did a presentation about combining Sicilian and Dutch food cultures which was a cool idea but the instructions were kind of unclear and it felt a bit messy. It was still interesting to think about how different the two food cultures actually are even if the task itself wasn't the most enjoyable. In the afternoon we did a school wide challenge where teams had to find certain objects around the school and photograph them. My team actually won which was great and I got a school merchandise shirt as a prize. That part was fun. Not the most memorable day of the trip overall but winning something always makes things better.
Segesta Temple
Segesta Theater
Segesta Mountains
Segesta Temple
Trapani Coastline
Trapani Coastline
Trapani Street
Trapani Coastline
Segesta Temple
Segesta Theater
Segesta Mountains
Segesta Temple
Trapani Coastline
Trapani Coastline
Trapani Street
Trapani Coastline
Thursday was easily the best day of the whole trip for me. We started at Segesta which is an ancient Greek temple and theatre built on top of a mountain. I love hiking and being outside so this was right up my street. The walk up was great and the views from the top were incredible. The ruins themselves were really impressive too, it's hard to explain but there's something about standing next to a 2500 year old temple that just makes you feel very small. I took some of my favourite photos of the whole exchange here.
After that we went to Trapani which is a beautiful coastal city with an old town and views over the sea. The sun and the light hitting the water and everything was just perfect and I really took some time to enjoy nature and take some beautiful pictures which will stay in my memory for probably forever.
Friday was an early start and a quick goodbye and before I knew it I was on a plane home. Looking back on the week I think Sicily surprised me a lot. I didn't know much about Marsala before going but what I found was a place with genuinely warm people, amazing food and a culture where family and being social with people is clearly really important. Some things I'd love to bring back to the Netherlands are the tradition of long family meals where everyone sits together for hours and the generally social and expressive way people interact. Some things took getting used to like the less structured schedules and how busy and loud everything could be but that's part of the experience I guess. I came back feeling like I understood a bit more about what it actually means to experience a different culture. Not just the food or the weather but the actual values and ways people live their lives. I think that's what the exchange was really about.
A few weeks later it was my turn to be the host and my exchange partner came to the Netherlands. The first evening was pretty relaxed, we hung out at a friend's place and had classic Dutch snackbar food which is basically fries with a snack from the deep fryer. It was funny to see her reaction to it because it's something I eat all the time without thinking about it. Saturday was honestly one of the funniest but stressful moments of the whole exchange. We were supposed to go to "This is Holland" in Amsterdam but my exchange partner just would not wake up. My dad actually went into her room and played his musical instrument to try and wake her up and she still didn't move. We eventually had to use water. We ended up missing "This is Holland" because we were late but we still did the canal boat tour in Amsterdam which was really nice. After that we just walked around the city for a while. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of Amsterdam myself because I don't really like big cities, but I hope she enjoyed it. Watching her look at the canals and the tall narrow Dutch houses made me realise that things I see every day actually do look pretty impressive if you've never seen them before.
Their recommendation: I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga (1881)
My exchange partner recommended this novel for her Italian literature class. It follows a poor fishing family in a small Sicilian village as they deal with debt, loss and hardship while trying to stay together. She told me it is basically required reading in Italian schools because it is seen as an important piece of Sicilian and Italian identity. It was not something she personally chose either, it was assigned. I can see why it is considered culturally significant and after spending a week in Sicily I could actually connect some of the themes to things I had seen, like how important family and community are in everyday life there. That part was genuinely interesting. The book itself though I found pretty hard to get through. I do not really enjoy reading in general and this one did not change that. The writing style is quite old and slow and it takes a while for anything to happen. I appreciated it more as a cultural document than as something I actually enjoyed reading.
Their recommendation: Cinema Paradiso (1988), directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
For visual media she recommended Cinema Paradiso, a film from 1988 by Sicilian director Giuseppe Tornatore. It tells the story of a boy growing up in a small village in post-war Sicily and his friendship with the local cinema projectionist. My exchange partner said she first watched it with her family when she was younger, not at school, which made it feel more personal to her. I watched it after the exchange and I actually really liked it. What made it work for me is that it does not feel like a slow artsy film even though it is quite old. There is a real story with characters you actually care about and the friendship between the boy and the projectionist is genuinely touching without being forced. The ending especially caught me off guard and I was not expecting to feel that much watching a film from 1988. Having been to Sicily also helped because I recognised the small tight community atmosphere from my own week there, which made it feel more real.
Comparing our English education and schools
One thing that stood out to me during the exchange was how different English education is in Italy compared to at RLS. At my exchange partner's school in Marsala, English was not really a major focus. The lessons they did have were mostly about translation, so converting Italian sentences into English and back again. There was not much literature, creative writing or actual conversation involved. At RLS it is basically the opposite. We read English books, analyse them, write essays and have full discussions in English, all from pretty early on. It feels less like learning a foreign language and more like just using one. You could actually notice the difference in practice. My exchange partner's English was not the strongest, which made communication a bit more difficult at times. We managed and it all worked out in the end, but there were definitely moments where things got lost in translation or we had to find another way to explain something. It was not a big problem but it did make me realise how much I take for granted the level of English we reach at RLS. Looking back it also made the week feel more like a real cultural exchange rather than just a school trip, because we actually had to work a bit harder to understand each other.