From Taormina to Etna and back

Ciao,



I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Mine went by fast (of course they all do), but it was good. Before I detail my adventures this weekend, I should note an interesting thing I learned about laundry here. As I noted in a previous blog, I handwash my clothes, and usually leave them on a heater to dry. On Friday afternoon, I did another batch of clothes - this time all my socks as I was about out of clean ones. By Saturday afternoon, they were all dry, so I gathered them up from the various heaters on our floor and began pairing them together. What do you know, but at the end of that task, I had two unmatched socks! Apparently the disappearing socks have nothing to do with the washing machine or dryer. They must disinegrate into thin area somehow, as even when I handwashed them, two went missing. Non è logico. (It is not logical).



After marveling over the mysterious sock disappearance, I had dinner, and then a bunch of us headed to a bar (one of the two open right now) to have drinks and say goodbye to Randall and Inge who left on Saturday. This is one thing I've decided I really don't like here - the constant good-bye party Clay and I must have. We said bye to our American friends from George Mason two weeks ago, but for some reason, that didn't hit us as hard as Randall and Inge. They are both incredibly friendly and kind people. I think what bothered us more is that every week we will have to do this - say bye to someone else. Most people come to Babilonia for only 2 or 4 weeks. I don't think it's structured for a 3 month stay really, so we are the ones here the longest. So as soon as we make friends, they leave us.



Saturday morning was nice as I had the chance to sleep in. Then Clay and I walked around Taormina and took lots of pictures to show folks back home what the town is like. I promise to get those uploaded soon. We then headed up to Castelmola, a small village perched on the hill above Taormina - I think technically it's still part of Taormina. Anyways, it was a gorgeous walk and it gave us a beautiful view of Taormina, which looks a bit larger from up above. Part of the way up the hike, we stopped at Madonna della Rocca, a small church on the hill. It's very beautiful inside, although I'm not sure if they have services there anymore. And the ceiling is made of rock. It actually looks like the church was built underneath a rock, but I'm not entirely sure of the history or how it was really built.



After resting at Madonna della Rocca, we headed up to what we thought were the steps to Castelmola. As we started out, a man was coming down and said "Sopra chiuso." We knew both of those words. Sopra is up and chiuso is close (we know that word quite well actually as many of the stores here are closed right now). But when we put the two together, it was "up-close." We thought perhaps he meant the pictures I was taking of this dog trying to get a cat in a tree. So we laughed and headed up the steps, all the while coming of with different meaning for "sopra chiuso." Less than 5 minutes later we reached a locked gate and realized that the man was trying to in fact tell us it was closed. My Italian is not the best, but I'm convinced his wasn't either, as the phrase was not a sentence. Perhaps he should have said "è chiuso sopra qua," which I would have interpreted to be "It is closed up there." Regardless, this made no sense to us as we thought Castelmola was a town, and why on earth would a town lock its gates.



The walk didn't take us long, so instead of taking the shortcut steps back to Taormina, we went down on the road. We walked down Corso Umberto a few times, then stopped for granita, which is a special Italian dessert that I will describe more in another blog. I spent the early evening just resting and reading, and then headed upstairs to dinner, where I proudly used all the Italian I knew to explain to Aurelio and Angela that Castelmola was "chiuso."



They of course looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. I tried to rearrange the words and say something else in Italian, and finally we had to resort to English. That's when Aurelio realized that I had said exactly what I meant in Italian, but unfortunately it made no sense. He then patiently explained to me that the castle (il castello) is almost almost closed, with the gates locked. But it was impossible for the village to be locked, and we obviously didn't see the steps that went up to Castelmola. Va bene. The walk wasn't bad, so we'll just do it again sometime.



After dinner, I watched Walker Texas Ranger with Aurelio (dubbed over in Italian of course). He offered to switch it to English, but I told him I preferred to hear in Italian so I can learn. I should add that even when he's dubbed over in Italian, Chuck Norris is still a badass. I watched the entire movie, and only understood what I could see, but perhaps it was a good bonding experience for Aurelio and I. (Although I'm not sure how much he likes Walker Texas Ranger because when I first came to dinner, he was watching Gilmore Girls in Italian).



On Sunday, Clay and I went with two other students, Romy and Thomas, and we drove around Mt. Etna, which is the nearby (active) volcano. I see Mt. Etna everyday from the window of the kitchen, and then at school, we have a terrace with a gorgeous view of it. I should first perhaps describe what it was like to go with Romy and Thomas. They are both young (in their 20s). He is from Switzerland, and she is from Germany. Romy is fluent in English (and French apparently) , in addition to German of course. He speaks really good Italian (and obviously German as well), and he understands some English. But every conversation we had typically was spoke in 3 different languages (not including Swiss German, which Romy informed us is its own language). We would try to speak in Italian, but I'm not that good, and Clay and Romy are both in the beginner class. So when we didn't understand each other in Italian, we would revert to English, and Romy would translate into German for Thomas, who would then speak in German to us, and Romy would translate back to English. Bless her heart, I'm sure she was exhausted by the end of the day.



Anyways, Romy and Thomas have a car, and they are basically driving around Italy for two months, so we rode with them. I'm mentioned the driving here, and I have to say this was the most nervewracking yet. Thomas wasn't a bad driver, but everyone else was. And we were driving through the mountains, so there were constant curves, and most drivers apparently take the curve fast, and they drive straight down the middle. I thought for sure I was going to die of a car accident, and if not a car accident, then a heart attack. We somehow missed the road we were looking for and we drove halfway around the mountain, which I didn't mind as it was really neat to see it from all sides.



We finally found a road that we thought took us up, but we actually ran into snow, so here we are, driving up a curvy road on snow (thankfully we did that for all of 2 minutes before we turned around), and that's when I knew I was going to die. We evenutally found the road we were looking for, but at the point, it was later in the afternoon and there were a ton of people trying to get up to Mt. Etna, or at least to the highest point you can go without actually climbing the darn thing.

We stopped at the huge traffic area for lunch, which was an interesting experience. We ate lunch at the one restaurant there, and it didn't open until 12:30, so everyone was standing around, waiting to be let in, and when they opened the doors, everyone just wandered around the dining room, trying to find a seat. The waiters seemed to be in a hurry, unlike all the other restaurants here, and they actually threw the menus (and later the dishes) at us. Then when he brought the bill, he stood there and waited while we counted out enough money. The whole situation was bizarre, and as Thomas said, a good memory.

We then headed back to Taormina at that point, and we had some coffee and ciocolatta before we went to our separate houses to rest. Around 5 p.m., Clay and I then took lots of pictures of the sun setting over Mt. Etna, and some pictures of the cruising that occurs on Corso Umberto. There is actually a mad rush for the bus station around 7 p.m., so I believe that on weekends, some people actually ride the bus to Taormina in order to cruise the Corso. Just a guess, but it's obviously the thing to do here. I should note that during the weeknights, there are fewer people out cruising the Corso.

For some reason, yesterday evening, many of the children were dressed in costumes. Romy explained that in Germany, this week is Carnival, which is a huge celebration before Lent begins. Romy wasn't sure, though, if Italy celebrated it as well, but maybe that's why all the children were dressed up. Regardless, there was confetti all in the streets, which seems to happen every Saturday and Sunday. From what I gather, parents buy bags of it for their children, and the kids just throw it all over the place, so that by the end of the night, all the kids, the streets, and the dogs are covered in confetti. I don't know if this is related at all to the Carnival, or it they do this every week just to do it. Perhaps I will ask Carlo (one of my teachers this week) to explain this to me.

I finished the evening by just relaxing and finishing my book, Love in the Time of Cholera, which was a fantastic book that I would highly recommend. So that was my wonderful weekend. Pictures of the weekend and of Taormina will be up by tomorrow, and tomorrow's blog will be dedicated to all things Taormina as I realize some pictures might need further explanation, and I haven't spent much time actually writing about my observations of the town.