Buon giorno, buon giorno!
I'm afraid this will have to be a short blog today. My mind is going about a hundred directions (or as a former employer would say, I'm going 100 miles per hour with my hair on fire). Next week is our "spring break" if you will, so Clay and I are very busy getting all our last minute plans in place. We're headed to Venezia, Firenze and Roma (Venice, Florence and Rome) for the week, and we leave on Friday. We've had the planes booked for awhile, but this week we're booking hostels and getting together a more concrete game plan on where we're going, what we're seeing, etc. Needless to say, Sono impegnanta (I'm busy).
As for the weekend, we had a slow weekend. We said bye to Benjamin on Friday night, along with some other students. We walked around Taormina on Saturday, and I took a nap! I hadn't slept well at all last week, so I was tired all weekend. On Sunday we went into Catania to look around in the stores, which was a pretty dumb idea since it was Sunday and most things were closed. Oh well. We got in our exercise in a different setting at least. We also ate lunch at this really cute restaurant, so all in all it was a good trip. I didn't take my camera because I thought we'd be focusing on stores more, and I didn't want to lug it around. Next time I head back to Catania, though, I will definitely grab some pictures. The older buildings there look gorgeous.
As I said, I've got a million things to do this week. The three other students living on my floor at the house left on Saturday. The two English kids were really nice, and we had fun talking about the differences in our countries. They were both juniors in high school and interested in the American university system, so I think I helped them out there some. And they explained soccer (or calcio in Italian, futbol elsewhere) to me, which was helpful because Clay and I have been trying to find tickets to a Catania game, but are clueless about how much we should pay/where to get them, etc. I hope when we get back after next week, we'll get a chance to go see a game!
While I enjoyed the company last week, I am glad I have the whole floor to myself this week. I've got laundry to do, and I can get well-rested for next week, so this will work at well. Plus, Gerhard is still at the house, living downstairs, so I still have company! It's the perfect arrangement.
There were two more food items I wanted to add to Friday's blog, so I'll do that and then sign off. I failed to mention the pizza here. I eat pizza about half as much as I eat pasta, which is a lot since I eat pasta every day. The first time I ordered a pizza, I was told they were personal pans, so I should order one for myself. When the brought out the pizza, however, I was shocked. The thing was huge! Probably about 8 inches across! But I ate the whole thing! I can always finish a whole pizza, which I realize makes me sound like I'm either starved or a pig, but they make the pizzas different here. The crusts are so thin, that it's the equivalent of eating probably 3 slices back home. Seriously. And they're much healthier as well. I don't ever see a puddle of grease chilling on my pizza. The Europeans all eat their pizza with a knife and fork, which I suppose is the proper way to do it. I've tried that before at Mellow Mushroom and it's disastrous and somehow messier. So we still cut our pizzas into slices and use our hands, which means you can pretty much pick us out as American in two seconds.
The other food item I failed to mention is a dessert that we often have at the Ferraris. Or I guess it's technically a dessert. The Ferraris like to offer us biscotti dipped in Marsala. Biscotti is semi-sweet bread, or maybe technically a cracker. Anyways, it's not overly sweet, and I don't normally eat it on its own. And Marsala obviously isn't something you drink on its down, but somehow the two together are pretty good. Although after they've used a glass to dip the biscotti in, they usually finish the Marsala and just drink it straight. I don't much care for that part, but the biscotti is good.
Anyways, enough for now. I hope to get some more blogs done this week as I have a whole list of things I wanted to get done by the "halfway point", which is this Thursday! On top of all we have to do, we have two culture classes this week, which last an hour in the afternoon. And the Internet is going exponentially slower with each passind day. So I say all that to give an excuse in the event I don't blog much this week. Ok, ciao ciao!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Buon Appetito!
So I realize this is probably the blog you've all been waiting for - the one about cuisine! I think I'm asked more about the Italian food than anything by people back home, so I'll do my best to describe the delicious things I eat! Unfortunately, nothing can replace the actual exprience, I'm sad to say.
First, though, I have to let you know that we're having a problem with our Internet, which is why there are still no pictures uploaded to dropshots of Palermo. We also have two computers out of use (out of four), and they haven't been fixed since I got here, so I'm doubting the Internet will be fixed either. But, let's cross our fingers and hope that I can upload some pictures next week! :) If not, I guess I'll have to improve my writing skills and describe the sites in more detail.
So on to food. I'm very fortunate in that I live with Aurelio, who is an excellent cook! In fact, the school offers private cooking lessons (for a bunch of money) to students, and Aurelio is the teacher! We've only had three weeks of students at our house, cooking our dinner, and no worries - while they are students, Aurelio is always in command, so we don't end up with burned stuff! When we have the students at our house, we have longer meals, and more traditional Sicilian dishes; however, Aurelio teaches all the students the same dishes, usually, so for the first three weeks, I had only tasted about 10 different things total because we kept eating the same dishes (although they were all excellent). At the house, meals are similar to those back in America in some ways. For instance, while the food is good, it's not like I'm eating a 5 star meal every night. It's just like how back in the states you don't typically cook oustanding meals every single night. Some nights you have leftovers, some nights you cook something easier, and some nights you might go all out. It's the same here. We have some melt-in-you-mouth dishes maybe 2 times a week. The other days are reserved for leftovers and simpler things that are good, but not fall out of your chair good.
In a traditional Italian meal, there are several courses. The first course is always pasta (or sometimes risotto). Thankfully, I absolutely love pasta. Aurelio likes to pile my plate high with pasta, and I usually have to remember to save room for the other dishes. Once everyone is finished with the prima piatto (first course, or literally first plate), then we move on to the meat (carne) and side dishes (contorni - which I will never again confuse with the bill). When I first arrived, there were other American students staying with the Ferraris, and the three of us would put everything on our plate at once. Aurelio would always say that we Americans ruin his food by mixing everything together. Now, they usually keep the meat off the table and in the stove to stay warm, and I've adapted to eating only one thing at a time. I have discovered one negative about the two separate dishes. With the second course safely tucked away somewhere, I never know what dish is coming up, which makes it difficult to know whether I'm going to want more pasta or not. While are the dishes are good, there are some nights with really outstanding pasta or really outstanding carne. But because I don't know which is going to better, I can't fill up on thing. There have been several nights when I ate plenty of pasta, only to discover something better came out later! :(
That's a typical meal at the house. Restaurants operate the same way, but they are used to tourists coming in and only ordering one course, especially for lunch. It's not common to eat a huge lunch, so it's not weird at all to only order a pizza, a salad or just pasta for lunch. There are several different kinds of eating establishments here. There's a "hot table," which often doesn't have tables. Usually you walk up and order something from the display cases, and they'll heat it up for you (if it's not already warm). Then there are pizzerias and ristorantes, where you actually sit down and order. Interestingly enough, there isn't much different in the atmosphere between a really nice restaurant and a normal restaurant (of course, I haven't exactly gone into a really really nice restaurant). But, when I've gone to the pizzerias before, they've had nice tablecloths, cloth napkins, lots of silverware, two glasses, etc. The set-up looks about like a place back in the states where I would pay $15 to $20 just for an entree, but in reality, I'm only ordering a pizza for about 6 euro.
In the restaurants here, you don't tip, but a lot of resaurants include a "cover charge," which is often equal to what a tip would be back in the states. One thing that I really like about the restaurants here is that they post the menus outside. So before we enter somewhere and get stuck spending a bunch of money, we can see the menu and prices. One interesting thing about the restaurants is that the food often doesn't come out at the same time. If you're just dining with two people, then chances are good you'll start eating together. In groups larger than that, though, the food comes out whenever. In fact, I've gotten my food about 30 minutes before someone else did. Because of this, it's normal to begin eating when you've received your food, instead of waiting for everyone else. If you wait, your food may be cold. At the house, as well, we usually eat once Aurelio and Angela tell us to, even though they haven't sat down yet to eat. This was a bit hard to adjust to at first, as I always thought I was being rude by not waiting. But now I know it's more a practical thing than anything.
There are also cafes and bars, and they are very different from American bars. In a bar here, you can walk in and get an alcoholic drink, a coffee, a hot cholocate, and usually some sort of sweet snack. The bars are open from lunchtime to evening (but of course closed usually between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.). And the people here drink at any hour of the day. Another weird thing about the bars is that most people don't sit down at them, especially in the morning if they just want an espresso. They'll come in and order a drink, and then just stand at the bar, drink it, then leave. Many bars actually charge more if you sit down, so you have to be careful for the hidden charges!
There are also many many gelateria and pasticcerias, which are my favorites! These are just ice cream shops and places that sell sweets. Actually most of them also sell alcoholic beverages and coffee as well. I absolutely love ice cream, so I'm loving here where they eat ice cream all the time, even though they're wrapped up in parkas and scarfs. It's been too cold for me to have any the past two weeks. The Italians also like to order several flavors of gelato at once. I have yet to try this as I much prefer to concentrate and enjoy one flavor at a time, but one day I will have to try it. Clay and I usually order two different flavors, and then each try the other's cone. While I like all the flavors I've tried so far, somehow Clay always orders the better one!
In addition to gelato, another favorite of mine is granita. I'm not quite sure what to compare it to in the states, maybe a smoothie. I've only tried it once. For some reason, they think gelato can be eaten year round, but granita is definitely a summer thing. One of the few places that has it right now only has four flavors (they normally have about 20). It's also cold like ice cream, so I'm not quite sure why it's only for the summer, but gelato is OK for the winter. Anyways, both are absolutely wonderful!
I'm not a coffee drinker so I can't comment on the coffee. I have tried one or two cups along the way, and I about have to spit it out. No matter how much sugar or milk is in it, I just don't like that coffee taste. When we go out in the afternoons for coffee, I usually order a ciocolatto, which is kind of like hot chocolate. The quality is hit or miss, really. It's very thick and sometimes has to be eaten with a spoon. From what I can tell it's basically just melted chocolate, so it's way stronger than a hot chocolate back home. Some bars will offer it with latte, and then it's just like hot chocolate back home. But it's the only hot drink I'll get here, so I've tried it at several different places!
Another drink from here is limoncello. It is an after-dinner alcoholic drink. You are only supposed to drink a little, about half of a shot glass. Even that is too much. It is way to strong. The few times I've had it, it honestly tastes like pure liquor with some lemons squeezed into it. Yuck! I did like it once, and that was only because Aurelio had freezed it, so it was more like a slushie. Otherwise, it's troppo forte!!! (too strong).
We do have wine at the table with every meal. The Ferraris drink the same wine every night, and I'm not a huge fan of this particular brand, so I don't drink it a whole lot. Aurelio also waters it down in his glass, which I'm not quite sure why. But the wine I've had in other places has been exceptionally good. They do like to drink their wine!
The fruit here is also amazing. I was never much of a fruit eater, but I eat oranges several days a week because the oranges here are incredible. There are these special oranges, called blood red oranges. They are so sweet and incredibly good. I doubt I'll eat fruit when I return home, though. It just doesn't taste the same.
One other favorite food of mine is arancini. Essentially, they are rice balls. They can also be hit or miss. They take different kind of rice and put various things in it, shape it into a ball, and then bread it and fry it, I believe. All arancini look the same, so sometimes I order one and it's only cosi-cosi (so-so). Other times it's incredible!
Another very interesting thing here is the bottled water phenomenom. I always thought it was ridiculous how much bottled water American drink. I don't see what's wrong with the tap water (except at the beach), so why should we pay money for something we get for free?? Especially when they're practically the same. Well, we've got nothing on the Italians! They don't ever drink from the tap! I'm curious to know how many bottles of water they go through each day. At our dinner table alone, we usually finish off three or four liters! And the trash that generates! On top of that, when you go to a restaurant and order water, it's not any more economical than ordering a coke because you have to pay for bottled water! I'll be glad when I can go back to the states and get free water! I do only buy one water bottle a week, and then I just refill it from the tap, since there's no difference, and the tap water is safe to drink.
As far as my typical meal schedule, I do eat three meals a day. For breakfast, I eat cereal. They aren't big breakfast eaters, and most Italians usually only have coffee and tea with some bread. I think one of the first meals I'll want when I get home is a huge breakfast-for dinner. Clay and I go to the grocery store on Mondays and buy sandwich stuff for lunch to save money. We eat sandwiches, crackers and fruit for lunch. Then on the weekends, we go to pizzerias or restaurants and enjoy a sit-down place. The sandwich lunches are a great idea because I then have enough money for an afternoon snack! Dinner is very late here. We eat dinner at 8 p.m., which is actually early compared to my other friends. Typically the families begin to eat sometime between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., and dinner can last up to two hours, easily.
They are very lax during dinner, and because of the separate courses, we sometimes even have a break between the two. At restaurants, you actually have to flag down the waiter and ask for the bill, because otherwise they'll assume you're hanging around for another hour. There doesn't seem to be the American mentality of pushing people out the door, which I like, but at the same time, the waiter may disappear forever when we're ready to leave!
All in all, I eat pretty well here. I can't tell if I'm gaining weight, losing, or maintaining. My pants are looser, but that's probably because they haven't seen the inside of a dryer in awhile. I walk a lot, but then again, I eat a lot, and the things I eat are pasta and sweets. I'm going to guess I'm evening out! We actually have a scale in our bathroom, but it's in kilograms, so of course I think I'm lost weight!
I'm sure I'll think of more stuff later, so I'll add it in another blog. Enjoy your weekend! We don't have any big plans as I still feel a little under the weather, and I think it's best to rest this weekend. We may head into Messina or Catania on Sunday for some shopping and a nice lunch. We'll see. Until then, Ciao!
First, though, I have to let you know that we're having a problem with our Internet, which is why there are still no pictures uploaded to dropshots of Palermo. We also have two computers out of use (out of four), and they haven't been fixed since I got here, so I'm doubting the Internet will be fixed either. But, let's cross our fingers and hope that I can upload some pictures next week! :) If not, I guess I'll have to improve my writing skills and describe the sites in more detail.
So on to food. I'm very fortunate in that I live with Aurelio, who is an excellent cook! In fact, the school offers private cooking lessons (for a bunch of money) to students, and Aurelio is the teacher! We've only had three weeks of students at our house, cooking our dinner, and no worries - while they are students, Aurelio is always in command, so we don't end up with burned stuff! When we have the students at our house, we have longer meals, and more traditional Sicilian dishes; however, Aurelio teaches all the students the same dishes, usually, so for the first three weeks, I had only tasted about 10 different things total because we kept eating the same dishes (although they were all excellent). At the house, meals are similar to those back in America in some ways. For instance, while the food is good, it's not like I'm eating a 5 star meal every night. It's just like how back in the states you don't typically cook oustanding meals every single night. Some nights you have leftovers, some nights you cook something easier, and some nights you might go all out. It's the same here. We have some melt-in-you-mouth dishes maybe 2 times a week. The other days are reserved for leftovers and simpler things that are good, but not fall out of your chair good.
In a traditional Italian meal, there are several courses. The first course is always pasta (or sometimes risotto). Thankfully, I absolutely love pasta. Aurelio likes to pile my plate high with pasta, and I usually have to remember to save room for the other dishes. Once everyone is finished with the prima piatto (first course, or literally first plate), then we move on to the meat (carne) and side dishes (contorni - which I will never again confuse with the bill). When I first arrived, there were other American students staying with the Ferraris, and the three of us would put everything on our plate at once. Aurelio would always say that we Americans ruin his food by mixing everything together. Now, they usually keep the meat off the table and in the stove to stay warm, and I've adapted to eating only one thing at a time. I have discovered one negative about the two separate dishes. With the second course safely tucked away somewhere, I never know what dish is coming up, which makes it difficult to know whether I'm going to want more pasta or not. While are the dishes are good, there are some nights with really outstanding pasta or really outstanding carne. But because I don't know which is going to better, I can't fill up on thing. There have been several nights when I ate plenty of pasta, only to discover something better came out later! :(
That's a typical meal at the house. Restaurants operate the same way, but they are used to tourists coming in and only ordering one course, especially for lunch. It's not common to eat a huge lunch, so it's not weird at all to only order a pizza, a salad or just pasta for lunch. There are several different kinds of eating establishments here. There's a "hot table," which often doesn't have tables. Usually you walk up and order something from the display cases, and they'll heat it up for you (if it's not already warm). Then there are pizzerias and ristorantes, where you actually sit down and order. Interestingly enough, there isn't much different in the atmosphere between a really nice restaurant and a normal restaurant (of course, I haven't exactly gone into a really really nice restaurant). But, when I've gone to the pizzerias before, they've had nice tablecloths, cloth napkins, lots of silverware, two glasses, etc. The set-up looks about like a place back in the states where I would pay $15 to $20 just for an entree, but in reality, I'm only ordering a pizza for about 6 euro.
In the restaurants here, you don't tip, but a lot of resaurants include a "cover charge," which is often equal to what a tip would be back in the states. One thing that I really like about the restaurants here is that they post the menus outside. So before we enter somewhere and get stuck spending a bunch of money, we can see the menu and prices. One interesting thing about the restaurants is that the food often doesn't come out at the same time. If you're just dining with two people, then chances are good you'll start eating together. In groups larger than that, though, the food comes out whenever. In fact, I've gotten my food about 30 minutes before someone else did. Because of this, it's normal to begin eating when you've received your food, instead of waiting for everyone else. If you wait, your food may be cold. At the house, as well, we usually eat once Aurelio and Angela tell us to, even though they haven't sat down yet to eat. This was a bit hard to adjust to at first, as I always thought I was being rude by not waiting. But now I know it's more a practical thing than anything.
There are also cafes and bars, and they are very different from American bars. In a bar here, you can walk in and get an alcoholic drink, a coffee, a hot cholocate, and usually some sort of sweet snack. The bars are open from lunchtime to evening (but of course closed usually between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.). And the people here drink at any hour of the day. Another weird thing about the bars is that most people don't sit down at them, especially in the morning if they just want an espresso. They'll come in and order a drink, and then just stand at the bar, drink it, then leave. Many bars actually charge more if you sit down, so you have to be careful for the hidden charges!
There are also many many gelateria and pasticcerias, which are my favorites! These are just ice cream shops and places that sell sweets. Actually most of them also sell alcoholic beverages and coffee as well. I absolutely love ice cream, so I'm loving here where they eat ice cream all the time, even though they're wrapped up in parkas and scarfs. It's been too cold for me to have any the past two weeks. The Italians also like to order several flavors of gelato at once. I have yet to try this as I much prefer to concentrate and enjoy one flavor at a time, but one day I will have to try it. Clay and I usually order two different flavors, and then each try the other's cone. While I like all the flavors I've tried so far, somehow Clay always orders the better one!
In addition to gelato, another favorite of mine is granita. I'm not quite sure what to compare it to in the states, maybe a smoothie. I've only tried it once. For some reason, they think gelato can be eaten year round, but granita is definitely a summer thing. One of the few places that has it right now only has four flavors (they normally have about 20). It's also cold like ice cream, so I'm not quite sure why it's only for the summer, but gelato is OK for the winter. Anyways, both are absolutely wonderful!
I'm not a coffee drinker so I can't comment on the coffee. I have tried one or two cups along the way, and I about have to spit it out. No matter how much sugar or milk is in it, I just don't like that coffee taste. When we go out in the afternoons for coffee, I usually order a ciocolatto, which is kind of like hot chocolate. The quality is hit or miss, really. It's very thick and sometimes has to be eaten with a spoon. From what I can tell it's basically just melted chocolate, so it's way stronger than a hot chocolate back home. Some bars will offer it with latte, and then it's just like hot chocolate back home. But it's the only hot drink I'll get here, so I've tried it at several different places!
Another drink from here is limoncello. It is an after-dinner alcoholic drink. You are only supposed to drink a little, about half of a shot glass. Even that is too much. It is way to strong. The few times I've had it, it honestly tastes like pure liquor with some lemons squeezed into it. Yuck! I did like it once, and that was only because Aurelio had freezed it, so it was more like a slushie. Otherwise, it's troppo forte!!! (too strong).
We do have wine at the table with every meal. The Ferraris drink the same wine every night, and I'm not a huge fan of this particular brand, so I don't drink it a whole lot. Aurelio also waters it down in his glass, which I'm not quite sure why. But the wine I've had in other places has been exceptionally good. They do like to drink their wine!
The fruit here is also amazing. I was never much of a fruit eater, but I eat oranges several days a week because the oranges here are incredible. There are these special oranges, called blood red oranges. They are so sweet and incredibly good. I doubt I'll eat fruit when I return home, though. It just doesn't taste the same.
One other favorite food of mine is arancini. Essentially, they are rice balls. They can also be hit or miss. They take different kind of rice and put various things in it, shape it into a ball, and then bread it and fry it, I believe. All arancini look the same, so sometimes I order one and it's only cosi-cosi (so-so). Other times it's incredible!
Another very interesting thing here is the bottled water phenomenom. I always thought it was ridiculous how much bottled water American drink. I don't see what's wrong with the tap water (except at the beach), so why should we pay money for something we get for free?? Especially when they're practically the same. Well, we've got nothing on the Italians! They don't ever drink from the tap! I'm curious to know how many bottles of water they go through each day. At our dinner table alone, we usually finish off three or four liters! And the trash that generates! On top of that, when you go to a restaurant and order water, it's not any more economical than ordering a coke because you have to pay for bottled water! I'll be glad when I can go back to the states and get free water! I do only buy one water bottle a week, and then I just refill it from the tap, since there's no difference, and the tap water is safe to drink.
As far as my typical meal schedule, I do eat three meals a day. For breakfast, I eat cereal. They aren't big breakfast eaters, and most Italians usually only have coffee and tea with some bread. I think one of the first meals I'll want when I get home is a huge breakfast-for dinner. Clay and I go to the grocery store on Mondays and buy sandwich stuff for lunch to save money. We eat sandwiches, crackers and fruit for lunch. Then on the weekends, we go to pizzerias or restaurants and enjoy a sit-down place. The sandwich lunches are a great idea because I then have enough money for an afternoon snack! Dinner is very late here. We eat dinner at 8 p.m., which is actually early compared to my other friends. Typically the families begin to eat sometime between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., and dinner can last up to two hours, easily.
They are very lax during dinner, and because of the separate courses, we sometimes even have a break between the two. At restaurants, you actually have to flag down the waiter and ask for the bill, because otherwise they'll assume you're hanging around for another hour. There doesn't seem to be the American mentality of pushing people out the door, which I like, but at the same time, the waiter may disappear forever when we're ready to leave!
All in all, I eat pretty well here. I can't tell if I'm gaining weight, losing, or maintaining. My pants are looser, but that's probably because they haven't seen the inside of a dryer in awhile. I walk a lot, but then again, I eat a lot, and the things I eat are pasta and sweets. I'm going to guess I'm evening out! We actually have a scale in our bathroom, but it's in kilograms, so of course I think I'm lost weight!
I'm sure I'll think of more stuff later, so I'll add it in another blog. Enjoy your weekend! We don't have any big plans as I still feel a little under the weather, and I think it's best to rest this weekend. We may head into Messina or Catania on Sunday for some shopping and a nice lunch. We'll see. Until then, Ciao!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
This Ain't No MARTA
Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! Valentine's doesn't seem to be a huge thing here. I haven't seen too many commercials, signs or sales for it. Then again, I haven't walked into a Wal-Mart lately either. I intended to write this blog on Tuesday, and it's already Thursday! I skipped my second lesson yesterday and went back to the house because I felt really sick. It's just a cold, but I couldn't concentrate and just wanted to sleep, which I did all day. Angela was incredibly sweet and kept me bringing me things - tea, an apple, juice, etc. She also kept asking me if I had a fever, and then she'd put her hand on my forehead. I guess some maternal habits are picked up all over the world. Anyways, I feel much better today, although I sound pretty gross, and I wanted to share my thoughts on transportation before I forgot everything!
As I alluded to in Tuesday's blog, we had a few surprises with our travelling efforts last weekend in Palermo. I'll start with the train system. I absolutely love riding the trains - perhaps because it's such a novel thing. Before this weekend we had ridden the train a few times before without any problems (minus the getting lost on the way to the train station in Acireale). We hopped the train in Taormina with no problem, and we knew we had to change trains in Messina. When we got to Messina, the train was 45 minutes late. Until then I was under the belief that the trains were always on time (unlike the buses, which are always late). We figured out which platform we needed to be at, and the longest train I've ever seen pulled up to it. Some of the cars were sleeper cars, and some of the cars had a sign that said "Siracusa" in the window. Something didn't feel right . . . In our defense, even some Italians looked a little confused and were asking questions. Apparently, for long distances, cars are attached together, and half of the cars will be left in one place. In this instance, the train dropped off some cars to go to Palermo, while the first half of the train kept going to Siracusa. This is obviously very tricky. Not only do you have to get on the right train - you have to get on the right part of the train!! We're very lucky we didn't end up heading to Siracusa.
Another tricky thing about the trains is the "destination." On the way to Palermo, Palermo was the destination of both the train and our ticket. This means we had bought a ticket to Palermo, and the train's last stop was in Palermo. If you buy a ticket for one of the smaller cities, chances are you're on a train headed to a larger city that will stop briefly in a smaller station. So, you have to know your geography. On the return trip, we had a ticket from Palermo to Taormina, with a change in Messina. We assumed that since both Palermo and Messina were large cities, the train would be headed to Messina. On Sunday, an hour before the train was set to leave Palermo, we started looking at the screens to see which platform the train headed to Messina was on. There was no train headed to Messina, which of course led to a moment of panic. We then started looking around to see which train would logically be stopping in Messina (which is on the other side of Sicily). The only train leaving at 15:00, when our ticket said the train was leaving, was a train to Milan! We decided this made sense as a train to Milan would have to cross Sicily and stop in Messina. So we got on that train (after figuring which cars were the sleeper cars). And once in Messina, we actually got on the train to Catania, which meant that we had to pay close attention and make sure we got off in Taormina. The train only stops for about 2 minutes at the smaller stops, so you have to know when to get off, which is really difficult in the dark, even at the Taormina station which we know well.
The NEXT tricky thing about the trains is ticket validation. This actually isn't a difficult concept, but we always have to make sure we remember to do it. Once you purchase a ticket, which we usually do from a self-service machine, you must "validate" it, which means you stick the ticket back in the machine and it stamps it to let the train folks know when you bought it (which is really silly since the time and date of purchase are usually printed on the ticket). Anyways, when you buy a train ticket, it is actually good for I believe up to 30 days of the purchase, which is helpful in case you miss the train you were supposed to catch. If you forget to validate the ticket, however, you receive a huge fine. Coming back from Acireale, we actually forgot to validate the ticket. We ran back to the machine to do it, but couldn't find the slot (it was actually taped off). We got lucky though because they never checked our ticket on that trip.
There are several types of trains. The newer ones have larger seats with more leg room. Usually the seats are grouped into fours, so typically your leg is right up against someone else's. This can be quite awkward if that someone else is a complete stranger. There are also trains with individual compartments and about six seats in each compartment. On the way back from Palermo, Clay and I had an entire compartment to ourselves, which was nice. We like the compartment trains best because they remind us of Harry Potter. We half expect the snack cart to come rolling by any minute.
With the busier, fuller trains, it is sometimes difficult to find a seat. The Sicilians don't form lines ever (I'll probably do a whole blog on this amazing phenomenon sometime), so when the train arrives, everyone runs up to a door and shoves onto the train. And from there, it's just mass chaos. You can actually reserve a specific seat, which we accidentally did on the train back from Palermo. It's an extra charge, so no one ever does it, but we didn't understand what the machine was saying, so we accidentally saved ourselves a seat on the practically deserted train. Oh well. Live and learn.
There is also smoking in many of the trains. And even the trains that say no smoking have smokers in it. Probably the scariest thing about the trains is the ticket guys. They always look big and mean, and I get the impression theirs is not a fun job. On the way to Palermo, an Asian man had gotten on with a ticket to Catania. He didn't speak much Italian, but the ticket guy kept yelling at him in Italian. I'm not quite sure how the guy got confused - Palermo is the opposite direction of Catania - but I felt bad for him still. I realized that could easily have been us at any point. Usually the ticket guys come in and yell "BIGLIETTI", which is tickets. On the way back from Palermo, the ticket guy came through and told me to take my feet off the seat in front of me because my shoes were dirty. I did, but if I knew Italian I would've told him that the seat was way dirtier than my shoes were (it was an older train and everything had a brown tint to it). I think he just wanted to complain or be mean about something. Anyways, forgetting to validate a ticket or getting on the wrong train doesn't go over too well with these guys, so hopefully we never mess up!
No onto the buses! The only buses I had taken until this weekend were to and from places, not inside a city, if that makes sense. I think the buses are even more confusing than the trains to be honest. First off, they are never on time. I think I've left once on time. Second, they have a million stops, none of which are marked, so again, you have to know where to get off, which is difficult if you're headed to a city you've never been to before. Usually we just get off when everyone else gets off as that's a good sign the bus is done traveling. Or we eavesdrop and figure out where other people are going and then get off with the people headed to same place as us. The Catania bus stop actually makes a lot of sense. They have designated slots where the buses pull in, so you know when to get off, and you know which bus to get on.
Buses sometimes take longer because at smaller stops, there isn't a ticket office, so passengers pay the driver. So we have to wait for the driver to make change, etc.
Palermo was the first time we had ridden a bus in a city, and it was extremely confusing! We figured out which bus to get on and how to change buses after I asked the ticket guy. On buses within the city, you also have to validate the ticket like you would on a train. After we bought the tickets, we validated them, and then hopped on the bus. We changed buses just fine and made it to Monreale. They never once took our tickets, so we thought, well, we'll just go back on the same tickets! We got lucky, because it doesn't really work that way, but they never checked our tickets on the way back either. We finally saw a sign on the bus, and we had a bought a ticket for a specified amount of time (ours was for 2 hours). We then validated the ticket, and at that moment, the two hours began. If anyone had bothered to check our tickets for the ride back from Monreale, they would've seen that our tickets were no longer good (although we thought they were for the longest time). We were lucky, though, as the bus was crowded and the guy didn't seem too interested in checking tickets, and I'm guessing they never check tickets on the bus as it would be mass confusion and a waste of time. In Palermo, there is the driver and then a serviceman, so as soon as you get on the bus, you can buy your ticket from the serviceman, and then validate it on one of the machines on the bus. But, the bus has three doors, so you can climb on in the back, and if the bus is crowded, the serviceman would never notice. In fact, four teenagers climbed on through the back door, and they never bought a ticket. Even if the serviceman sees you, there's a good chance you have a valid ticket from earlier. Still, it was nervewracking when I realized halfway through the trip that we didn't have a valid ticket.
Anyways, that's the transportation here. I'm sure it makes more sense to people who live here, and I really wish we had more public transportation back in the states as it's a lot easier (minus the validation part). And I'm sure I'll be confused with transportation again once I head up to North Italy. :) This was probably a boring blog for most of you, so I'll try to think of something more interesting for tomorrow. A domani!
As I alluded to in Tuesday's blog, we had a few surprises with our travelling efforts last weekend in Palermo. I'll start with the train system. I absolutely love riding the trains - perhaps because it's such a novel thing. Before this weekend we had ridden the train a few times before without any problems (minus the getting lost on the way to the train station in Acireale). We hopped the train in Taormina with no problem, and we knew we had to change trains in Messina. When we got to Messina, the train was 45 minutes late. Until then I was under the belief that the trains were always on time (unlike the buses, which are always late). We figured out which platform we needed to be at, and the longest train I've ever seen pulled up to it. Some of the cars were sleeper cars, and some of the cars had a sign that said "Siracusa" in the window. Something didn't feel right . . . In our defense, even some Italians looked a little confused and were asking questions. Apparently, for long distances, cars are attached together, and half of the cars will be left in one place. In this instance, the train dropped off some cars to go to Palermo, while the first half of the train kept going to Siracusa. This is obviously very tricky. Not only do you have to get on the right train - you have to get on the right part of the train!! We're very lucky we didn't end up heading to Siracusa.
Another tricky thing about the trains is the "destination." On the way to Palermo, Palermo was the destination of both the train and our ticket. This means we had bought a ticket to Palermo, and the train's last stop was in Palermo. If you buy a ticket for one of the smaller cities, chances are you're on a train headed to a larger city that will stop briefly in a smaller station. So, you have to know your geography. On the return trip, we had a ticket from Palermo to Taormina, with a change in Messina. We assumed that since both Palermo and Messina were large cities, the train would be headed to Messina. On Sunday, an hour before the train was set to leave Palermo, we started looking at the screens to see which platform the train headed to Messina was on. There was no train headed to Messina, which of course led to a moment of panic. We then started looking around to see which train would logically be stopping in Messina (which is on the other side of Sicily). The only train leaving at 15:00, when our ticket said the train was leaving, was a train to Milan! We decided this made sense as a train to Milan would have to cross Sicily and stop in Messina. So we got on that train (after figuring which cars were the sleeper cars). And once in Messina, we actually got on the train to Catania, which meant that we had to pay close attention and make sure we got off in Taormina. The train only stops for about 2 minutes at the smaller stops, so you have to know when to get off, which is really difficult in the dark, even at the Taormina station which we know well.
The NEXT tricky thing about the trains is ticket validation. This actually isn't a difficult concept, but we always have to make sure we remember to do it. Once you purchase a ticket, which we usually do from a self-service machine, you must "validate" it, which means you stick the ticket back in the machine and it stamps it to let the train folks know when you bought it (which is really silly since the time and date of purchase are usually printed on the ticket). Anyways, when you buy a train ticket, it is actually good for I believe up to 30 days of the purchase, which is helpful in case you miss the train you were supposed to catch. If you forget to validate the ticket, however, you receive a huge fine. Coming back from Acireale, we actually forgot to validate the ticket. We ran back to the machine to do it, but couldn't find the slot (it was actually taped off). We got lucky though because they never checked our ticket on that trip.
There are several types of trains. The newer ones have larger seats with more leg room. Usually the seats are grouped into fours, so typically your leg is right up against someone else's. This can be quite awkward if that someone else is a complete stranger. There are also trains with individual compartments and about six seats in each compartment. On the way back from Palermo, Clay and I had an entire compartment to ourselves, which was nice. We like the compartment trains best because they remind us of Harry Potter. We half expect the snack cart to come rolling by any minute.
With the busier, fuller trains, it is sometimes difficult to find a seat. The Sicilians don't form lines ever (I'll probably do a whole blog on this amazing phenomenon sometime), so when the train arrives, everyone runs up to a door and shoves onto the train. And from there, it's just mass chaos. You can actually reserve a specific seat, which we accidentally did on the train back from Palermo. It's an extra charge, so no one ever does it, but we didn't understand what the machine was saying, so we accidentally saved ourselves a seat on the practically deserted train. Oh well. Live and learn.
There is also smoking in many of the trains. And even the trains that say no smoking have smokers in it. Probably the scariest thing about the trains is the ticket guys. They always look big and mean, and I get the impression theirs is not a fun job. On the way to Palermo, an Asian man had gotten on with a ticket to Catania. He didn't speak much Italian, but the ticket guy kept yelling at him in Italian. I'm not quite sure how the guy got confused - Palermo is the opposite direction of Catania - but I felt bad for him still. I realized that could easily have been us at any point. Usually the ticket guys come in and yell "BIGLIETTI", which is tickets. On the way back from Palermo, the ticket guy came through and told me to take my feet off the seat in front of me because my shoes were dirty. I did, but if I knew Italian I would've told him that the seat was way dirtier than my shoes were (it was an older train and everything had a brown tint to it). I think he just wanted to complain or be mean about something. Anyways, forgetting to validate a ticket or getting on the wrong train doesn't go over too well with these guys, so hopefully we never mess up!
No onto the buses! The only buses I had taken until this weekend were to and from places, not inside a city, if that makes sense. I think the buses are even more confusing than the trains to be honest. First off, they are never on time. I think I've left once on time. Second, they have a million stops, none of which are marked, so again, you have to know where to get off, which is difficult if you're headed to a city you've never been to before. Usually we just get off when everyone else gets off as that's a good sign the bus is done traveling. Or we eavesdrop and figure out where other people are going and then get off with the people headed to same place as us. The Catania bus stop actually makes a lot of sense. They have designated slots where the buses pull in, so you know when to get off, and you know which bus to get on.
Buses sometimes take longer because at smaller stops, there isn't a ticket office, so passengers pay the driver. So we have to wait for the driver to make change, etc.
Palermo was the first time we had ridden a bus in a city, and it was extremely confusing! We figured out which bus to get on and how to change buses after I asked the ticket guy. On buses within the city, you also have to validate the ticket like you would on a train. After we bought the tickets, we validated them, and then hopped on the bus. We changed buses just fine and made it to Monreale. They never once took our tickets, so we thought, well, we'll just go back on the same tickets! We got lucky, because it doesn't really work that way, but they never checked our tickets on the way back either. We finally saw a sign on the bus, and we had a bought a ticket for a specified amount of time (ours was for 2 hours). We then validated the ticket, and at that moment, the two hours began. If anyone had bothered to check our tickets for the ride back from Monreale, they would've seen that our tickets were no longer good (although we thought they were for the longest time). We were lucky, though, as the bus was crowded and the guy didn't seem too interested in checking tickets, and I'm guessing they never check tickets on the bus as it would be mass confusion and a waste of time. In Palermo, there is the driver and then a serviceman, so as soon as you get on the bus, you can buy your ticket from the serviceman, and then validate it on one of the machines on the bus. But, the bus has three doors, so you can climb on in the back, and if the bus is crowded, the serviceman would never notice. In fact, four teenagers climbed on through the back door, and they never bought a ticket. Even if the serviceman sees you, there's a good chance you have a valid ticket from earlier. Still, it was nervewracking when I realized halfway through the trip that we didn't have a valid ticket.
Anyways, that's the transportation here. I'm sure it makes more sense to people who live here, and I really wish we had more public transportation back in the states as it's a lot easier (minus the validation part). And I'm sure I'll be confused with transportation again once I head up to North Italy. :) This was probably a boring blog for most of you, so I'll try to think of something more interesting for tomorrow. A domani!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Weekend trip to Palermo
Ciao tutti!
I apologize for the lack of posting yesterday. I know you were all wondering if I got kidnapped by the Mafia in Palermo. No - I didn't even see the Mafia (the point is not to know who is a mafioso, so you're not supposed to see them). The school had an impromptu film showing yesterday, so the computer room was occupied.
I must begin by bragging a bit. Clay and I headed to Palermo by ourselves. We had no one with us who spoke fluent Italian, which is a first for an entire weekend trip. Yet we managed to survive! We left Saturday morning at 6:15 a.m. to walk down the steps and catch the train to Palermo. When I told the Ferraris we were taking the train, I was informed that the bus would've been faster. Oh well. Live and learn. The train left at 7 a.m., but we then had to catch a connecting train in Messina. The connecting train was late, and there was some confusion. Based on our experiences this weekend, I have decided to dedicate tomorrow's blog to everything transportation. So, I will hold off explaining this until later.
We finally arrived in Palermo at 12:45 p.m. We really had to use the bathroom (I'm not quite sure why we didn't go on the 5 hour train ride), and we were starved. We headed off to find a quick hot table with a bathroom. We finally found a hot table, but without a bathroom, so we ate quickly. Then headed back to the train station to use the bathroom. You might be wondering now why we didn't go while we were at the train station. Well, good question. The cities here are great at ripping people off, and in order to use the bathroom at most train stations, you must pay. Yes, you read that right - you must pay to use the restroom. At the Messina station, you pay .50 euro. But Palermo makes you pay a whole euro. By the end of the weekend I had wasted about 3 euro to use the bathrooms.
After all the bathroom/eating/late train situations, it was about 1:30 p.m. We had initially thought we would stay in Palermo for the day and return late at night. At this point, though, I realized that we would need to stay the night. We then bought a bus ticket for Monreale, the first must-see sight in Palermo. It had been recommended to us by several people. I'm actually very surprised we made it up there, considering I wasn't entirely sure what the ticket guy told me about changing buses and where. Still, we got up there.
I believe Monreale is technically a separate town from Palermo, but it's only about 10 minutes away by bus. The biggest attraction there is the cathedral. Most of the Cathedral has been rebuilt over time, but some of it remains intact from when it was first built, which was around 1170. To learn more about it, you visit Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monreale. I have been sending folks to Wikipedia since there's a good chance it's not always completely accurate. But I know I can get a link there, and if you want to do more research on your own, you can. Anyways, it is my understanding that the interior architecture and art in the Cathedral is still intact, which means that what I saw was made back around 1200!! The interior is absolutely gorgeous, and I will upload pictures to dropshots.com/sebrock for everyone to enjoy!
Let me back up here for a minute, though. When we got off the bus in Monreale, we first went into the door that seemed to be the obvious entrance. It had a sign (that we didn't stop to read), and the door was open. Turns out this place was really an art museum. Through the windows, we kept seeing people in the courtyard of the church, but we couldn't figure out how to get down there. We finally left the deserted museum, and on the way out, read the sign that said the building was an art museum. We then walked around the entire church looking for the entrance. There was the large gate, but it was closed. We found a walkway into a courtyard, but from there, we couldn't get into the courtyard we had seen from the museum. On our second time around, we noticed some confused Asian tourists who had found a small door in the corner between the church and the museum. Turns out, this is where we had to buy tickets. With our tickets we went into the courtyard and walked around. It was neat, but from there, we couldn't find any door to get inside. We figured out the church must be closed off to the public. At this point, we were really disappointed. Not only had we been ripped off at the bus station, but we had now paid 6 euro to walk around a dumb courtyard.
We went back outside and decided to catch the bus back. Outside there were a ton of people in the square, and we soon realized why - the church opened in 10 minutes! So we could get inside, and in fact, that's what our tickets were for! We were very thankful we hadn't given up any of the million times we thought for sure there was no entrance or way to get inside. But, the inside was well worth the trouble! The interior is decorated incredibly. I honestly can't even begin to describe how gorgeous everything was. Hopefully the pictures look good enough.
A guy was playing the organ while we were in there, and the music was gorgeous. After snapping lots of pictures, we just sat and enjoyed the music for awhile. I should also note another way they rip people off here. The church is dark inside, and while there are windows, it was an overcast day, so it was difficult to get pictures. After we had been inside for about 10 minutes, I noticed some lights come on in different parts of the Cathedral, but only for a few minutes. As it turns out, you can put one euro into a machine to light up different areas of the church for three minutes. So once you get in, you can't even get pictures unless you pay more! Or, you can wait for other people to put in money, which is what we did. Anyways, that's a total rip off if you ask me.
After enjoying the church, we left and waited at what we thought was the bus stop. We then found the real bus stop. But after waiting there for another 15 minutes, I finally noticed the large sign that said the bus doesn't stop there after a certain time. A nice man came and told us where it picked up and took us down there. We then rode the bus back (possibly for free due to our confusion, which I will explain in tomorrow's transportation blog).
At this point, it was about 5:15 p.m. We had hardly seen anything in the city, but we didn't have a reservation anywhere. I had thankfully written down the names of a few cheap hotels. We decided to try two or three, and if we couldn't find an affordable room, we'd catch the last train back to Taormina, which left at 6:30. Without much time, we booked it to the first hotel on the list. We walked in and I asked for a double room in Italian, or so I thought. He looked at me funny, and then I just took out all the words except double room (which actually means room with two beds). The man made me feel real stupid then when in perfect English he said, "Oh, you must be looking for a room." No, really?? Why else would I have walked into your hotel?? To chit-chat?? Anyways, I know my Italian is bad, but seriously, he had to have understood at least something. He obviously didn't care much about letting me practice, though, as he just spoke to us in English. He offered us a room for exactly the price Clay and I had agreed would be our maximum. After we agreed to the room, we saw the floor plan and realized we had the largest room, and the only one with a private bathroom. We could have found another room with a shared bathroom for cheaper, but it was too late. Oh well, our room was fine. It was a one-star hotel, but it wasn't too bad, and there was a futon and a bed. It was off of a main road, though, so we didn't sleep well with all the noise (my room back here in Taormina seems incredibly peaceful now after the streets of Palermo).
After a successful day navigating the city and finding the hotel, we decided to treat ourselves to a sit-down dinner. We found a real cute restaurant near the hotel, so we stopped there to eat. Normally when I head into a situation where I know I'll need Italian, I practice the question ahead of time, but I forgot to get my words ready before we walked in, so when we got there, I just stared at the waiter. I naturally assumed they would ask if we wanted to sit down, but instead they stared back. Again, I wanted to say - why do you think we're here?? To get a haircut?? Anyways, Clay and I started stuttering to figure out what we wanted to say, and then again, I was made to feel stupid when the host/waiter started speaking in slow English to us while using "sign language." I wanted to tell him I wasn't deaf, but I didn't know that word in Italian. Oh well. I suppose I can't expect everyone to be patient and let me practice my Italian on them. Some people are busy and just don't have the time, so I suppose it's quicker for them to speak in English. I hear we'll run into this a lot when we head to Venice, Florence and Rome. I should also mention that twice now when someone realizes I'm not Italian, they ask if I'm French. Not quite sure why, and I've never met someone whose French, so I don't even know if I look French.
Anyways, dinner was absolutely fantastic. The rain had held off all day, but it finally came pouring down during dinner. We actually ate outside, but it was covered, so we got to enjoy the rain instead of getting soaked. After an early start to the day, I was exhausted, so we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep (in my clothes as I hadn't brought anything to stay the night).
We got up the next morning and headed to the Catacombs. This was quite an interesting experience to say the least. Apparently the Capuchin monastery outgrew the cemetery around the 16th century, so in order to accommodate the dead friars, they excavated below and stuck them down in the Catacombs. Then, people who weren't church officials were buried there as a sort of status symbol. Anyways, there's loads of dead people down there, and about half of them aren't in coffins or anything. So we walk down, and what do a I see? Thousands of decomposed bodies hanging on the wall. The clothes were really well preserved, and a few of the bodies actually still had skin on them that had somehow managed to preserve really well. Their faces were definitely creepy though. Even though it was just skulls, they all had different expressions. Some of them even looked afraid, or sad, as if maybe they knew they were about to die. Or maybe it's just creepy because I was walking around in a crypt. Anyways, I really wanted to take some pictures (at first), but I wasn't supposed to. There were signs every few feet asking that you not take pictures because it was a sacred place that should be respected. I had a problem believing this, mainly because the folks in charge of the Catacombs had clearly moved the bodies, and propped them up for display. And now they let people just walk through and stare at them, so how sacred could it be? I think the main reason they don't want you to take pictures is because when you finish, the friar tries to sell you brochures with pictures on it. Since there were security cameras, I couldn't snap even one photo, and in hindsight, I'm not quite sure I want a bunch of pictures of decomposed bodies. Interestingly enough, there wasn't a single sign that said "Don't touch," and most of the bodies weren't in boxes or behind glass, so if I wanted, I could have touched one. No worries, I did not once have the desire to touch one of the bodies.
After the catacombs, we walked around the city. Palermo reminded me a lot of Atlanta, except with more dog poop and less homeless people. But the feel of the city, the noise, the buildings and cars all had the same feel as Atlanta. After walking down to the port, we decided we were ready to head back to Taormina, so we headed to the train station. Unfortunately, it was only noon, and the next train didn't leave until 3 p.m. We sat and ate for awhile, and then we just played Sicilian cards to fill the time until the train arrived. A man near us saw us playing Italian cards, and gave us the thumbs-up sign, which we thought was cool.
There was more mass confusion to get on the 3 p.m. train, which again I'll explain later. The ride home was nice, though, as I got to see much of the landscape that I had missed on Saturday because I was sleeping :) Our train was late getting into Taormina, and we met up with some other students at the bus stop. We decided to split the cost of the taxi, especially since I was already late for dinner at this point, and my phone wouldn't put me through to the Ferraris.
It was a whirlwind trip, but I absolutely loved it. I bet Palermo is a fun city to live in. There seemed to be tons to do and see. Plus, the stores are way cheaper than Taormina.
Back at the Ferraris, we have a full house! Two English boys moved in while I was gone. They are 17 years old, and while they are very very nice, they really make me appreciate my little sister. Hannah can be messy, yes, but she's never once left the toilet seat up! Last night, a Japanese woman moved in as well, so there are now four of us on my floor, and Gerhard is downstairs in the private room, so that makes five us all together. The English boys and Japanese woman leave this weekend, so peace and quiet will return to the Ferrari house next week. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the chaos!
Ok, this is long enough. A domani!
I apologize for the lack of posting yesterday. I know you were all wondering if I got kidnapped by the Mafia in Palermo. No - I didn't even see the Mafia (the point is not to know who is a mafioso, so you're not supposed to see them). The school had an impromptu film showing yesterday, so the computer room was occupied.
I must begin by bragging a bit. Clay and I headed to Palermo by ourselves. We had no one with us who spoke fluent Italian, which is a first for an entire weekend trip. Yet we managed to survive! We left Saturday morning at 6:15 a.m. to walk down the steps and catch the train to Palermo. When I told the Ferraris we were taking the train, I was informed that the bus would've been faster. Oh well. Live and learn. The train left at 7 a.m., but we then had to catch a connecting train in Messina. The connecting train was late, and there was some confusion. Based on our experiences this weekend, I have decided to dedicate tomorrow's blog to everything transportation. So, I will hold off explaining this until later.
We finally arrived in Palermo at 12:45 p.m. We really had to use the bathroom (I'm not quite sure why we didn't go on the 5 hour train ride), and we were starved. We headed off to find a quick hot table with a bathroom. We finally found a hot table, but without a bathroom, so we ate quickly. Then headed back to the train station to use the bathroom. You might be wondering now why we didn't go while we were at the train station. Well, good question. The cities here are great at ripping people off, and in order to use the bathroom at most train stations, you must pay. Yes, you read that right - you must pay to use the restroom. At the Messina station, you pay .50 euro. But Palermo makes you pay a whole euro. By the end of the weekend I had wasted about 3 euro to use the bathrooms.
After all the bathroom/eating/late train situations, it was about 1:30 p.m. We had initially thought we would stay in Palermo for the day and return late at night. At this point, though, I realized that we would need to stay the night. We then bought a bus ticket for Monreale, the first must-see sight in Palermo. It had been recommended to us by several people. I'm actually very surprised we made it up there, considering I wasn't entirely sure what the ticket guy told me about changing buses and where. Still, we got up there.
I believe Monreale is technically a separate town from Palermo, but it's only about 10 minutes away by bus. The biggest attraction there is the cathedral. Most of the Cathedral has been rebuilt over time, but some of it remains intact from when it was first built, which was around 1170. To learn more about it, you visit Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monreale. I have been sending folks to Wikipedia since there's a good chance it's not always completely accurate. But I know I can get a link there, and if you want to do more research on your own, you can. Anyways, it is my understanding that the interior architecture and art in the Cathedral is still intact, which means that what I saw was made back around 1200!! The interior is absolutely gorgeous, and I will upload pictures to dropshots.com/sebrock for everyone to enjoy!
Let me back up here for a minute, though. When we got off the bus in Monreale, we first went into the door that seemed to be the obvious entrance. It had a sign (that we didn't stop to read), and the door was open. Turns out this place was really an art museum. Through the windows, we kept seeing people in the courtyard of the church, but we couldn't figure out how to get down there. We finally left the deserted museum, and on the way out, read the sign that said the building was an art museum. We then walked around the entire church looking for the entrance. There was the large gate, but it was closed. We found a walkway into a courtyard, but from there, we couldn't get into the courtyard we had seen from the museum. On our second time around, we noticed some confused Asian tourists who had found a small door in the corner between the church and the museum. Turns out, this is where we had to buy tickets. With our tickets we went into the courtyard and walked around. It was neat, but from there, we couldn't find any door to get inside. We figured out the church must be closed off to the public. At this point, we were really disappointed. Not only had we been ripped off at the bus station, but we had now paid 6 euro to walk around a dumb courtyard.
We went back outside and decided to catch the bus back. Outside there were a ton of people in the square, and we soon realized why - the church opened in 10 minutes! So we could get inside, and in fact, that's what our tickets were for! We were very thankful we hadn't given up any of the million times we thought for sure there was no entrance or way to get inside. But, the inside was well worth the trouble! The interior is decorated incredibly. I honestly can't even begin to describe how gorgeous everything was. Hopefully the pictures look good enough.
A guy was playing the organ while we were in there, and the music was gorgeous. After snapping lots of pictures, we just sat and enjoyed the music for awhile. I should also note another way they rip people off here. The church is dark inside, and while there are windows, it was an overcast day, so it was difficult to get pictures. After we had been inside for about 10 minutes, I noticed some lights come on in different parts of the Cathedral, but only for a few minutes. As it turns out, you can put one euro into a machine to light up different areas of the church for three minutes. So once you get in, you can't even get pictures unless you pay more! Or, you can wait for other people to put in money, which is what we did. Anyways, that's a total rip off if you ask me.
After enjoying the church, we left and waited at what we thought was the bus stop. We then found the real bus stop. But after waiting there for another 15 minutes, I finally noticed the large sign that said the bus doesn't stop there after a certain time. A nice man came and told us where it picked up and took us down there. We then rode the bus back (possibly for free due to our confusion, which I will explain in tomorrow's transportation blog).
At this point, it was about 5:15 p.m. We had hardly seen anything in the city, but we didn't have a reservation anywhere. I had thankfully written down the names of a few cheap hotels. We decided to try two or three, and if we couldn't find an affordable room, we'd catch the last train back to Taormina, which left at 6:30. Without much time, we booked it to the first hotel on the list. We walked in and I asked for a double room in Italian, or so I thought. He looked at me funny, and then I just took out all the words except double room (which actually means room with two beds). The man made me feel real stupid then when in perfect English he said, "Oh, you must be looking for a room." No, really?? Why else would I have walked into your hotel?? To chit-chat?? Anyways, I know my Italian is bad, but seriously, he had to have understood at least something. He obviously didn't care much about letting me practice, though, as he just spoke to us in English. He offered us a room for exactly the price Clay and I had agreed would be our maximum. After we agreed to the room, we saw the floor plan and realized we had the largest room, and the only one with a private bathroom. We could have found another room with a shared bathroom for cheaper, but it was too late. Oh well, our room was fine. It was a one-star hotel, but it wasn't too bad, and there was a futon and a bed. It was off of a main road, though, so we didn't sleep well with all the noise (my room back here in Taormina seems incredibly peaceful now after the streets of Palermo).
After a successful day navigating the city and finding the hotel, we decided to treat ourselves to a sit-down dinner. We found a real cute restaurant near the hotel, so we stopped there to eat. Normally when I head into a situation where I know I'll need Italian, I practice the question ahead of time, but I forgot to get my words ready before we walked in, so when we got there, I just stared at the waiter. I naturally assumed they would ask if we wanted to sit down, but instead they stared back. Again, I wanted to say - why do you think we're here?? To get a haircut?? Anyways, Clay and I started stuttering to figure out what we wanted to say, and then again, I was made to feel stupid when the host/waiter started speaking in slow English to us while using "sign language." I wanted to tell him I wasn't deaf, but I didn't know that word in Italian. Oh well. I suppose I can't expect everyone to be patient and let me practice my Italian on them. Some people are busy and just don't have the time, so I suppose it's quicker for them to speak in English. I hear we'll run into this a lot when we head to Venice, Florence and Rome. I should also mention that twice now when someone realizes I'm not Italian, they ask if I'm French. Not quite sure why, and I've never met someone whose French, so I don't even know if I look French.
Anyways, dinner was absolutely fantastic. The rain had held off all day, but it finally came pouring down during dinner. We actually ate outside, but it was covered, so we got to enjoy the rain instead of getting soaked. After an early start to the day, I was exhausted, so we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep (in my clothes as I hadn't brought anything to stay the night).
We got up the next morning and headed to the Catacombs. This was quite an interesting experience to say the least. Apparently the Capuchin monastery outgrew the cemetery around the 16th century, so in order to accommodate the dead friars, they excavated below and stuck them down in the Catacombs. Then, people who weren't church officials were buried there as a sort of status symbol. Anyways, there's loads of dead people down there, and about half of them aren't in coffins or anything. So we walk down, and what do a I see? Thousands of decomposed bodies hanging on the wall. The clothes were really well preserved, and a few of the bodies actually still had skin on them that had somehow managed to preserve really well. Their faces were definitely creepy though. Even though it was just skulls, they all had different expressions. Some of them even looked afraid, or sad, as if maybe they knew they were about to die. Or maybe it's just creepy because I was walking around in a crypt. Anyways, I really wanted to take some pictures (at first), but I wasn't supposed to. There were signs every few feet asking that you not take pictures because it was a sacred place that should be respected. I had a problem believing this, mainly because the folks in charge of the Catacombs had clearly moved the bodies, and propped them up for display. And now they let people just walk through and stare at them, so how sacred could it be? I think the main reason they don't want you to take pictures is because when you finish, the friar tries to sell you brochures with pictures on it. Since there were security cameras, I couldn't snap even one photo, and in hindsight, I'm not quite sure I want a bunch of pictures of decomposed bodies. Interestingly enough, there wasn't a single sign that said "Don't touch," and most of the bodies weren't in boxes or behind glass, so if I wanted, I could have touched one. No worries, I did not once have the desire to touch one of the bodies.
After the catacombs, we walked around the city. Palermo reminded me a lot of Atlanta, except with more dog poop and less homeless people. But the feel of the city, the noise, the buildings and cars all had the same feel as Atlanta. After walking down to the port, we decided we were ready to head back to Taormina, so we headed to the train station. Unfortunately, it was only noon, and the next train didn't leave until 3 p.m. We sat and ate for awhile, and then we just played Sicilian cards to fill the time until the train arrived. A man near us saw us playing Italian cards, and gave us the thumbs-up sign, which we thought was cool.
There was more mass confusion to get on the 3 p.m. train, which again I'll explain later. The ride home was nice, though, as I got to see much of the landscape that I had missed on Saturday because I was sleeping :) Our train was late getting into Taormina, and we met up with some other students at the bus stop. We decided to split the cost of the taxi, especially since I was already late for dinner at this point, and my phone wouldn't put me through to the Ferraris.
It was a whirlwind trip, but I absolutely loved it. I bet Palermo is a fun city to live in. There seemed to be tons to do and see. Plus, the stores are way cheaper than Taormina.
Back at the Ferraris, we have a full house! Two English boys moved in while I was gone. They are 17 years old, and while they are very very nice, they really make me appreciate my little sister. Hannah can be messy, yes, but she's never once left the toilet seat up! Last night, a Japanese woman moved in as well, so there are now four of us on my floor, and Gerhard is downstairs in the private room, so that makes five us all together. The English boys and Japanese woman leave this weekend, so peace and quiet will return to the Ferrari house next week. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the chaos!
Ok, this is long enough. A domani!
Friday, February 8, 2008
Italian Friend
Big News!
I officially have an Italian friend - a resident here in Taormina! During our first weekend here, we met this guy Ricardo at the beach, and I was convinced he would be our Italian friend. He even asked us to go to the Corso with him. But, we haven't seem him since, even though we cruise Corso Umberto pretty regularly.
Anyways, this friend is Salo. He works at a restaurant called the Osteria da Rita, and it's right around the corner from both the school and my house. We've eaten there probably about once a week, and the location is so close, that I pass it about 4 or 5 times a day. Salo always stands outside the door to greet people as they come, and to keep an eye on the outside tables (almost all restaurants and cafes have outside tables). So, Salo has grown accustomed to seeing us, but I think we are now officially friends thanks to a class assignment yesterday.
In groups, we had to go and interview a store owner for class. My group chose to interview this guy that runs a nearby newsstand. While we were in there, Salo came in to purchase something, and he recognized me! So I said hello, and finally introduced myself. He realized I was a student at Babilonia; prior to this, I rarely spoke to him, except to order food, which I can do quite well, so I think he thought that I was fluent. Or at least, I like to pretend I had him tricked. But now that we're friends, the game is up. He knows I can't speak very well.
Anyways, so we had a brief conversation in the store. Clay and I were excited that he might actually be a real Italian friend of ours, but we started to debate his age. Clay thought he might be 14. I was convined he was at least 18, maybe even 20. We decided it didn't really matter as every student here is about 50 years older, so we figured we were closer in age to Salo than our current group of friends. I settled the issue last night though when I saw him as I was coming home from a cafe. There weren't any customers at the time, so I stopped to talk to him. Turns out he's 26. He was very nice and talked to me for a few minutes before his Dad returned to the restaurant (I don't think he's supposed to talk while at work - I'm not sure).
I told him we'd go eat at Osteria da Rita for lunch today, and we did. He talked to us a little, but they were a bit busy today. We did get some free bruchetta today, and we love their restaurant, so it seems like a good deal! We're hoping that sometime soon, we can hang out with him outside of the restaurant, but he does have to work a lot. We will see. I'm just excited we have an Italian friend who is patient with our lack of speaking abilities.
Other than Salo, I can't say I have any exciting news. It's strange how quickly things become routine and normal around here. I'll give you my daily routine just to show you how normal life can be, even in a far-off, beautiful place!
8:45 a.m. - Wake up and get ready for school.
9:30 a.m. - Class begins. The morning session is dedicated to "analyzing" the languague, which is esstentially grammar.
11:20 a.m. - We take a 20 minute break to rest our minds. Most of the time, all the students come upstairs and hang out, drink coffee, etc. It's probably a good break for the teachers as well, who I'm sure are ready to talk in fluent Italian to each other.
11:40 - We go back to class. The second part is dedicated to coversation. We learn new vocabulary, have conversations, listen to tapes of conversations, etc.
1:30 p.m. - We're done with class and starved to death! Clay and I usually make sandwiches from stuff we've bought at the store. And two days a week we usually go to a restaurant or cafe.
3 p.m. - I normally head back to school and check e-mail, make weekend plans, update the blog, etc. Some afternoons, we'll go for a long walk to the beach, or like Tuesday we went to Catania, but normally we spend it at school, online and hanging out with other students.
5 p.m. - The school closes. Sometimes they have activities in the afternoon, but more often than not, those are cancelled due to a lack of interest. We've been to a few things - lectures, movies, card games, etc.
5 p.m. - 8 p.m. - Normally we cruise Corso Umberto or go get hot chocolate or gelato. About every other day it seems like I have to do laundry during this time just to keep up. I also usually finish my homework then.
8 p.m. - Dinner, which can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Post-dinner - I finish my homework, take a shower, and then just read or listen to music before falling asleep.
Like I said, it's pretty routine here. It's just like it would be in Auburn, except I'm in Italy! :) Now that everyone is bored, I'll sign off for the week. We are most likely going on a whirlwind tour of Palermo tomorrow. It's all the way across Sicily, so most of the day will be spent traveling to and from. But it's a large city that we really want to see; however, we're trying to save up money to travel farther on some long weekends, so we've opted not to stay overnight. Assuming we go (the weather is a little gross today, so we may hold off if it doesn't improve), we'll have about 6 or 7 hours to spend in the city! :) I hope everyone has a great weekend! Ciao Ciao!
I officially have an Italian friend - a resident here in Taormina! During our first weekend here, we met this guy Ricardo at the beach, and I was convinced he would be our Italian friend. He even asked us to go to the Corso with him. But, we haven't seem him since, even though we cruise Corso Umberto pretty regularly.
Anyways, this friend is Salo. He works at a restaurant called the Osteria da Rita, and it's right around the corner from both the school and my house. We've eaten there probably about once a week, and the location is so close, that I pass it about 4 or 5 times a day. Salo always stands outside the door to greet people as they come, and to keep an eye on the outside tables (almost all restaurants and cafes have outside tables). So, Salo has grown accustomed to seeing us, but I think we are now officially friends thanks to a class assignment yesterday.
In groups, we had to go and interview a store owner for class. My group chose to interview this guy that runs a nearby newsstand. While we were in there, Salo came in to purchase something, and he recognized me! So I said hello, and finally introduced myself. He realized I was a student at Babilonia; prior to this, I rarely spoke to him, except to order food, which I can do quite well, so I think he thought that I was fluent. Or at least, I like to pretend I had him tricked. But now that we're friends, the game is up. He knows I can't speak very well.
Anyways, so we had a brief conversation in the store. Clay and I were excited that he might actually be a real Italian friend of ours, but we started to debate his age. Clay thought he might be 14. I was convined he was at least 18, maybe even 20. We decided it didn't really matter as every student here is about 50 years older, so we figured we were closer in age to Salo than our current group of friends. I settled the issue last night though when I saw him as I was coming home from a cafe. There weren't any customers at the time, so I stopped to talk to him. Turns out he's 26. He was very nice and talked to me for a few minutes before his Dad returned to the restaurant (I don't think he's supposed to talk while at work - I'm not sure).
I told him we'd go eat at Osteria da Rita for lunch today, and we did. He talked to us a little, but they were a bit busy today. We did get some free bruchetta today, and we love their restaurant, so it seems like a good deal! We're hoping that sometime soon, we can hang out with him outside of the restaurant, but he does have to work a lot. We will see. I'm just excited we have an Italian friend who is patient with our lack of speaking abilities.
Other than Salo, I can't say I have any exciting news. It's strange how quickly things become routine and normal around here. I'll give you my daily routine just to show you how normal life can be, even in a far-off, beautiful place!
8:45 a.m. - Wake up and get ready for school.
9:30 a.m. - Class begins. The morning session is dedicated to "analyzing" the languague, which is esstentially grammar.
11:20 a.m. - We take a 20 minute break to rest our minds. Most of the time, all the students come upstairs and hang out, drink coffee, etc. It's probably a good break for the teachers as well, who I'm sure are ready to talk in fluent Italian to each other.
11:40 - We go back to class. The second part is dedicated to coversation. We learn new vocabulary, have conversations, listen to tapes of conversations, etc.
1:30 p.m. - We're done with class and starved to death! Clay and I usually make sandwiches from stuff we've bought at the store. And two days a week we usually go to a restaurant or cafe.
3 p.m. - I normally head back to school and check e-mail, make weekend plans, update the blog, etc. Some afternoons, we'll go for a long walk to the beach, or like Tuesday we went to Catania, but normally we spend it at school, online and hanging out with other students.
5 p.m. - The school closes. Sometimes they have activities in the afternoon, but more often than not, those are cancelled due to a lack of interest. We've been to a few things - lectures, movies, card games, etc.
5 p.m. - 8 p.m. - Normally we cruise Corso Umberto or go get hot chocolate or gelato. About every other day it seems like I have to do laundry during this time just to keep up. I also usually finish my homework then.
8 p.m. - Dinner, which can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Post-dinner - I finish my homework, take a shower, and then just read or listen to music before falling asleep.
Like I said, it's pretty routine here. It's just like it would be in Auburn, except I'm in Italy! :) Now that everyone is bored, I'll sign off for the week. We are most likely going on a whirlwind tour of Palermo tomorrow. It's all the way across Sicily, so most of the day will be spent traveling to and from. But it's a large city that we really want to see; however, we're trying to save up money to travel farther on some long weekends, so we've opted not to stay overnight. Assuming we go (the weather is a little gross today, so we may hold off if it doesn't improve), we'll have about 6 or 7 hours to spend in the city! :) I hope everyone has a great weekend! Ciao Ciao!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Where's Al Roker when you need him?
Today is the first day the weather here has been gross. Earlier in the week, I could tell the weather was turning colder, and there hasn't been as much sun this week, but I was definitely disappointed when there were so many clouds and rain this morning.
I guess I don't have too much reason to complain. Today officially marks one month since my arrival, and today is the first time the weather is gross, so I realize I have no room to talk. Perhaps I would feel better about the weather, though, if the meterologists here warned me, but no, the news programs here are very different (as are the weathermen), which brings me to today's blog topic: the differences between American and Italian newspapers/broadcasts.
I realize this might bore those of you who didn't study journalism, so feel free to skip it. But as a journalist, I find it fascinating to look at the differences between the two countries with regards to how they receive their news.
We'll start with the newspapers. The main difference I see is in the design. They frequently use flashier designs, cutouts, and colorful graphics and charts, even for very serious stories. The designs in America aren's that flashy, unless you're looking at say, the Features section. The front page rarely has such flashy elements. Other than design, though, the emphasis placed on items and their location within the paper seem to be similar.
I rarely look at Italian newspapers, so perhaps I'm better qualified to compare the TV broadcasts, since I see that every night. In the States, the anchors and reporters are typically pretty or at least attractive. The Italians take that to another level completely. The woman on the evening news here (or at least the station I watch) is always showing cleavage. I think her stylist must actually cut lower V-necks from her wardrobe in order to show as much cleavage as possible. In the states, I often see the achors in turtlenecks, and suit jackets. Not here - they like to show the skin.
They also have cheesy "live" shots where the reporter is obviously standing in front of a green screen in the studio where they've superimposed some skyline. The local Auburn stations (and Eagle Eye) do this all the time, and it looks terrible. The effect is about the same over here. I think my favorite "live" shot like this was when a reporter was doing a story "from" Paris, and you could tell from the skyline that he was obviously in the studio. I guess some things don't change from one country to the next.
I've already explained their interest in American politics. I'm not quite sure what news cast we watch, but I think it must be like a national/international show as their news comes from all over the world. I suppose it's a bit like World News Tonight.
The reporters don't seem as experienced and articulate as most of ours (in bigger markets) are. They aren't dressed as nice as our reporters (which is a shock because normally everyone dresses really nice here). Sometimes they have their back to the camera, and a lot of them don't look very interested in their subjects. Because of this (my hypothesis, not fact here), they don't often do live interviews or stand-up shots with the reporter. Instead, the clips are shot during the day and filed back at the studio with the reporter narrating the film. This technique is used all the time in the States, but usually at the end of the clip, the camera returns to a live shot of the reporter who then explains some more, or answers questions from the anchor. You don't see much of that kind of ending here.
Now my absolute favorite part of Italian news programs is the weather. Maybe we're over-obsessed with weather in the states - I don't know. But their metereologists are incredibly useless. The weather information is put at the end of the program (instead of the beginning like ours), and the weatherman just stands in front of a map of Italy, and on the map are weather symbols in various locations (like a flashing sun, clouds, rain, etc). That's it. I've only once seen temperatures given. They never explain the next day's weather, and they sure as heck don't have a 10-day forecast. They also don't have any other maps to explain cold and warm fronts and what that might do to the weather in the coming week. Nope. All I get is a flashing symbol somewhere in the vicinity of where I live. The whole report takes about 30 seconds. How I wish I could hear the weatherman say "And that's what's going on around the country. Here's what's happening in your neck of the woods." If I had heard those fabulous words, I would have known to take an umbrella and dress warmer today.
I guess I don't have too much reason to complain. Today officially marks one month since my arrival, and today is the first time the weather is gross, so I realize I have no room to talk. Perhaps I would feel better about the weather, though, if the meterologists here warned me, but no, the news programs here are very different (as are the weathermen), which brings me to today's blog topic: the differences between American and Italian newspapers/broadcasts.
I realize this might bore those of you who didn't study journalism, so feel free to skip it. But as a journalist, I find it fascinating to look at the differences between the two countries with regards to how they receive their news.
We'll start with the newspapers. The main difference I see is in the design. They frequently use flashier designs, cutouts, and colorful graphics and charts, even for very serious stories. The designs in America aren's that flashy, unless you're looking at say, the Features section. The front page rarely has such flashy elements. Other than design, though, the emphasis placed on items and their location within the paper seem to be similar.
I rarely look at Italian newspapers, so perhaps I'm better qualified to compare the TV broadcasts, since I see that every night. In the States, the anchors and reporters are typically pretty or at least attractive. The Italians take that to another level completely. The woman on the evening news here (or at least the station I watch) is always showing cleavage. I think her stylist must actually cut lower V-necks from her wardrobe in order to show as much cleavage as possible. In the states, I often see the achors in turtlenecks, and suit jackets. Not here - they like to show the skin.
They also have cheesy "live" shots where the reporter is obviously standing in front of a green screen in the studio where they've superimposed some skyline. The local Auburn stations (and Eagle Eye) do this all the time, and it looks terrible. The effect is about the same over here. I think my favorite "live" shot like this was when a reporter was doing a story "from" Paris, and you could tell from the skyline that he was obviously in the studio. I guess some things don't change from one country to the next.
I've already explained their interest in American politics. I'm not quite sure what news cast we watch, but I think it must be like a national/international show as their news comes from all over the world. I suppose it's a bit like World News Tonight.
The reporters don't seem as experienced and articulate as most of ours (in bigger markets) are. They aren't dressed as nice as our reporters (which is a shock because normally everyone dresses really nice here). Sometimes they have their back to the camera, and a lot of them don't look very interested in their subjects. Because of this (my hypothesis, not fact here), they don't often do live interviews or stand-up shots with the reporter. Instead, the clips are shot during the day and filed back at the studio with the reporter narrating the film. This technique is used all the time in the States, but usually at the end of the clip, the camera returns to a live shot of the reporter who then explains some more, or answers questions from the anchor. You don't see much of that kind of ending here.
Now my absolute favorite part of Italian news programs is the weather. Maybe we're over-obsessed with weather in the states - I don't know. But their metereologists are incredibly useless. The weather information is put at the end of the program (instead of the beginning like ours), and the weatherman just stands in front of a map of Italy, and on the map are weather symbols in various locations (like a flashing sun, clouds, rain, etc). That's it. I've only once seen temperatures given. They never explain the next day's weather, and they sure as heck don't have a 10-day forecast. They also don't have any other maps to explain cold and warm fronts and what that might do to the weather in the coming week. Nope. All I get is a flashing symbol somewhere in the vicinity of where I live. The whole report takes about 30 seconds. How I wish I could hear the weatherman say "And that's what's going on around the country. Here's what's happening in your neck of the woods." If I had heard those fabulous words, I would have known to take an umbrella and dress warmer today.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Festa di St. Agata
Holy Moly!
I wish I could fully explain to you what I witnessed yesterday, but I honestly have no idea. Clay and I headed to Catania for La Festa di Sant'Agata. Saint Agata is the patron saint of Catania. The festival is actually a three-day affair, but since Catania is about an hour bus ride away, we could only make it yesterday for the procession through the city with St. Agata. Let's begin at the very beginning, a very good place to start . . .
The bus from Taormina left at 2 p.m., but classes don't get out until 1:30 p.m., so we skipped lunch and headed straight to the bus station after school. We got there without an accident or a heart attack (it's amazing these large charter buses can turn the sharp curves in these mountains). By the time we got there, it was about 3 p.m. and we were famished. We began wandering the city looking for a place to eat. Unfortunately, most of the ristorantes had been converted to cafes and bars for the festival. With so many people, it's really impossible for them to actually have a sit-down restaurant, but we really wanted to find a place where we could eat inside. After about 20 minutes of wandering, we saw a McDonalds. We decided we weren't that hungry yet, and we kept walking. After another 20 minutes of still not seeing anything but hot tables, and cafes, we headed back to McDonalds.
I'll be honest, a Big Mac has never tasted better. This McDonalds was weird - in the very front, they had a McCafe, where they only served coffee and gelato. The McDonalds only had about six meal choices, so I opted for the Big Mac grande (I was starved!) with fries and a Coke. We sat down and looked around to see what the Italians were eating. All the kids had Happy Meals, and really we could've been in America (except no one was speaking English). After finishing off every last bite of my meal, we started observing the nutrition facts (which I don't recall seeing printed as largely on the American meals). Anyways, my meal had about 1200 calories in it. I have never felt more American since I've been here until that moment when I ate 1200 calories in one sitting at a fast food restaurant. For some reason, everyone here knows McDonalds (which is worldwide), and they all think that all Americans eat at McDonalds like almost every day. We've had to explain that McDonalds is just as gross over here as it is in the states, and that most people don't eat there, especially not regularly. Unfortunately, no one will believe us now that we ate a McDonalds here. But I don't care - I was absolutely starved! Hopefully next time we return to Catania, the restaurants will be in full service again.
Anyways, after our meal, we stopped for gelato (ice cream - like I really needed it after that meal!). Then we claimed a spot on the Piazza Duomo (the main piazza) for the procession. My understanding (and I'm sure Dr. Summerfield will correct me if I'm wrong) is that on Feb. 4 and Feb. 5, the silver carriage carrying St. Agata (or really the statue that looks like her) goes throughout the city. That is what we witnessed. Millions of people flock to Catania every year for the celebration. There were lots of people dressed in white robes with little black hats. I think this designates them as a follower, perhaps. Anyways, the people in white robes actually pulled the carriage - and it's an incredibly long rope used to pull the carriage. Everyone else has bought these giant candles, about 4 feet tall (although there are larger ones that are as wide as I am and come up to my shoulders). As the carriage passes by, they give their candles and white roses to the carriage.
The procession was supposed to begin at 5:30 p.m., but as usual, things here start late. We actually realized they were waiting for darkness to fall. Finally at 6 p.m., the church bells started really ringing, and everyone started clapping and waving white handkerchiefs. Then a huge fireworks show started - it easily rivaled shows I've seen on the 4th. When that was finished, the church bells kept ringing. Finally the darn carriage started moving. So we got excited, but then we realized that the carriage stopped about every 10 feet to collect the candles and roses the followers were giving to the saint. From where we were standing, we could see the carriage when it first began, so we weren't that far away. About 30 minutes later, the carriage finally reaches us.
Let me also note that there were easily 25,000 to 30,000 people in the piazza alone. Plus, there were tons of people lined up the streets, further up the procession route. Anyways, we were standing near this truck that had tons of candles in it, and when the carriage reached us, the truck made everyone clear a path so it could pull up to the carriage and take all the candles that had already been dedicated. We were already incredibly squished together. Thankfully the Italian men wear tight pants, so the clothing didn't take up unecessary room. I was easily right up against all sorts of strangers, and just when I thought I couldn't get any closer, the carriage arrived and stopped right in front of us. That's when the real pushing began. Everyone tried to push their way in so they could give their candle and roses to the carriage. If my stomach hadn't been full with 1200 calories from McDonalds, I'm positive I would have been squished down two pant sizes at least. So, people kept pushing up their candles and roses while the carriage unloaded the candles into the truck. Clay actually got passed up a candle and had the chance to keep passing it up. And one of the men on the carriage (there's about 5 or 6 men on the carriage who collect all these gifts) tossed out one of the bouquets of white roses, and I caught a rose.
After about 20 minutes of the mass chaos, one of the men rang a bell, and the carriage moved forward again, and everyone in our section started to clear out. I'm thankful we decided to stand where we did. Our bus left at 8 p.m., and it took the carriage about an hour to move 50 yards, so if we stood any farther away, we would've had to leave before we saw anything. My understanding is that the procession really goes on all through the night. And at some point, there's some beautiful singing. Unfortunately, we only got a glimpse of all this.
As a sidenote, they also lay sawdust down on the procession path - don't ask me why. Last night was a windy night here, so needless to say, I had sawdust all in my eyes!
We got to the bus station in plenty of time and had no problems getting home for a change. When I got home, I went up to see Aurelio and Angela, who had saved me a plate of food for dinner. I wasn't really hungry since I ate such a large, late lunch, but I felt bad that they had saved me food, so I ate a plate. I honestly thought at that point, I was going to pop. I was way too full, and even woke up full this morning.
I wish I could explain the festival a little better, but it's really beyond explanation. You just had to be there, and we were :)
I wish I could fully explain to you what I witnessed yesterday, but I honestly have no idea. Clay and I headed to Catania for La Festa di Sant'Agata. Saint Agata is the patron saint of Catania. The festival is actually a three-day affair, but since Catania is about an hour bus ride away, we could only make it yesterday for the procession through the city with St. Agata. Let's begin at the very beginning, a very good place to start . . .
The bus from Taormina left at 2 p.m., but classes don't get out until 1:30 p.m., so we skipped lunch and headed straight to the bus station after school. We got there without an accident or a heart attack (it's amazing these large charter buses can turn the sharp curves in these mountains). By the time we got there, it was about 3 p.m. and we were famished. We began wandering the city looking for a place to eat. Unfortunately, most of the ristorantes had been converted to cafes and bars for the festival. With so many people, it's really impossible for them to actually have a sit-down restaurant, but we really wanted to find a place where we could eat inside. After about 20 minutes of wandering, we saw a McDonalds. We decided we weren't that hungry yet, and we kept walking. After another 20 minutes of still not seeing anything but hot tables, and cafes, we headed back to McDonalds.
I'll be honest, a Big Mac has never tasted better. This McDonalds was weird - in the very front, they had a McCafe, where they only served coffee and gelato. The McDonalds only had about six meal choices, so I opted for the Big Mac grande (I was starved!) with fries and a Coke. We sat down and looked around to see what the Italians were eating. All the kids had Happy Meals, and really we could've been in America (except no one was speaking English). After finishing off every last bite of my meal, we started observing the nutrition facts (which I don't recall seeing printed as largely on the American meals). Anyways, my meal had about 1200 calories in it. I have never felt more American since I've been here until that moment when I ate 1200 calories in one sitting at a fast food restaurant. For some reason, everyone here knows McDonalds (which is worldwide), and they all think that all Americans eat at McDonalds like almost every day. We've had to explain that McDonalds is just as gross over here as it is in the states, and that most people don't eat there, especially not regularly. Unfortunately, no one will believe us now that we ate a McDonalds here. But I don't care - I was absolutely starved! Hopefully next time we return to Catania, the restaurants will be in full service again.
Anyways, after our meal, we stopped for gelato (ice cream - like I really needed it after that meal!). Then we claimed a spot on the Piazza Duomo (the main piazza) for the procession. My understanding (and I'm sure Dr. Summerfield will correct me if I'm wrong) is that on Feb. 4 and Feb. 5, the silver carriage carrying St. Agata (or really the statue that looks like her) goes throughout the city. That is what we witnessed. Millions of people flock to Catania every year for the celebration. There were lots of people dressed in white robes with little black hats. I think this designates them as a follower, perhaps. Anyways, the people in white robes actually pulled the carriage - and it's an incredibly long rope used to pull the carriage. Everyone else has bought these giant candles, about 4 feet tall (although there are larger ones that are as wide as I am and come up to my shoulders). As the carriage passes by, they give their candles and white roses to the carriage.
The procession was supposed to begin at 5:30 p.m., but as usual, things here start late. We actually realized they were waiting for darkness to fall. Finally at 6 p.m., the church bells started really ringing, and everyone started clapping and waving white handkerchiefs. Then a huge fireworks show started - it easily rivaled shows I've seen on the 4th. When that was finished, the church bells kept ringing. Finally the darn carriage started moving. So we got excited, but then we realized that the carriage stopped about every 10 feet to collect the candles and roses the followers were giving to the saint. From where we were standing, we could see the carriage when it first began, so we weren't that far away. About 30 minutes later, the carriage finally reaches us.
Let me also note that there were easily 25,000 to 30,000 people in the piazza alone. Plus, there were tons of people lined up the streets, further up the procession route. Anyways, we were standing near this truck that had tons of candles in it, and when the carriage reached us, the truck made everyone clear a path so it could pull up to the carriage and take all the candles that had already been dedicated. We were already incredibly squished together. Thankfully the Italian men wear tight pants, so the clothing didn't take up unecessary room. I was easily right up against all sorts of strangers, and just when I thought I couldn't get any closer, the carriage arrived and stopped right in front of us. That's when the real pushing began. Everyone tried to push their way in so they could give their candle and roses to the carriage. If my stomach hadn't been full with 1200 calories from McDonalds, I'm positive I would have been squished down two pant sizes at least. So, people kept pushing up their candles and roses while the carriage unloaded the candles into the truck. Clay actually got passed up a candle and had the chance to keep passing it up. And one of the men on the carriage (there's about 5 or 6 men on the carriage who collect all these gifts) tossed out one of the bouquets of white roses, and I caught a rose.
After about 20 minutes of the mass chaos, one of the men rang a bell, and the carriage moved forward again, and everyone in our section started to clear out. I'm thankful we decided to stand where we did. Our bus left at 8 p.m., and it took the carriage about an hour to move 50 yards, so if we stood any farther away, we would've had to leave before we saw anything. My understanding is that the procession really goes on all through the night. And at some point, there's some beautiful singing. Unfortunately, we only got a glimpse of all this.
As a sidenote, they also lay sawdust down on the procession path - don't ask me why. Last night was a windy night here, so needless to say, I had sawdust all in my eyes!
We got to the bus station in plenty of time and had no problems getting home for a change. When I got home, I went up to see Aurelio and Angela, who had saved me a plate of food for dinner. I wasn't really hungry since I ate such a large, late lunch, but I felt bad that they had saved me food, so I ate a plate. I honestly thought at that point, I was going to pop. I was way too full, and even woke up full this morning.
I wish I could explain the festival a little better, but it's really beyond explanation. You just had to be there, and we were :)
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Pictures and Videos Up!
I failed to mention yesterday that I have uploaded lots of pictures of Caltagirone and Carnivale uploaded on dropshots.com/sebrock. There are also two short videos - one of which is the YMCA. I hope you enjoy!
Monday, February 4, 2008
Carnivale and Caltagirone
Happy Carnivale!!!
I had an absolutely incredible weekend seeing Carnivale in Acireale (and the ceramics in Caltagirone). I apologize in advance for the length of this blog as I feel it will be quite long today, but there is so much to retell. I've decided to actually go in reverse chronological order as the most exciting stuff happened yesterday. If I explain it chronologically, I'm afraid you won't make it to the end. Anyways, here goes:
On Sunday, Clay and I headed to Acireale, a nearby town, to celebrate Carnivale. Carnivale actually has its roots in religion. It began throughout Europe (and Brazil) as a huge festival to indulge yourself before Ash Wednesday, since during Lent, people fast and aren't supposed to have parties. Some places actually begin Carnivale celebrations in Novemeber, and as the Tuesday approaches, the celebrations get more intense. It's a bit like Mardi Gras in the states, although I have a feeling this might be a bit bigger (I've never been to Mardi Gras, so I can't really compare the two very well).
During the past few weeks in Taormina, we have seen some evidence of Carnivale as many children have dressed up each night and thrown confetti on each other. It always looked really fun, but we had no idea what a real Carnivale celebration was like until Sunday.
We arrived in Acireale by bus around 11 a.m. By the time we got there, the party was already in full swing. There were street vendors selling confetti, silly string, Carnivale hats, food and sweets. The town was supposedly closed off to cars, but there always seemed to be a few trying to get through the crowds. We spent the morning walking around, and on one of the piazzas, we found the parking spot for about half the floats. The floats we saw then were made of flowers and were incredibly pretty and intricate. The other floats were what they call "allegorically-grotesque" characters. They are made out of paper-mache apparently (but they didn't look or feel like paper mache). They also move, which is really cool, and I'm not talking about a little hand wave; on one of the floats, this clown would do flips.
We also saw these Native American musicians on the street. It was really bizarre, and we've decided that Sicilia (or maybe Italy or all of Europe) has a weird fascination with Native Americans. We definitely saw a few Indian Chief costumes. Anyways, we weren't impressed with these Native Americans (they usually had a soundtrack to back them up, so it wasn't even authentic music, but I guess these spectators didn't realize that).
As the day went on, more and more people came, so that by the end of the day, there had to be at least a million people in this city. We could barely move by the evening time. And there was about a half-inch layer of confetti in the streets - just like snow really. The silly string and confetti were a lot of fun. Basically, people just walk around spraying each other with silly string and throwing confetti on people. We noticed that for a lot of younger guys, it appears to be a form of flirting. Groups of guys would look for girls and then attack them with silly string and confetti. Clay finally caved and bought some silly string so we could defend ourselves! In actuality, this allowed us to attack first, which resulted in plenty of retaliation with loads of silly string and confetti. By the end of the day, I was covered in it, and when I got home, I found confetti all over me and my clothes. I had confetti thrown in my ears, and even my mouth when I had it wide open, lauging at one point. People really enjoyed throwing confetti on me when I was trying to take a picture (thankfully this stuff isn't dangerous to the camera, otherwise I would've been so nervous all day).
All the children and many of the adults were dressed in costumes. Snow White was easily the most popular girl costume. I saw about 1,000 (that's not an exaggeration) Snow Whites. Most of the boys were some sort of superhero - Spiderman, Batman, Ninja Turtle, etc. I tried to get some pictures of some of the kids in costume, but I didn't want to look like a creepo photographing random children, so I didn't get too many. Many of the adults dressed up as well, although a lot adults and teenagers would just wear one of the silly hats. Most people in fact had a hat, and after awhile, I couldn't resist, so I bought a Carnivale hat. It is actually my first souvenir purchase, and it was well worth it. With the hat on, I think I looked more fun, so more confetti and silly string were tossed my way!
According to the program we had, the "parade" was supposed to begin at 3:30 p.m. We quickly realized their definition of parade and ours is very different. We had staked out a spot along the parade route about an hour earlier, but we eventually got bored people watching (although the costumes were fun to see), and we decided to walk toward the main piazza where the parade was set to begin to see what was going on. Apparently by parade, they mean the floats just drive around in circles, but it's not actually organized (which should be no surprise and things rarely seem organized here). There were no barriers to block off the route, and people were in the streets, walking next to the floats, in front of them, behind them, etc. They would even climb on the floats. We thought it was very interesting as that would never be allowed in the states because of safety and liability concerns (we actually had to explain a few days ago to some of our friends here how much litigation occurs in the states, and how everything is now a liability concern). From what I could tell the only safety precaution was a megaphone through which someone might occasionally yell "Attenzione!" (Be careful). Other than that, everyone just had fun walking with the floats.
The floats must have circled several times because we kept seeing them the rest of the evening as we walked around the city. There were also a few bands, which were really entertaining. They also seemed to have no organization. They had uniforms and some of them played weird looking instruments (for instance, the cymbals were attached to the end of these cardboard scissors, so the cymbol player would scissor in order to crash the cymbals). When they finished a song, they would start talking to each other to figure out their next song. Then they would flip through their music and someone would count off and they'd start. It was really entertaining.
Since the parade wasn't actually a parade, you couldn't hear the band coming, so each float had a sound system to play music. I don't know why we're still surprised when we hear American music, but I think we about died of laughter when suddenly we heard "Young man, there's no need to feel down. I said, young man . . ." Yes folks, they are quite familar with the Village People and the YMCA (although I'm quite certain they don't actually have YMCAs over here). Apparently, YMCA is a very popular song as we heard it about 3 different times. When the chorus came the first time, we looked around, and sure enough, the hand motions came. I honestly thought I would fall on the ground with laughter. Never in a million years did I expect to be singing along to YMCA in Sicily at the largest party I've ever attended. Upon closer inspection, though, we realized they actually don't know the hand motions - they just move their hands from side to side, instead of forming the shapes. I guess they didn't pay close enough attention to the music video. But it was still fun. Clay took a video of it, and we're going to try and put it on dropshots so everyone back home can enjoy the Italian version of the YMCA!
We had a bit of "fun" getting home as well (of course, that's nothing new anymore). We had decided to take the train back as the last bus left around 4 p.m., and we wouldn't get to see as much. So, we headed to the train station around 6:15 p.m. to catch a 7:30 p.m. train. We had been told by our front office that the train station was about a 10 or 15 minute walk from town, which was a load of bull if I've ever heard it. Anyways, we start walking out of town, following our map and signs. We were walking with a huge wave of people that we assumed we leaving as well, so we kept following them. They climbed an overpass and crossed over the tracks, and then they all swarmed onto these buses. We kept walking (along with a few people) in the direction of the station. About 15 minutes later, we decided that we had made a mistake somewhere. We pulled out the map and realized that while we were in the right direction, we were on the wrong side of the tracks (both literally and figuratively at this point). If we had trusted our instincts, we would've stayed on the right road and never crossed the tracks. But we thought for sure, all these people were headed in the same direction as us. So we headed back to the overpass, and when we got there, I stopped and asked a police officer for directions, and he confirmed were the station was for us. At this point, it's about 7:10 p.m. and we realize we're in danger of missing the train (it wasn't a huge deal as there were two more, but they didn't leave until 10 p.m.). So we started really booking it at point and we arrived at the train station at about 7:25 p.m. We bought the ticket, but it's a small station, and there were no electronic signs to indicate which platform the train would be at. We made a gamble here and went to the middle platform where everyone was standing (we were a bit wary of following the crowd after the last experience). We got to the middle platform and then realized that we hadn't validated our tickets. Basically, whenever you purchase a ticket you must have it stamped to indicate when you bought it because it's actually good for another 30 days or something. So we run back down the steps into the station to try and validate it, only to see no mechanism to validate it on the machine. We ran back to the platform and just hoped for the best. The train arrived, and we weren't even entirely sure it was ours, but I asked a guy where the train was going and he said Messina, which is the right direction, so we got on. This train was different and had compartments, and there was a mad rush of people to get into the compartments. They seemed to fill up quickly, plus, people would put their stuff on seats to make it look taken so no one would sit with them. We finally found one and sat down (unfortunately I couldn't remember the right way to ask them if we could sit there until 10 seconds after we sat down). We got off the train without incident and then walked up the steps to Taormina (I hated that walk/climb just as much as the last time).
Needless to say, I slept incredibly well last night, with dreams of Carnivale!!
For those of you who want to keep reading, I'll now detail our trip to Caltagirone on Saturday. I'm sad to report it's not nearly as interesting, but it was worth the trip.
We left Saturday morning with the school - there were 6 of us plus Pepe who drove us in an 8-passenger van, which of course nervewracking as usual. The drive to Caltagirone took a little less than two hours, but it was an incredibly pretty drive. We've only seen mountainous areas so far, but this drive had more farmlands, plains and hills, so it was a pleasant change of scenery.
Caltagirone is famous for its ceramics. From what I understood of the tour (which Pepe gave in Italian), the clay needed to produce the ceramics is found near Caltagirone, which is why they do the ceramics there. They even have a school there for the children to learn the trade. I think my favorite part was the steps. There are (I believe) 170 steps in this one part of town, and on the front of each step are ceramic tiles, many of which depict a scene a story. I took lots of pictures of the intersting ones. During Christmas, they place luminaries on these steps and make pictures depicting the birth of Christ. The pictures of that looked pretty incredible.
We climbed the steps, and along the steps are ceramic shops. We went into several of them, and Pepe had some of the owners explain the process for making ceramics. The owners didn't talk as slow as Pepe, so I unfortunately can't really explain to you the process. I do know in one shop, the ceramics were making noises, like "ding," which I believe the owner said was because they were still settling (I could be way wrong, actually. When I hear sentences in Italian, I find the key words then build the most logical sentence out of it, so I never really know if I'm making up the right sentence or not).
We also went in the city's public garden and saw a gazebo with ceramics on it. We then went into the ceramic museum, which wasn't as interesting as the rest of the city, but I guess it was good to see some of the original ceramics from the city.
That's really it for Caltagirone. A few other things from the weekend:
On Friday night, I saw fireworks during dinner from the house. It was a huge show, and it lasted about 20 minutes. Aurelio explained that they were for a wedding, and based on the size and length of the show, this person clearly had a lot of money. He estimated the show cost at least 5,000 euro. On Friday afternoon, we said goodbye to Romy, Thomas, Trevor and Tina. They will be missed, and we hope the new people coming in will be just as nice and enjoyable. I also unfortunately had to say goodbye to Alicia Saturday morning. With Alicia gone, I now live on the second floor by myself, which I suppose might be nice for awhile. I believe we have two new people coming next week. We actually have a new student in the downstairs apartment who arrived Saturday, but I haven't met him yet. Now that Alicia and Christoff are gone, Clay and I have been at the school longer than anyone. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that - I really do hate saying bye so often to our new friends.
Anyways, there won't be an update tomorrow. We plan to go to Catania for the Festival of St. Agata, the patron saint of Catania. This is apparently a huge festival, and it actually began yesterday. We're only going to get to see part of it since many of the activities happen late at night and early in the morning. It's also more of a religious thing I believe. But once I know what it is, I will update you on Wednesday.
I had an absolutely incredible weekend seeing Carnivale in Acireale (and the ceramics in Caltagirone). I apologize in advance for the length of this blog as I feel it will be quite long today, but there is so much to retell. I've decided to actually go in reverse chronological order as the most exciting stuff happened yesterday. If I explain it chronologically, I'm afraid you won't make it to the end. Anyways, here goes:
On Sunday, Clay and I headed to Acireale, a nearby town, to celebrate Carnivale. Carnivale actually has its roots in religion. It began throughout Europe (and Brazil) as a huge festival to indulge yourself before Ash Wednesday, since during Lent, people fast and aren't supposed to have parties. Some places actually begin Carnivale celebrations in Novemeber, and as the Tuesday approaches, the celebrations get more intense. It's a bit like Mardi Gras in the states, although I have a feeling this might be a bit bigger (I've never been to Mardi Gras, so I can't really compare the two very well).
During the past few weeks in Taormina, we have seen some evidence of Carnivale as many children have dressed up each night and thrown confetti on each other. It always looked really fun, but we had no idea what a real Carnivale celebration was like until Sunday.
We arrived in Acireale by bus around 11 a.m. By the time we got there, the party was already in full swing. There were street vendors selling confetti, silly string, Carnivale hats, food and sweets. The town was supposedly closed off to cars, but there always seemed to be a few trying to get through the crowds. We spent the morning walking around, and on one of the piazzas, we found the parking spot for about half the floats. The floats we saw then were made of flowers and were incredibly pretty and intricate. The other floats were what they call "allegorically-grotesque" characters. They are made out of paper-mache apparently (but they didn't look or feel like paper mache). They also move, which is really cool, and I'm not talking about a little hand wave; on one of the floats, this clown would do flips.
We also saw these Native American musicians on the street. It was really bizarre, and we've decided that Sicilia (or maybe Italy or all of Europe) has a weird fascination with Native Americans. We definitely saw a few Indian Chief costumes. Anyways, we weren't impressed with these Native Americans (they usually had a soundtrack to back them up, so it wasn't even authentic music, but I guess these spectators didn't realize that).
As the day went on, more and more people came, so that by the end of the day, there had to be at least a million people in this city. We could barely move by the evening time. And there was about a half-inch layer of confetti in the streets - just like snow really. The silly string and confetti were a lot of fun. Basically, people just walk around spraying each other with silly string and throwing confetti on people. We noticed that for a lot of younger guys, it appears to be a form of flirting. Groups of guys would look for girls and then attack them with silly string and confetti. Clay finally caved and bought some silly string so we could defend ourselves! In actuality, this allowed us to attack first, which resulted in plenty of retaliation with loads of silly string and confetti. By the end of the day, I was covered in it, and when I got home, I found confetti all over me and my clothes. I had confetti thrown in my ears, and even my mouth when I had it wide open, lauging at one point. People really enjoyed throwing confetti on me when I was trying to take a picture (thankfully this stuff isn't dangerous to the camera, otherwise I would've been so nervous all day).
All the children and many of the adults were dressed in costumes. Snow White was easily the most popular girl costume. I saw about 1,000 (that's not an exaggeration) Snow Whites. Most of the boys were some sort of superhero - Spiderman, Batman, Ninja Turtle, etc. I tried to get some pictures of some of the kids in costume, but I didn't want to look like a creepo photographing random children, so I didn't get too many. Many of the adults dressed up as well, although a lot adults and teenagers would just wear one of the silly hats. Most people in fact had a hat, and after awhile, I couldn't resist, so I bought a Carnivale hat. It is actually my first souvenir purchase, and it was well worth it. With the hat on, I think I looked more fun, so more confetti and silly string were tossed my way!
According to the program we had, the "parade" was supposed to begin at 3:30 p.m. We quickly realized their definition of parade and ours is very different. We had staked out a spot along the parade route about an hour earlier, but we eventually got bored people watching (although the costumes were fun to see), and we decided to walk toward the main piazza where the parade was set to begin to see what was going on. Apparently by parade, they mean the floats just drive around in circles, but it's not actually organized (which should be no surprise and things rarely seem organized here). There were no barriers to block off the route, and people were in the streets, walking next to the floats, in front of them, behind them, etc. They would even climb on the floats. We thought it was very interesting as that would never be allowed in the states because of safety and liability concerns (we actually had to explain a few days ago to some of our friends here how much litigation occurs in the states, and how everything is now a liability concern). From what I could tell the only safety precaution was a megaphone through which someone might occasionally yell "Attenzione!" (Be careful). Other than that, everyone just had fun walking with the floats.
The floats must have circled several times because we kept seeing them the rest of the evening as we walked around the city. There were also a few bands, which were really entertaining. They also seemed to have no organization. They had uniforms and some of them played weird looking instruments (for instance, the cymbals were attached to the end of these cardboard scissors, so the cymbol player would scissor in order to crash the cymbals). When they finished a song, they would start talking to each other to figure out their next song. Then they would flip through their music and someone would count off and they'd start. It was really entertaining.
Since the parade wasn't actually a parade, you couldn't hear the band coming, so each float had a sound system to play music. I don't know why we're still surprised when we hear American music, but I think we about died of laughter when suddenly we heard "Young man, there's no need to feel down. I said, young man . . ." Yes folks, they are quite familar with the Village People and the YMCA (although I'm quite certain they don't actually have YMCAs over here). Apparently, YMCA is a very popular song as we heard it about 3 different times. When the chorus came the first time, we looked around, and sure enough, the hand motions came. I honestly thought I would fall on the ground with laughter. Never in a million years did I expect to be singing along to YMCA in Sicily at the largest party I've ever attended. Upon closer inspection, though, we realized they actually don't know the hand motions - they just move their hands from side to side, instead of forming the shapes. I guess they didn't pay close enough attention to the music video. But it was still fun. Clay took a video of it, and we're going to try and put it on dropshots so everyone back home can enjoy the Italian version of the YMCA!
We had a bit of "fun" getting home as well (of course, that's nothing new anymore). We had decided to take the train back as the last bus left around 4 p.m., and we wouldn't get to see as much. So, we headed to the train station around 6:15 p.m. to catch a 7:30 p.m. train. We had been told by our front office that the train station was about a 10 or 15 minute walk from town, which was a load of bull if I've ever heard it. Anyways, we start walking out of town, following our map and signs. We were walking with a huge wave of people that we assumed we leaving as well, so we kept following them. They climbed an overpass and crossed over the tracks, and then they all swarmed onto these buses. We kept walking (along with a few people) in the direction of the station. About 15 minutes later, we decided that we had made a mistake somewhere. We pulled out the map and realized that while we were in the right direction, we were on the wrong side of the tracks (both literally and figuratively at this point). If we had trusted our instincts, we would've stayed on the right road and never crossed the tracks. But we thought for sure, all these people were headed in the same direction as us. So we headed back to the overpass, and when we got there, I stopped and asked a police officer for directions, and he confirmed were the station was for us. At this point, it's about 7:10 p.m. and we realize we're in danger of missing the train (it wasn't a huge deal as there were two more, but they didn't leave until 10 p.m.). So we started really booking it at point and we arrived at the train station at about 7:25 p.m. We bought the ticket, but it's a small station, and there were no electronic signs to indicate which platform the train would be at. We made a gamble here and went to the middle platform where everyone was standing (we were a bit wary of following the crowd after the last experience). We got to the middle platform and then realized that we hadn't validated our tickets. Basically, whenever you purchase a ticket you must have it stamped to indicate when you bought it because it's actually good for another 30 days or something. So we run back down the steps into the station to try and validate it, only to see no mechanism to validate it on the machine. We ran back to the platform and just hoped for the best. The train arrived, and we weren't even entirely sure it was ours, but I asked a guy where the train was going and he said Messina, which is the right direction, so we got on. This train was different and had compartments, and there was a mad rush of people to get into the compartments. They seemed to fill up quickly, plus, people would put their stuff on seats to make it look taken so no one would sit with them. We finally found one and sat down (unfortunately I couldn't remember the right way to ask them if we could sit there until 10 seconds after we sat down). We got off the train without incident and then walked up the steps to Taormina (I hated that walk/climb just as much as the last time).
Needless to say, I slept incredibly well last night, with dreams of Carnivale!!
For those of you who want to keep reading, I'll now detail our trip to Caltagirone on Saturday. I'm sad to report it's not nearly as interesting, but it was worth the trip.
We left Saturday morning with the school - there were 6 of us plus Pepe who drove us in an 8-passenger van, which of course nervewracking as usual. The drive to Caltagirone took a little less than two hours, but it was an incredibly pretty drive. We've only seen mountainous areas so far, but this drive had more farmlands, plains and hills, so it was a pleasant change of scenery.
Caltagirone is famous for its ceramics. From what I understood of the tour (which Pepe gave in Italian), the clay needed to produce the ceramics is found near Caltagirone, which is why they do the ceramics there. They even have a school there for the children to learn the trade. I think my favorite part was the steps. There are (I believe) 170 steps in this one part of town, and on the front of each step are ceramic tiles, many of which depict a scene a story. I took lots of pictures of the intersting ones. During Christmas, they place luminaries on these steps and make pictures depicting the birth of Christ. The pictures of that looked pretty incredible.
We climbed the steps, and along the steps are ceramic shops. We went into several of them, and Pepe had some of the owners explain the process for making ceramics. The owners didn't talk as slow as Pepe, so I unfortunately can't really explain to you the process. I do know in one shop, the ceramics were making noises, like "ding," which I believe the owner said was because they were still settling (I could be way wrong, actually. When I hear sentences in Italian, I find the key words then build the most logical sentence out of it, so I never really know if I'm making up the right sentence or not).
We also went in the city's public garden and saw a gazebo with ceramics on it. We then went into the ceramic museum, which wasn't as interesting as the rest of the city, but I guess it was good to see some of the original ceramics from the city.
That's really it for Caltagirone. A few other things from the weekend:
On Friday night, I saw fireworks during dinner from the house. It was a huge show, and it lasted about 20 minutes. Aurelio explained that they were for a wedding, and based on the size and length of the show, this person clearly had a lot of money. He estimated the show cost at least 5,000 euro. On Friday afternoon, we said goodbye to Romy, Thomas, Trevor and Tina. They will be missed, and we hope the new people coming in will be just as nice and enjoyable. I also unfortunately had to say goodbye to Alicia Saturday morning. With Alicia gone, I now live on the second floor by myself, which I suppose might be nice for awhile. I believe we have two new people coming next week. We actually have a new student in the downstairs apartment who arrived Saturday, but I haven't met him yet. Now that Alicia and Christoff are gone, Clay and I have been at the school longer than anyone. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that - I really do hate saying bye so often to our new friends.
Anyways, there won't be an update tomorrow. We plan to go to Catania for the Festival of St. Agata, the patron saint of Catania. This is apparently a huge festival, and it actually began yesterday. We're only going to get to see part of it since many of the activities happen late at night and early in the morning. It's also more of a religious thing I believe. But once I know what it is, I will update you on Wednesday.
Friday, February 1, 2008
This one goes out to the Italian Men
Ciao!
Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday. This week has been a bit stressful as there were a lot of things to take care of back home. So, I walked down to the beach yesterday to just relax some, and it was wonderful. So I've been thinking which topic to blog about today, and today seems as good a day as any to dedicate one to the Italian men (which I know my girlfriends are curious about).
I should perhaps preface this by saying I'm not looking for an Italian man (or any guy) at the moment. Perhaps I would have more comments if I paid them more attention, but even ignoring them seems to lead to plenty of observations.
I was warned about the Italian men before I came and once I got here. I was told they believe American women are "easy," and are therefore a bit aggressive and forward with the American women (the Italian women are apparently the opposite as they do not take too kindly to the American men). Americans tend to smile a lot more than most Europeans, and I was informed that smiling or saying Ciao back to them is often viewed as an expression of interest. So if I happen to catch a man's eye, I typically try to purse my lips together, and look straight ahead, doing my best to give off the impression I'm very very much not interested (which is also my typical strategy in America as well).
While this keeps the guys from talking to me, it doesn't stop the staring, which is something I still haven't adjusted to, even three weeks later. The men (almost of any age really) stare at the women, almost to the point of leering I would say. The American men at least try to be sneaky and just catch a look every now and then. Not the Italian men. They see you coming about 50 yards away, and once they see you, they stare at you as you walk toward them, and then they keep staring until you're 50 yards away again. And unlike in America, when I catch them looking, they just smile, hoping I'll smile back. Catching them staring isn't a shameful or bashful experience for them; they just keep on staring!
Probably the most bizarre part is that even the ones with girlfriends/wives/kids seem to have no problem staring. In the States, if a girl caught her man staring like that, it'd no doubt lead to an argument. Before I left for Italy, my professor back home, Dr. Summerfield, even told us how her Italian friends who come to visit the states think it's odd that the American men never appear interested because they don't stare.
If the staring wasn't enough to make me run in the other direction, the pants sure are. I will dedicate an entire entry on Italian fashion one day soon, but this cannot wait as it's part of the reason I think the men aren't all that attractive. The jeans here (on both men and women) are extremely tight. I'm not talking tight like what is worn in the U.S. The men wear pants that could only be bought in the junior girls' department. On the guys between 18 and 28, the jeans are tighter than any pair I've every worn - and I'm just going to say that you can see everything, and I mean everything, in these pants. It's quite disgusting. In addition to being tight, they're the skinny jeans, so they taper off (if you don't know what skinny jeans are, this link should help http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/Shopbop/media/images/products/earne/earne1002214184/earne1002214184_347x683f.jpg)
I explained to my new German friend, Benjamin, that in America, the men who wear these are usually gay. But since pretty much all the young Italian men wear these, it's very difficult to tell who plays for what team. They also wear all sorts of other girly fashions that I will explain at a later point in time, but I just can't be interested at all in guys who wear jeans tighter and skinnier than mine.
Last night, a group of us went out to a Deja Vu, one of the few bars open here to say goodbye to Christoff and Alicia (and we think it might actually be a gay bar, but again, with these fashions, you never really know). When the waiter came, Christoff jokingly told the waiter I'd like to order an Italian man, and I had to explain to Christoff all my problems with them (which is what I think inspired this blog today). Needless to say, at the end of my explanation, Christoff told me to go to France and find someone there as they wear really wide trousers. :)
That's probably enough about my aversion to the Italian men. I hope you all have a great weekend. We're headed to Caltagirone with the school. It's a nearby town that is famous for its ceramics. Then on Sunday, Clay and I (and possibly Benjamin) are going to Acireale, another nearby town with a large Carnivale celebration, so Monday's blog will hopefully be interesting! Until then, Ciao!
Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday. This week has been a bit stressful as there were a lot of things to take care of back home. So, I walked down to the beach yesterday to just relax some, and it was wonderful. So I've been thinking which topic to blog about today, and today seems as good a day as any to dedicate one to the Italian men (which I know my girlfriends are curious about).
I should perhaps preface this by saying I'm not looking for an Italian man (or any guy) at the moment. Perhaps I would have more comments if I paid them more attention, but even ignoring them seems to lead to plenty of observations.
I was warned about the Italian men before I came and once I got here. I was told they believe American women are "easy," and are therefore a bit aggressive and forward with the American women (the Italian women are apparently the opposite as they do not take too kindly to the American men). Americans tend to smile a lot more than most Europeans, and I was informed that smiling or saying Ciao back to them is often viewed as an expression of interest. So if I happen to catch a man's eye, I typically try to purse my lips together, and look straight ahead, doing my best to give off the impression I'm very very much not interested (which is also my typical strategy in America as well).
While this keeps the guys from talking to me, it doesn't stop the staring, which is something I still haven't adjusted to, even three weeks later. The men (almost of any age really) stare at the women, almost to the point of leering I would say. The American men at least try to be sneaky and just catch a look every now and then. Not the Italian men. They see you coming about 50 yards away, and once they see you, they stare at you as you walk toward them, and then they keep staring until you're 50 yards away again. And unlike in America, when I catch them looking, they just smile, hoping I'll smile back. Catching them staring isn't a shameful or bashful experience for them; they just keep on staring!
Probably the most bizarre part is that even the ones with girlfriends/wives/kids seem to have no problem staring. In the States, if a girl caught her man staring like that, it'd no doubt lead to an argument. Before I left for Italy, my professor back home, Dr. Summerfield, even told us how her Italian friends who come to visit the states think it's odd that the American men never appear interested because they don't stare.
If the staring wasn't enough to make me run in the other direction, the pants sure are. I will dedicate an entire entry on Italian fashion one day soon, but this cannot wait as it's part of the reason I think the men aren't all that attractive. The jeans here (on both men and women) are extremely tight. I'm not talking tight like what is worn in the U.S. The men wear pants that could only be bought in the junior girls' department. On the guys between 18 and 28, the jeans are tighter than any pair I've every worn - and I'm just going to say that you can see everything, and I mean everything, in these pants. It's quite disgusting. In addition to being tight, they're the skinny jeans, so they taper off (if you don't know what skinny jeans are, this link should help http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/Shopbop/media/images/products/earne/earne1002214184/earne1002214184_347x683f.jpg)
I explained to my new German friend, Benjamin, that in America, the men who wear these are usually gay. But since pretty much all the young Italian men wear these, it's very difficult to tell who plays for what team. They also wear all sorts of other girly fashions that I will explain at a later point in time, but I just can't be interested at all in guys who wear jeans tighter and skinnier than mine.
Last night, a group of us went out to a Deja Vu, one of the few bars open here to say goodbye to Christoff and Alicia (and we think it might actually be a gay bar, but again, with these fashions, you never really know). When the waiter came, Christoff jokingly told the waiter I'd like to order an Italian man, and I had to explain to Christoff all my problems with them (which is what I think inspired this blog today). Needless to say, at the end of my explanation, Christoff told me to go to France and find someone there as they wear really wide trousers. :)
That's probably enough about my aversion to the Italian men. I hope you all have a great weekend. We're headed to Caltagirone with the school. It's a nearby town that is famous for its ceramics. Then on Sunday, Clay and I (and possibly Benjamin) are going to Acireale, another nearby town with a large Carnivale celebration, so Monday's blog will hopefully be interesting! Until then, Ciao!
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