Sunday, April 24, 2005

A BUSY WEEK IN SICILY

You really cannot do it all in one week but we tried. Junior, Jo, Steve and I love our land so that we tried to show people as much as possible, and wore them out (and ourselves) by trying to see a sample of everything. Our schedule was over planned and we were frustrated. For example, I was upset that we did not have time to go up the hill to see the ruins of the Arab village and mosque, and the ruins of the Swabian/Norman castle which are next to the Greek theatre at Segesta. But we had just seen the magnificent temple and I knew we would see castles in Erice that afternoon. And we could spot ancient village ruins excavated on the hillside, and of course the theatre is marvellous with its view of the curving highway and rich farmlands, not to mention the temple, far below. We just could not do everything! It is Sicily’s fault for frustrating us, for having so many layers of civilizations in the same area, making us discover even more new things each time we visit the same sites. So below is what we ended up doing with many parts of the original schedule scrapped because we were just too tired. I did not put in “shopping” but in almost every instance, we found ways to do it!

Sunday-Arrive Catania, fly breathlessly close to snow-covered Mt Etna
See Enna, Enna Bassa, Pietraperzia (Mancuso home village)
Agrigento temples, Ribera and orange trees

Monday-Sciacca-port, tasting room, Enchanted Castle
Wine pumping, Paolo’s Scavolini kitchens

Tuesday-Sambuca di Sicilia, typical Sicilian town with tours of antiquarium, theatre, art
Santa Margherita di Belice-Garden, book shop of Lampadusa’s Il Gattopardo
Montevago, more earthquake ruins
Selinunte Greek temple, village, small museum

Wednesday-Segesta temple and theatre
Erice-medieval city with castles, churches, “pasta reale” sampling
View of Trapani and salt flats, cable car

Thursday-Ribera market
Agrigento-Greek temple ruins
San Leone-beach of Agrigento
San Michele (old Sciacca) pizza trip

Friday-Palermo
Palazzo Normanni
Porto Nuovo, Cattedrale,
bus tour: 4 Canti, Teatro Politeama, Teatro Massimo, Piazza Pretoria and Mataranna
bus tour-new and old Poggioreale, sheep-up-close

Saturday-Sciacca-swim at terme, ritual blood letting
Shop for murano glass and jewelry, ceramics
San Calogero (Sciacca views)

Each day we ate a tourist menu at a different restaurant and the group was able to sample typical recipes for each area. Our tasting room experience got us started because later, we learned about and tasted capanata, arancine, cous cous, panneli, cannoli, pancetta, various almond paste sweets, various sausages, and before and after dinner liquors and wines in several different restaurants. We became real gourmets about Sicilian food, and were able to rate the restaurants, and we were pretty unanimous that Sciacca’s own Desiderio restaurant was tops!! We also thought that our bus drivers were excellent, especially Salvatore #2, who spoke English and navigated us up and down the hill in Erice and through the streets of Palermo in one piece. Unfortunately, he has a girlfriend. Many of us thought our daughters would be just right for him, and some of us wanted him all for ourselves (!).
So 2005 Sicily travellers-please write and tell us how you made out with your flights and getting all that oil, wine, and ceramics back into the states. Also, since Laurie had it first and is so generous, Steve, Jo Ann, and myself all have shared her cough, fever and sore throat. So if you feel sick, don’t panic, it must be a good ‘ol US bug she caught at school. These pictures will be for awhile, but as I add new entries, they disappear to make room for more and will appear only when you click on that date. But they will be here for a long time if you want to show them to your friends next year. Remember clicking on each picture makes it bigger. And stay tuned for pictures of Sciacca Carnavale. Ciao tutti!!

Saturday, April 23, 2005

This is the End!

They leave tomorrow. I will be sorry to see all my new and old friends go, but thank goodness, for there is no way I could ever eat like this for more than a week!

To all of you Silver Creek readers-thanks for the support! Maybe another year we will get you to visit. But there will never be another group as fun as this one. Or will there----?

Thursday, April 21, 2005

All is going well.....

But we are exhausted! Some rest tomorrow..

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Americans in Sicily

We are having a ball! The new pope is probably having a good time too, but when you see our smiling faces, you'll know we are eating better and smiling more.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

WEATHER-BY STEVE

STEVE WRITES TODAY'S ENTRY-stay tuned for details of American tourists in Sicily!

We have just had almost a week solid of strange, mid-winter weather at what seemed like the beginning of spring. The Sirocco winds, usually warm from the south-west, carrying bits of the Sahara desert over eastern Algeria and Tunisia, then dropping the sand on our terrace and on our cars, obscuring the crystal clear view of the sea our windows afford us, have switched back and forth with the colder, more brutal mistrals, that come off the Atlantic, cross southern France, and then race across the western Mediterranean Sea to drop cold rain on us. It is the mistrals that could be used as a defence for murder in the Napoleonic Code, as they were considered enough to drive a person crazy. The papers reported that over 100,000 Italians were sick in bed with the early spring colds they came down with, and more rain has fallen in Agrigento Province that ever recorded for a thirty day period.

Today, the weather seems to be breaking. Perhaps the warmer spring weather is finally coming back to stay. And what a glorious day! The cumulous clouds act confused, blowing down off the mountains of Caltabellota toward the sea, and then heading back up the Platani valley between here and Ribera. Wisps of rain occasionally fall from the clear blue sky, and the sea is by turns the wine dark color of Homer (the poet, not the cartoon character), light blue, and the blue-brown from the outlets of the Belice River near Porto Paolo, the Carboy River just on the other side of Capo San Marco, and the Platani and Verdura Rivers to the east, where they hope to build a golf course soon.

The bands of blue and blue and blue stretch to the horizon, where we can again see the large container vessels, and the occasional ferries plying their trade between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, as well as those making their way through this sea after coming through the Suez Canal or the Pillars of Hercules at the other end of the sea. I had read that at the Pillars of Hercules, or the Straits of Gibraltar, if you prefer, the sea runs in both directions at the same time. On top is the water, driven by wind and ocean currents, that flows east into the Med. However, at the depths, the water flows swiftly to the west, making its final dash from Caspian, or the Adriatic, or all of the lands and the water sheds that bound the Mediterranean to the freedom of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was hard to believe water could run against itself constantly, however when Fran and I took a walk yesterday just to the end of the road, we were able to look down on the beach and see the waves coming in from the south east and the south west, together, at the same time. The clash of the waters created small whitecaps on a wind free day, and added to the beauty of the blues of the sea. It also created the opportunity for the erosion driven soil of valleys to both the east and the west to mix in the sea, in their bands of blue-brown.

This afternoon, I looked out and watched two small fishing boats coming out of port. They were running at what looked like top speed in a direction opposite all of the other boats that I could see, that were just returning with their day’s catch. The calming sea still had enough action to bounce the boats as they raced toward Capo San Marco, with every third bounce dipping their bows into the water. I am not sure if they were testing the metal of the boats, or the mettle of the crew. I know that if I had been on them, the fish below could have expected my lunch for their dinner.

I am not sure why they were rushing out of port. I am pretty sure that they had already finished one day of commercial fishing, and already gone into port and delivered their load both to the pre sold buyers, and then the leftovers to the fish auction, and the cast of characters that are always there to greet the fleet as it comes in. Perhaps they were getting out to claim what they thought might be the best place to lay netting for lobster and calamari and other shellfish, and then would return at first light to pull their nets and process their catch before leaving for other parts of the sea for fishing. If so, they would need the seas to remain calm in order to be successful.

Perhaps they were trying to catch some of the time they had lost over the last week. The weather had been so bad that the fishing boats remained in port for the week. The Mediterranean is a small sea, but winds can blow up huge waves, and it sometimes acts like a bowl of water, when someone starts a ripple, it goes against the sides and comes back with equal or more force. So the boats may have already returned from one day of fishing, with their holds full, and now they were going out again, with the fishermen grabbing what sleep they could with the movement of the boat on the swells, and the roar and smell of the diesel engines. A fisherman I met once said it was almost impossible to sleep, and he was a crew member on one of the larger boats, that would stay out for 36 hours, then spend twelve hours in port before going out again.

At any rate, it was fun to speculate on what the boats were doing going out from the port at such a fast rate in such heavy seas. Later on, I saw some of the larger fishing boats, apparently going out for their second run. They usually leave port about 2 or 3 in the morning, getting back at 2 or 3 the following afternoon. These boats had almost certainly made a short run, unloaded whatever they caught (and Paolo has told me that fishing is easy for them after a storm, the fish are blinded by the roiled up waters, and can not avoid the nets. I think that is suspect, but that is what he told me, and he is Paolo!), and were headed out again. An opportunity to collect lost wages and boat payments from the week of bad weather!

In a few days, we will be inundated by guests from the United States. We truly hope that the good weather holds for them, and that we do not need to take advantage of breaks in the weather to double trip them to the various sites and flavours of Sicily, as the fishermen have had to double trip their forays to their fishing spots.

Hoping that your weather is taking a turn for the better, no matter how good it is. . . .

S

Monday, April 11, 2005

WEEK 2-HOUSE ARREST

While we are forcibly at home this week, we have found plenty of things to do. We have our daily shopping trip and Steve’s driving school. But it is not so easy for us when the weather turns bad. We have had cold, rain, and sirocco winds, and you all had better weather this weekend than we did, even Tupper Lake according to Newt!
We took a walk in the wind on Saturday and found that it was not so bad away from the sea. This must be why people here always ask us how come we do not have a place in the city so that we can go and stay there when it gets cold. But since it is never that cold (they mean 50 degrees and windy), it does not even seem worth even explaining. Our friends Christine and Brian alternate between living on their boat in the harbour in Sciacca and their house on the hill in Caltabellota, and they have problems whichever place they choose. It is sunnier and usually warmer in the harbour, but the sea can get too wavy when it is windy, while Caltabellota has snow and fog all winter.
Anyway, we took a different route on this walk, past farmers working in fields and past miles of yellow margarita flowers. You could see the mist formed by the sirocco winds over the town of Sciacca from the distance. It was a great walk, and we will take the route again I am sure. When we got home, the two brothers who own the apartments our American guests will lease next week came over, and then Paolo, Ignatzia and Giusy. While they were here, we got a phone call from Anna to come to Vincenzo’s 11th birthday party.
Toto came to get us and quickly Steve and Toto took off to get the prepared food from a bar in town. Meanwhile, Anna and I went to pick up her mother who had missed the bus. When we got back, all the little boys were in a bedroom playing a computer game. Anna introduced me quite formally, and then I said, “Hi boys, how’s it going?” and they all almost dropped their teeth! They really do not hear too much English here, and they were impressed. They study it at school, but their teachers do not know it that well either.
This birthday party was quite different from American ones I have known in the last few decades, but similar to ones from when I was a kid. There were all ages and sexes represented, from Anna’s mama of 75 to Leonardo who is just two and dressed like a little man, wanting to be like the big boys. There were no planned activities to keep the kids amused, just balloons and a soccer ball kicked around the apartment and onto the small second floor balcony. The boys rough housed as 11 and 12 year olds will, but came and sat with us and asked us questions about English and WWF Smack down, which was on TV, and caused much interest. We broke a few hearts when we assured them it was not true wrestling and all those punches were not really being landed on the jaws of all those big tough guys. Then they asked us what “s-u-c-k” meant in English, and how to say, “You’re a big fat jerk” in English (we also taught it to them in Spanish and French).
The cake arrived after the pizza and arancine, and the boys handled the candles and the traditional big Roman candle that threw off a lot of sparks and excitement. Then Toto took us home, and we were tired form our walk, and more than ready to leave the confusion of a typical Italian birthday party in a typical small Italian apartment.
This morning the weather was even worst and the long red boat taking refuge in the harbor at Baia Renella is still here form Friday night. Look closely and you can see a bit of sun shining in the distance!

Friday, April 08, 2005

ENFORCED HOME SWEET HOME

Well, it is not as bad as all that. But here are a few shots from home sweet home. The yellow margaritas are out everywhere, there is a horse hidden in the flowers next door ro Gaspare's house, the sciroccos come and go, and I sepnt a day at the pool, opposite this view of San Calogero. When you click on these pictures, they will be a little bit smaller than normal-does this make a difference to anyone?
Glad we are not in Rome!! News reports show millions of hungry, angry tired people in lines for half a day at least. I notice big shots breeze right through the line. Hmmm...would the pope have liked that kind of privilege?

Saturday, April 02, 2005

LICENSE TROUBLE IN SICILY

The federal cops, the Carabinieri confiscated Steve's NYS license and his international drivers permit, fined him 143 euro, and told him he could not drive till he had an Italian license. We figured we had friends in high places, etc, so we could fight it and get the licenses back. Paolo promised to talk to his buddy and we knew that Giuseppe at the Questura's office could help. Plus there was the US embassy-they could probably help. So we spent a sleepless night and figured Friday we could take care of it all.
Well, I should have known not to hope in what people say, for as usual, it is just a lot of hot air. Yesterday we found out that by law we should have gotten lItalian licenses a year after we moved here, and that we should have been told by the Questura's office (immigration), and that our friend there probably did not know that because the local cops did not know that. Paolo called his friend in the Carabinieri and he said Steve would be allowed to come to the office and make a copy of the NYState license, but that was all. And the US embassy office is only open from 3-5 weekdays, the only time Steve got any sleep Friday, so that will have to wait till Monday (neither of us have slept much because of the anger and frustration).
So, no quick fix. Steve is now going through a driving school and as such, has gone twice, and is as frustrated at times as I have ever seen him. Stupid people teaching stupid stuff, you know? I think the worst for him is the fact that we do not have the opportunity to go anywhere that we did before, like exploring the countryside in the spring. I can drive us over to Menfi on the backroads or for pizza, but it is a matter of time before I would have my license taken away too. So all of this is frustrating our normal style of life, and we are just trying to cope.
Yesterday I drove into town and waited while Steve went to school. I ran into my friend Anna the cop next door in the summer and unloaded on her while we had a cafe in a bar. She is younger than me, two young kids, and she listened sympathertically, but put it all into perspective for me. It will all eventually sort itself out, and no big deal. There are so many worst things in life!
So Paolo's buddy's son Michele is our new driver or "autista." He is a slug that does nothing, so we pay him to drive us from place to place daily, but he is available only in the AM. Since Steve usually does the shopping and errands and mail pick up and will change driving school to mornings, it works out ok for me. He and Steve are out now trying to find tomatoes for me to put into the planters. I am sure you will hear more about him later!