Mi manca la mia mamma e papà

Patty and Tommy hit Sicily on Thursday, May 21. We had a hell of a time with a few minor setbacks due to the awful train system in Sicily. We tried to go to Trapani on Friday, but after the train was 50 minutes late we decided to blow it off. Instead we went home and had a fabulous lunch, drank some cheap wine and waited for the arrival of Uncle Nick and Barb. We drank more wine, ate again and slept a little. On Saturday we all tried to get the early train into Palermo - also with a minor transportation glitch. The train broke down in Partinico so we had to wait about an hour for a bus. The bus took us to another train station - where we had to board another train to Palermo. The funny thing is that if we had a car we would've been there in 40 minutes, but since we have to rely on really old trains to get around it took us nearly 3 hours to get there. Thank God we weren't trying to catch a flight! Actually, I guess that wouldn't have mattered because the flights are always late here too. Whatever!

We visited the temple at Segesta on Sunday and took it easy on Monday. A great few days, but I wish it could have lasted longer. My Mom can party, she had me up until 3:30 am and we were just chit chatting away the whole time.

Mom, please come back and help me with my casalinga duties! Dad, please come back so that the vino lady's sales can skyrocket again! Between my parents' visit and Terry and Jamie's visit we've ensured a bright future for the wine lady's children. Salute!

Ti amo mama e papà. Molti abbracci e baci. Ci vediamo presto!

Why did you leave?

We miss you and the terrazza is calling your names. Please come back!

"The Pioneering Parent" - or "My Mom Comes to Italy"

It's been an interesting 8 months. We've moved 3 times. We've been through, according to my friend Erik, the rainiest winter in Sicily in 100 years. We've learned some Italian (still working on the Sicilian!) and eaten a lot of gelati (and in Ang's case, more spleen sandwiches than are probably recommended by the Surgeon General*). But last week was the probably the most special - my mom came to visit us here in Italy!

It was a great trip - we still can't believe how much we did in a short week. First, Ang and I flew to Rome to meet my mother. We stayed at a nice little hotel (thanks to Katie Parla's recommendation) called Hotel Grifo. It was located on a quiet little street called Via Boschetto, just around the corner from a metro stop and a short walk from the Colosseum, the Forum and Piazza Venezia.

We were really happy to be able to show my mom around Rome. Sometimes I forget that the best travel experiences are those that are unplanned/unexpected - I think I wanted to show my mom as much of the city as we could in the short time that we had, but in reality, the most memorable part of the trip was walking up the hill next to the Arch of Constantine. We weren't really sure where we were going, but something propelled us up that hill, until we reached a church at the top, with its doors wide open to the street. There was a wedding going on inside - the bride and groom were standing at the altar and there was the most sweet sounding, hypnotic music coming from the inside. There was a live band playing (including someone on the bongos!) and the audience, including the groom, started singing. The music sounded like it was african or caribbean inspired - definitely not something you'd expect to find coming from a church in the middle of the Forum. Anyway, we all agreed, this was the most memorable moment of the trip. Really, really beautiful.

Anyway, the rest of Rome was great and a lot of fun. It was definitely a lot more crowded over a holiday weekend in May than it was our first time through over Christmas. We discovered one nice thing, however, and it seems that tourists en masse haven't found it yet - the new glass elevator that takes you up to the top of the monument to Vittorio Emanuele - a.k.a. the Wedding Cake. It offers incredible views of the city and a bird's-eye view of the Forum - I would say it was worth it for 7 euro. Of course, we did some of the touristy things as well. Ang and I downloaded a couple of Rick Steves podcasts that actually ended up being really helpful at St. Peter's, the Pantheon and the Colosseum (the forum was a little confusing, especially since Ang had the IPod and my mom and me opted for the audio guide at the main gate - which I thought was pretty terrible). Ang lead us on a great walking tour of the Jewish Ghetto, where we ate lunch and got screwed by our own people - we were rushed making a decision for lunch (we waited too long to decide on a place to eat and then they were all closing) so we ended up getting a little bit of food and wine and paying 8o euros for it. Thank you, fellow members of the tribe!

Of course, we more than made up for that the next day by finding a cool little place called Lo Zozzone near Piazza Navona that served pannini made out of pizza bianca, sliced in half then stuffed with the fillings of your choice. Excellent with a beer and also really cheap!

Anyway, the rest of the trip was a bunch of meandering and hilarity, but I won't bore you with all of the details - there are some fun pictures up at http://picasaweb.google.com/sbcase/MomSTripToRomeAndSicily#.

I will write more about the Sicily leg of the trip later on. Ang told me that its time to give the blog a rest - its 11pm here on a Saturday. What can I say, we are nerds.

Ciao,
Scott

* I'm not sure the Surgeon General ever said anything about eating spleen sandwiches. If you are the Surgeon General, or have ever been the Surgeon General, please don't sue me.

Old Friends, Ancient Traditions

On Good Friday a very, very old friend came to visit. After some catching up over lunch we jumped on the train to see La Processione dei Misteri in Trapani. The famous Easter procession begins on this day every year and it is the longest in Italy - 24 hours. Huge wooden sculptures representing different moments in the Passion of Christ are slowly walked throughout the town by groups of men called "i portari". The men huddle together and hold each other and their statue up while walking slowly and swaying side to side. Each statue is accompanied by a group of local musicians. One statue was being followed by a group of singing children. I think Cathy and Scott would agree with me when I say that it was unbelievable...to say the least. It's pretty difficult to describe, so click on the above link to watch a video of it.

On Saturday we visited Palermo, the craziness of the markets, the cheap street food, the grafitti and trash... it never gets old and I love it even more every time I go back. Dinner that night was at the new Venezuelan/Sicilian restaurant in town. Yes, you read that correctly. Arepas, 2 pizzas, salad and a liter of wine - not bad for €10 each. After dinner Cathy and I ducked into midnight mass to check it out - a huge turnout and the whole town really seemed alive that night. A raucous night of drinking more wine and discussing deep subjects such as circumnavigation, honey and faith followed. Don't ask.

On Easter Sunday we took a nice long walk on the beach, caught up on the newest episode of Lost and made a fantastic dinner: risotto and steamed artichokes. It was a great weekend and it seemed only fitting that I spent it with a friend I've had for nearly 20 years. It felt as close to home as we could get.

Ang teaches me a valuable lesson...

Angela brought up a good point during our most recent trip to Palermo. If you ever hear a group of kids yelling "Che schifo!" ("How gross!") behind you, DO NOT turn around.

I made the mistake this past Saturday, as we were sitting down to enjoy our gelato al gelsomino con brioche (jasmine gelato on a brioche, or as we like to say, a gelato burger or "frozen doughnut", 'cuz that's what it sorta tastes like...). A gaggle of kids - an appropriate word, given our semi-understanding of the language, when we hear a group of kids talking it sort of sounds like a bunch of "gaggling" - sat down at the table behind us. I would guess they were all around 12-14 years old. Ang and I have different feelings about groups of kids - I think I usually find their childish antics somewhat amusing, at least until they throw fireworks at my feet, while Ang would probably opt for grabbing each of them by the ear and giving them 1) a lesson on behaving themselves in public and 2) a haircut. Since neither of those things are within our range of abilities language-wise, Ang usually chooses to try to ignore it.

So the kids sitting down behind us are starting to get crazy. Out of the commotion, one of them starts yelling "Che schifo!!!" repeatedly. Of course, I turn around and Ang ignores them. The kids, one by one, are sticking their fingers into a heaping cup of gelato, much to the disgust of the owner. Plunging their fingers, filled with gelato and cream, into their mouths, they start circling the owner for another swipe. The poor little boy started to shriek, outnumbered by his friends and unable to protect his dessert.

Ang and I didn't stick around much longer - the kids were pazzi per lo zucchero. We decided to take a walk along Palermo's waterfront promenade and Ang pointed out that I had made a poor decision in looking back to see what the kids were doing. She had a point, "che schifo" could have been anything - I got lucky. The kids were being pretty annoying, and I hope that the owner of the plundered ice cream didn't eat the remainders (although something tells me that he did; this is, after all, the town where men used to rent candy suckers. Yup, kids would line up to pay to suck on a piece of candy for a few minutes before it was yanked out of their mouth - it was tethered to a string - and given to the next kid in line!). Given the propensity for bizarre sights in Palermo, things definitely could have been a lot worse!

We're movin' on up!

We have a sweet new apartment that is ready for visitors, so book your tickets now while the airlines are having ridiculous fare sales! Well, I should say that it is sort of ready for visitors...

Electrical problems (ahem, serious electrical problems, like the ones that could cause fires) prompted us to move out of our apartment on Via Marconi. We were innocently sitting in the kitchen one night eating dinner and watching Affari Tuoi when a spark (read: tiny fire) lit up the wall above the tv and then everything went black. It was fixed the next day, and by fixed I mean a new wire was attached and everything was wrapped in black electrical tape. I'm not an electrician, but exposed wires all over the place, most of which are jumbled up and taped together, seems like a catastrophe waiting to happen.

After this, our 3rd blackout, we were told that the apartment had to be completely re-wired and some other renovations had to be done also. We could leave the place and go back in a month when everything was done, or we could just leave. The choice was obvious.

The week before we moved into the new place was one fun filled day after the other. Our landlord began doing work on the facade of our house, waking us up at 7am everyday with incessant banging. We didn't have water for a day, which meant I couldn't do wash, and even after that when the water was back on I couldn't hang any clothes outside because of the mess. Our landlord and his workers were in and out of our apartment everyday, tracking dirt everywhere. One morning I stepped out of the shower and saw a shadow of a person walking by the bathroom, I was not pleased. And Scott was even less-pleased than me.

So, we welcomed our new apartment with open arms. I was so happy when we moved everything in, so happy to use the new kitchen, so happy to turn on the exhaust fan above the range, so happy to take a shower and have it be big enough that I could actually turn around. Life was sweet. At least until 5 days after we moved in....

I went home one night and was walking up the stairs and noticed some pieces of plaster on the step. I was puzzled by this, as I sweep the floor everyday (like a good casalinga). I quickly turned the corner and saw that the floor in the spare bedroom next to the kitchen was completely covered with plaster and glass. And, this is the best part, the ceiling was gone. The light fixture must have been too heavy and not anchored correctly, so it fell down, shattered and brought most of the ceiling with it. So much for a new house with no problems! What were we thinking? This is Sicily after all!

I ran to the office, told Scott and Fabrizio, and after a quick glimpse at the mess we jumped in Fabrizio's car and drove to our landlord's house. We explained the problem and drove back to the apartment to show him. He came back the next morning to fix it (which was Friday March 6) and said he would come back 3 days later to paint. It's still not painted.

Don't you think it's a little strange that this occurred in the ONLY room that we didn't have any stuff in? It was going to be a guest room so it only had a bed and a chair in it...neither of which were damaged. We got lucky, I suppose!

This is a picture from the terrazza.
And the visibility wasn't even that great,
so imagine what it looks like on a clear day.
This is why we fell in love with this place!

Valentine's Day and a trip to Palermo

Here's a link to our most recent round of pictures.

Ang made a couple of amazing pizzas on Friday, along with a delicious dessert. So awesome, words don't do them justice, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

We had a really nice visit with our friend Manfredi Barbera, his wife Paola and their son Lorenzo in Palermo on Saturday. Manfredi produces the most famous olive oil from Sicily (you may have seen this bottle in specialty food stores in the States), and he lives, with three cousins (in separate apartments) in his families' beautiful villa smack in the heart of the city. We thought we were meeting him to go out for lunch, but he prepared a feast for us and his in-laws, who came over to visit - neonata (which are tiny baby fish, served raw with lemon juice and olive oil), calamari (a recipe so perfect that Manfredi's friend Lidia Bastianich included it in her book Lidia's Italy (Manfredi's Steamed Calamari, although Manfredi pointed out that he uses balsamic vinegar and omits the peperoncino, but Lidia didn't think she should include Balsamico, from Reggio-Emilia, in a Sicilian recipe!), two pasta dishes (one I couldn't eat because it had shrimp, but Ang assured me it was delicious) and fantastic dolci for dessert. Manfredi is an inspiring guy, after lunch, we talked for a few hours about Sicily and its hidden attractions, the olive oil business and food in general. Afterwards, he had to go out on business, so he took us to Villa Niscemi, a beautiful home preserved for the last couple hundred years and now home to the Palermo county seat. It was closed, but Manfredi was able to convince the guards to let us in to take a look around.

We were so happy after lunch - Manfredi and Paola were so warm, their house was so amazing and the food was awesome! He's a busy guy, and Paola has another son on the way, but we're hopeful that we can get together again soon. Altogether, it was a pretty awesome day!

(Oh, and when we got back to Balestrate, our electricity blew out in the kitchen and bedroom. Our landlord fixed the problem this morning, and luckily the stove still worked - for cooking dinner, for heating up our precious hot water bottles - but still, it was kind of a bummer after spending the day in Palermo!)