happy Christmas!

my nephew,Jake, spending Christmas with his favorite* aunt:


*because i can always be counted on to sing him "frosty the snowman"....if only all men are so easily pleased....

London...

traveling light...

i now remember why my motto when traveling is, "pack light!"
unfortunately, because i was away for 3 months, i had to travel with more things than normal, plus i had gifts i had to buy (and in Sicily, you can't leave without taking some wine and olive oil with you). needless to say, my 2 suitcases were full and HEAVY!!

when i got to London, i made a last minute decision to leave the heaviest of the two luggage at the airport while i trained into the city for my 4 day stay. it was a very fortunate decision since the tube station i got out with my "lighter" luggage did NOT have escalators or elevators! some nice guy took pity on me towards the top of the stairs and helped me hull the heavy thing up.

ending...

saying goodbyes....it's been hard to have to say goodbye to some of the people i've met here. it's especially hard when they start crying....i wish i have more time to do it properly, but as it stands, i've just had barely enough time to finish all the paperwork. all this means, i'll have to come back, that's all.

it's london for a few days before heading home.

oh matchmaker, matchmaker....

okay, so i'm no matchmaker, but i might have just set the wedding date for paolo and elenora (friends here who have been dating like 12 years!). anyway, we were eating dinner together the other night, and among the joking i casually mentioned that they should get married on 08.08.08, seeing that "8" is considered an auspicious number in asian cultures. everyone around the table started saying a bunch of things that i couldn't understand--apparently they were all planning the details of the wedding day....all the while, paolo was sitting there in pain (literally, since he had fallen off his motorbike that morning), but he wasn't saying "no."

i think i've single handedly ended paolo's bachelorhood....(& elenora is taking me shopping.)

san martino...

san martino was yesterday....it marked the beginning of the farmer's year, usually celebrated with the first tasting of the new wine and eating of the chestnuts. i celebrated it by going to fabio's family farm, and helping them with their olive picking (very hard work....but fun for a foreigner like me).
we had to lay down huge nets under the olive trees to catch the olives that were raked. we used our bare hands, some with a small raking tool, and fabio's dad with this hand held motorized beating tool. the olives we picked will go on to a place that presses them into oil. i was told that there is only about a 15% yield for oil from the olives picked....hard work indeed.

to the opera or bust...

Tosca is being performed in the Bellini Theater in Catania. i really want to attend an opera while i'm here, however there are no more tickets for any of the performances. ida and i are hoping we could go to the theater the day of a performance and see if there are any nose bleed seats left.
she called the theater tonight, and was emphatically told that there were NO MORE tickets to be had, not even the bad ones...when she suggested that perhaps someone might not be able to attend, for example, an accident, sickness, or perhaps...death (she has very good persuasive powers)....more screaming from the other end of the phone....so we gave up.

breakfast of champions...

one should always be allowed to have granita*, brioche, and cappuccino to start the day.









*wikipedia: Granita (in Italian also granita siciliana) is a semi-frozen dessert of sugar, water, and flavorings from Sicily, Italy. Related to sorbet and italian ice, in most of Sicily it has a coarser, more crystalline texture.

silvio update...

we found him! (met him on the street --while driving.)

honey festival...

we went to the annual honey festival in Zafferana Etnea:

one can get a variety of honeys
to treat different digestive
problems:

...taste all sort of alcoholic
drinks, including one that's
called "Fuoco di Volcano."
(50% alcohol!)
and as far as i know, pigs can't
produce cheese....

taormina...

at the greek theatre with friends:










...greek god and goddesses...

catania's famous fish market...

fish...among other interesting things at the pescheria:

looking for silvio....

been having problems with the mobile phone service, TIM, here. ida and i have been looking for this guy, silvio*, for the last week or so without luck (and TIM being down didn't help). today ida decided we would just drive around the village to look for him....i just sat in the passenger side and laughed at the situation the whole time....i suggested we buy a megaphone, which might be more effective than just looking....perhaps we could borrow one of those trucks that sell goods (they drive around the village, broadcasting what they have. the first time i heard this, all the way in the hotel, i thought it was the call to prayer....then i remembered this was italy).

*if i can't recall some guy's name here in Troina, i can always take a guess that his name is silvestro, or silvio for short. 9 out of 10 times i'd be right. (st. silvestro is the patron saint of Troina....)

fog...

it's been rainy and foggy here in Troina.

want some????

rum soaked pastries....

supa star...

i was interviewed for Oasi TV last week. it was a pretty one-sided "interview" since i was instructed to look into the camera at all times when i answer the questions, which came off-stage....and, as with all the italian tv/film, everything i said will be dubbed. ida will translate during post-production. i told her to add anything i might have missed, and not to translate things like "the food at the hotel sucked" or "watermelon watermelon watermelon...."

they are also talking about doing a documentary on the project. i want them to put in all the times i got beaten up by the patients.

siracusa & noto...

spent the weekend with my friends from philly, liz & amy. we stayed in ida's parents' farm, and explored Siracusa & Noto.



there were swarms of birds on top of the trees near the Fountain of Arethusa on Ortigia island in Siracusa. it was really loud, and was amazing to see them fly around in these huge groups--it almost looked like fireworks going off! apparently this usually happens this time of the year around sunset.


Noto is a beautifully built city in the baroque style, so much so, that it made the UNESCO's world heritage sites list....

we had what some say the best gelato in Sicily...or arguably, in all of Italy. all i know is it was the best i had so far, and in favors that i've never had here (white grape & basil)...i might have to go back to Noto just for ice cream!

more small town tales...

i had some difficulties trying to find a ride down to Catania thursday evening to meet visiting friends at the airport...the last bus out was too early for me to get out of work. I even had my friend at the hotel reception, vito, call the hospital and the research center here to see if any doctors were going down to Catania that afternoon and could give me a lift.

in the end, i was offered a ride in a hearse....

(would 've taken it except it was leaving too late for us to get the last bus to Siracusa, so ida took pity on me and drove ...which was another interesting experience since i had cesare, her dog, riding in the passenger seat with me.)

aeolian islands…

met up with visiting friends in the islands last weekend. we stayed on the island of Lipari. rented a boat one day and sailed around Salina, Lipari, and Volcano. i now understand why this entire area is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. it's such a beautiful place! the color of the sea is almost unreal...snorkeling around the island was another experience all together. we took a mud bath in Volcano, in the sulfuric mud and the natural hot springs...think i have to now throw away my bathing suit.

the food: amazing. the seafood especially, was the freshest i’ve ever tasted...ida refused to eat one of the things, limpets, she ordered for me and john, and after eating 5 or 6, i was ready for the next one when i saw an undulating motion on my plate...“it’s moving! is this thing alive?!?!” needless to say i stopped eating...but i have to admit, i quite liked them, just had a hard time eating something that was still moving.

palermo...

i went to Palermo last weekend. It's a pretty busy city....stayed with some friends of ida's, right in one of the busy markets (think Philadelphia's Italian market, times 10). For dinner one night i had something that i don't think i've ever had before (unless my parents fed it to me when i was young, and i just didn't know it), cow's spleen. it came with fresh cheese in a sandwich form....quite tasty, actually. for another meal, i had parts of pig's snout, ears, etc, marinated with onions, carrots, pepper, in what else, olive oil and vinegar....also tasty, and chewy. i also had my first experience in making marmalade! we made it from ida's grapes.

Palermo had some really interesting architecture. not only because it had many different cultural influences at different times in the past, you can see some very different styles of architecture in the same building.

more food....

i had gelato con brioche for lunch yesterday....that's right, gelato stuffed into a bun...and you wonder why i'll be gaining weight here.












for lunch today, i had an aranchino (stuffed rice ball coated with bread crumbs, deep fried) - this one was stuffed with pistachio, mushrooms, & cheese rice.

fresh fruits everywhere i go. just go to the yard and pick out what you want. grapes? sure....prickly pears? we leave fabio to do the honors of getting stabbed so we can enjoy the fruit from the cactus plant (which tastes like papaya).

setting up shop...

i didn't realize how much i loved places like "staples" or "officemax" until now.....trying to organize the office here has been quite the interesting experience. ida helped me translate some things i needed: pen, paper, folders (they don't seem to have plain simple manila folders here, only fancy ones), etc. we get a call some time after the list was submitted, asking what we meant by "notebooks"....apparently they thought we wanted laptop computers....should've told them they were right, since now i'm stuck with notebooks with mona lisa, or some japanese anime graphics on them....darn.

we got some of the things we wanted the other day....except they gave us a lot of things that we don't really need much of: we needed 3 notebooks, we have 30; a few folders, we have a whole case...i told ida we can take them to her farm and she can use them to start fires.

another interesting organizational difference... paper don't get put into a binder without a sheet protector....i now have A LOT of sheet protectors....i can protect my receipts, bording pass, gum wrappers, ooo... post-its, and anything you want to send me by paper, and put them in my fancy folders.

S's....

here in Sicily, alot of the men i meet have similar names. Salvatore & Silvestro, and variations of these names are the top running ones. Silvestro also happens to be name of the patron saint of Troina, hence the prevalence in mothers naming their sons after him)....so far i've met 6 Salvatores and 5 Silvestros, and i'm sure i'll meet more.

every town has it's own patron saint that protects the town. and every year, there's a time when your saint is paraded around for the feast. it just so happens that here in Troina, it's a 2 week long thing....started last sunday, and will end next sunday.

sicilians...

it's interesting to see that here, people don't go out unless they go out in groups. no hanging out with just another person...you know there'll be a crowd. i love it...since i get to meet people. i crashed a local wedding tradition the other night, where the groom on the night before the wedding would go to the bride's house, stand outside (ideally under her balcony...as in romeo and juliet) and serenade her, along with their group of friends. i was a stranger/foreigner, but they were welcoming regardless, and i joined in with the singing, dancing in the street, drinking of the whisky and limoncello (a sicilian alcohol)....


it is also interesting that people date a VERY long time before they get married. the couple that night had dated for 9 years. some other friends i've met are on their 12th year of dating, and another couple just got married this summer after 10 years of dating...they say it's because of the lack of job situation...i think it's the guy's fear that if he gets married, he'll have to leave mamma and all the comforts of home she provides....