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....

manual labor...

what work am i doing in Sicily you ask?






(fabio and i helping around ida's farm.)

cibo...

in Sicilian: "vastedda 'co sammuco"- a local Troina food- bread with cheese and salami, with the flower of the sambuco plant on the bread.



making homemade pizza.


ida's zia made pasta with fresh sardines...ummm!

small town blues....

okay, not really the blues. life in a small town (although it does have a population of about 11,000): everyone knows your business. ida had asked her aunt who lives in Troina if she would like to meet me, to which her zia said, "oh the chinese-american who went to etna the other day?" we had gone to see etna just the night before on the spur of the moment, how a young man found out and told her was a mystery to both ida and myself.

yesterday the waiter at the hotel asked me if i had a good time in syracusa. today one of the police officers was talking to my american contact, pia, and said, "ah, the american music therapist, she started work..."

maybe they have some sort of tracking device on me....

farms and fresh food....

i went to syracusa this weekend. stayed at ida's family farm, which they are renovating for the popular "agriturismo." it's quite lovely even though it's not finished yet. her family is great, met her parents and siblings, had wonderful food! ida's mom is hilarious:


i had the most amazing pastry here....a sweet ricotta filled pastry called "cassatelle di ricotta "...soooo good.


we met a couple of ida's friends from school sunday, siro, who's a graphic designer, and salvo, who is an awesome photographer. we went to salvo's dad's farmhouse, and had a yummy lunch, and just hung out for the afternoon. i now want a farm somewhere, only if i don't actually have to work it....

cesare....

ready for the road trip to syracusa...

welcome to troina....

...this is what i saw the other day.

to be fair, i aslo saw this:


and i see etna from where i live:

etna...

what would you do in the case of a volcanic eruption? stay as far
away as possible? no, ida and i were on our way to a bday party for a
friend's (fabio) niece when we saw the amber glow on top of mount
etna. she was really excited at how big the eruption was (biggest she
had personally seen) and asked if i'd like to go see it--of course i
said yes! how many opportunities would i get to witness this?! we
went to the party as planned, an awesome sicilian feast at fabio's
parents' house. afterwards we recruited 3 others to join us. so at
11pm we make the 2 hour drive toward etna, meeting up with ida's
sister and boyfriend, who operates an adventure tour company, and have
been up etna many times. keep in mind that this was all
impromptu....we didn't have any proper clothing/gear to hike up a
steep mountain....but, we had scrounged up some extra clothing and
hiking shoes to take with us (good thing too, since a couple of us had
sandals). after trekking uphill for 45mins in the middle of the night
with one flash light we got to the best place to observe etna in all
her glory...and it was AWESOME! i've never seen anything like it.
worth all the craziness we went through! the adventure continued
when we decided to head down the mountain at 3am by ourselves, since
ida's sister and her boyfriend were staying on and sleeping there (!).
so without our guides and just one pen light, ida, God bless her
brave soul, fearlessly took us, and some other hikers down the
mountain. anyway, by the time we got back to troina, it was 5am.

life in troina...

the weather in troina has changed dramatically the last 2 days. it's rather chilly up on this hill top. a good thing too, since the only fan accessible to me is now broken. work is busy...i've been meeting with various clinicians to discuss what i will do with the patients there. feeling a bit exhausted by all the guess work i'm putting into comprehending what everyone is saying. thank God for my coworker, ida, who's english is definitely getting better everyday b/c of all the translating she has to do for me!

ida and i are getting on great. she threw a small party saturday at her farm house. it was really nice to hang out with her friends. had good food, and lots of wine. giorgio, her friend who was visiting from palermo, had a guitar, and we all sang songs in english and italian. we got some funny stares from ida's dalmatian, who was probably not use to the loud noise...but by the end of the night he was fast asleep even as the music continued.

giorgio, ida, and myself went to the "beach" near catania yesterday....no sand, just big black lava rocks (from mt. etna). had lots of local foods....everywhere we went i got offered free food to try. i need to really start thinking about some form of exercise or else i'll really have to buy a whole new wardrobe!