Sicilia – Spring Break (whoo!)

N.B. This post merely contains words. Colorful pictures are in the post below this one

I left Ferrara on the morning of Good Friday, heading to Sicily for my spring break. I traveled alone. I flew into Palermo, and it is a wonderful sight to walk out of an airport and have a beautiful view of the sea waiting for you. My main objective in Palermo was to see one of the Good Friday processions that I had heard about. Southern Italy in general is supposed to have some rather interesting religious practices that lie close to the edge of Catholicism and, some might say, Christianity. Examples are things like the fanatical love of Padre Pio, tarantism, the so-called cult of Mary, etc. Also, they do big Easter processions, usually on Good Friday, lasting for hours and hours, zig-zagging through the streets. Formerly, it was a tradition for a freshly released convict to play the main role of Christ carrying the cross. In the procession I saw, it was a little boy who played Jesus, carrying a little cross. The processions consist of “floats” with statues of either Jesus or Mary that are carried by 20-30 men. I am not quite sure why the floats are so heavy, but even 20 men strained to lift the them. I saw parts of two processions in Palermo, then I had a terrible pizza for dinner (thanks a lot for the recommedation, Lonely Planet).

The next day I headed to Trapani, on the western tip of Sicily. It is located on a peninsula and has to be the windiest city in the world. On Easter, called Pasqua here, I went and saw another procession, this one being much more joyous with a statue of the risen Christ instead of the dead one. Everybody was out in their finest clothes. I went to Mass at the local cathedral. Antonio, the man that ran my little hotel, knew I was by myself so he invited me to have Easter lunch with him, his son, and his son's girlfriend. This is a good example of southern hospitality, and I was happy to accept. We had a nice lunch, concluding with a dessert that was surprisingly similar to gooey-butter cake, though not as sugary. Antonio was a bit surprised that I had had something like it before because it is a very localized Sicilian pastry. We digested our food over a couple of after lunch drinks and then we retired to our rooms for naps. It was a bit lonely to be a couple thousand miles from home for Easter, but Antonio helped me feel at home in Trapani.

On Monday I visited a little mountain town outside of Trapani called Erice. Erice was very beautiful, but it is a bit sad to see a town that has no industry besides tourism. Anyway, I misjudged the complexity of Erice's city planning and somehow managed to get terribly lost in this small town. In other hilltop towns I've been to there are only two directions to go: up or down. Erice was a tangled mess of ups and downs in every direction. The weather was sunny when I got there, then it started to hail, then rain, then the fog rolled in, along with strong winds. I tried to warm myself in all of Erice's 61 churches that I could before I caught the bus back to Trapani. Open restaurants were basically nonexistent in Trapani on a Monday night so I ended up at a Chinese restaurant where I discovered that Italian-chinese food has basically no overlap with American-chinese food.

My next destination was Catania, on the eastern coast of Sicily, where I based myself for an excursion up Mount Etna. I had a very hostel-ly hostel experience where I shared a room with seven strangers located above a noisy bar and twenty feet from the railroad tracks. And the showers were cold. However, it was a good experience, and I would stay their again, actually. In Catania, I saw a big open-air fish and meat market where you could see your bloody mass of meat cut right in front of you or you could tell the butcher exactly which fish head you would like to buy for lunch. And, since no one bothers with cleaning up, a big water truck came through at the end of the day and washed away all the blood and guts into the sewer. Also, for the record, maybe the cities in Sicily would be a little bit cleaner if such a thing as a public trash can existed anywhere. When I told Marco that statement he took the northern Italy point of view and said that Sicily is a public trash can. This is actually true to some extent because a lot of garbage and chemical/toxic materials are illicitly “hidden” throughout southern Italy, thanks to organized crime. The last important note about Catania is that I had a fantastic pizza with buffalo mozzerella and spicy Calabrian sausage on it. Era buonissima! This pizza made me reflect on the best pizzas I've ever eaten in Italy, the US, and even Canada. If there is interest, I can go into more depth on this subject in the future.

On Thursday, I took a tour of Mount Etna. My faithful guide, Caremello, picked me and seven others up and drove us as far up the volcano as we could go. Let me explain the weather. In Catania it was sunny. As we went higher and higher up the mountain, it started to rain, and then get foggy, and finally snow. This was not the spring break weather I was hoping for. We couldn't get anywhere near the top to see the craters because of the snow, but we did see some lava flows that were cooled. The best part was that we went into two lava caves that were really interesting. My mother would have hated them. Caremello did his best with the weather we had, and I am glad I took a tour instead of trying to take a self-tour using the bus. I found out that everything in my guide book about Etna was wrong because a lot of stuff was destroyed in an eruption seven years ago. It makes me wonder just how well-updated my guide books are.

Finally, I decided to take a night train back to Ferrara from Catania. Taking a train from Sicily is definitely very different than from Northern Italy. Everybody was speaking energetically, arguing often, offering each other food, smoking cigarettes, leaning out the windows, feet up on the seats. They would start conversations with me with the excellent observation, “You're not from Italy, are you?” In order to cross between Sicily and the mainland the entire train actually goes on a ferry, which is a strange situation in which to find yourself. It's kind of like the Lyle Lovett lyric, “If I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat.” The train ride was about 14 hours long, and I don't look forward to trying to sleep through the night sitting on a train again anytime soon.
By deciding to travel by myself for a week, in a way I was giving myself the challenge to plan and carry out an entire trip by myself. I was proving my self-sufficiency, I guess. Through this experience I have had a few realizations:

1.I prefer to travel with others.
2.I should ask the locals for advice more often.
3.Going to restaurants by yourself is boring. Good ways to spend lonely dinners include doing the sudoku on the placemat or watching a soccer match.
4.When you are a stranger, even the smallest familiarity with a person becomes important. I think this is why I found myself, upon seeing them on the street, warmly greeting the waiters from the previous night's restaurant. What does this say about the human need for companionship?

Now I'm back in Ferrara. It's good to be home.

I've got some pictures for you

These are photos from my trip in Sicily. Read above for the prose version of my travels.

Statue of Mary
Girl dressed as a nun in the procession. Maybe they couldn't find any real nuns?

Boy-Christ
Entombed Jesus. Notice how the men stand in pairs and hold each other around the waist. How sweet.

Crowd shot and Mary float
Playin' in the bandThis guy was greatA Palermo
The highest part of Erice has no less than 3 castles on it!
One of Erice's 61 churchs
View of the western Sicilian coastline from Erice
Small town charm
My faithful tour guide Caremello.
Steps cut into the lava cave, allowing access at your own risk.
Snow covered lava flow. The lava ends where the trees begin. Che bello.

giro in bici

I went for a nice bike ride yesterday. The weather is turning nice. The days are beautiful and the nights are cold. I rode along the Po River, which runs about a quarter mile behind my house. I realized the other day that if it ever flooded, our house would flood immediately. Good thing I sleep on the second floor.

Since I get bored sometimes when I ride my bike I have been practicing riding without hands, senza le mani(grammar tip for the day: the word for hand (mano) is feminine even though it has a masculine ending). I can now ride indefinitely without touching the handlebars provided there are no sharp turns or really big potholes. I consider this a big accomplishment.

This is a panorama of the river and Francolino, the small town I live in outside of Ferrara. If you click on the picture you should be able to see a slightly bigger version. The arrow points to my house. If you try really hard maybe you can see Marco mowing the lawn.

ok, so to see a suitably large version of the picture go to http://www.sendspace.com/file/sxlngm and download the file, it's called stich3_3.jpg

Me and my bici

I like Umbria

We took a big group weekend trip to Umbria on the second weekend in March. It rained and snowed in Perugia and we saw a painting called the Flagellation of Christ in which Christ looked just like Christopher Walken (the highlight of the meuseum, definitely).

When we got to Assisi the next morning it was completely foggy outside. I couldn't even see across the piazza. We visited the Basilica of St. Francis which was neat. It had the best stained glass I've seen yet. Our guide was hilarious and contradicted everything my art history teacher ever told me. I met a Franciscan monk from Toronto. When we came out of the Basilica the weather had cleared up and I found out that Assisi is really beautiful. There were a bunch of tourists in Assisi. Maybe definitely it's hypocritical, but I don't like hearing other people speaking english in Italy.

Assisi

In my lunch I had a "Caramel Jazz" candy bar. I never knew that jazz tastes just like Twix.

The next day we went to Cortona, a nice hilltop town in Tuscany. The highlight of the day was climbing to the top of the town(it's a very very steep town) and the lowlight was the gross gnocchi al tartufo I had for lunch. While we were on top of the city we took a lot of pictures a few of which are posted below. Taking these pictures was really fun. The Farley's in particular would be pleased that I pulled out both the “crime fighter” and “surfer” photo prompts.

Our crew in Cortona

From left to right, me, Sonja, Tony, Kraig, and Liz

Italy! I am going to enter this one in the CIEE photo contest and totally win.

I have to go to class occasionally

The classes I am taking are as follows:

Italian language: Although I still hate the conjuntive tense, I have improved vastly in my language skills. Why any language choose to use their subjunctive tense, I don't know. But I really am better than before. I can actually talk to people sometimes and understand them! It's fantastic. We (the american students) even talk to each other in Italian now(sometimes). On the street the other day, someone asked me where Via Qualcosa was. I had no idea where it was but I at least understood them and knew how to respond. Every time I understand even the smallest thing in Italian I count it as a personal victory.

Renaissance Art History: I am more of a modern and contemporary art kinda guy but this class has raised my appreciation for renaissance art a couple notches, which is a good thing because there is little besides renaissance art in this country. One thing I have learned is that gothic art is even lamer than renaissance art. This class is taught in english, which Marco and Christina think makes it too easy(troppo facile). I agree.

Nuovo Cinema Italiano: This class is taught in italian by Piero, the teacher that does not understand how little we understand. We started with neorealism films that no one ever watches, like Ossessione, Bellissima, Umberto D, and Roma Citta Aperta. Then we continued on with the documentaries of Vittorio De Seta(more real than neorealism!), which were really good. Now we are starting the new new cinema of the 80's. Probably the hardest thing I have had to do in Italy is try to listen to Piero speak for an hour straight. E' molto difficile e annoio! But today he used me as an example of someone who did well on our exam. I was as surprised as anyone, believe me. What he probably meant was that I did quite well for someone who doesn't know Italian.

20^th Century Italian Culture: A lot of wacky stuff happened in Italy in the 20^th century. My teacher, Davide, is really awesome and has the strangest accent I have ever heard. He is always ready to go on tangents like arguing the Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones. He is a Stones man. I am a Beatles man. Somehow we manage to get along anyway.

Cheese and Prosciutto

I went to Parma and ate a really good pizza. Here is a picture from the parco ducale.

Postcard home

Here are a few more pictures from when the family came to visit me. Maria and Dad took most of the pictures, actually.

The whole fam-damily overlooking Firenze

The Speiser boys laughing it up

Speisers on Bikes

We had the best lunch ever at this winery in Tuscany. Cattia (not pictured) cooked us a delicious meal and sat down and ate with us. Plus, they had a mean Chianti Classico. I want to live at that winery.

Marco, Christina, and me after the meeting of my real family with my host family. We had a really great meal in Rome at the famous Da Fortunato (famous in the Speiser family at least)

Little Cat in the Big City. This picture is for Amy; we missed you on the trip.

In Rome I found a cat commune that is located in ancient Roman ruins. The cats get to climb all over the ruins and sleep in the sun. For some reason, I guess Italy likes their stray cats because there is a cat commune in Ferrara, too. Our commune in Ferrara is not quite as majestic as the Roman one.

Vatican in Rome

Vatican