Sicilia

My friend (and sorority sister) Valentina wants to be an Italian teacher, so when she graduated from Ursinus last spring she moved to Italy to live in Sicily for a year. Definitely a bold move, something I'm not sure I could do. Three of my friends (and also sorority sisters) came to Italy on their fall break, and after a two-day visit in Florence the four of us traveled down to Sicily to visit Val. It was really nice to see people I'm actually friends with. Don't get me wrong, the people who have been in Florence this whole time are all wonderful and I think we all get along really well. I've especially enjoyed getting to know a handful of people better and making friends. But there's something to be said for people who already know a lot about you and have already declared that they love you the way you are. And that's the feeling I get from these four girls.

Sicily seemed like another country. Sicilian is nothing like Italian, so I couldn't communicate with locals at all. The surroundings reminded me of Florida: lots of palm trees and tropical flowers, and the ocean and mountains within eyesight almost anywhere you go. It rained for a bit every day, but it was also sunny. Looking straigh ahead, you could see dark storm clouds. Looking behind, there'd be bright blue sky with fluffly white clouds. I saw three rainbows during our stay there!

Our first day in Sicily was bizarre (in the words of Kate, like a scene from "Moulin Rouge"). We started our day at 4:30 a.m. en route to the airport; we landed in Palermo around 8 a.m. and found a taxi, asking if he knew how to get to our address. He assured us that he did and we all got into the car. What should have been a ten-minute ride according to Val took at least 30 minutes with this driver. Every three minutes he would beep his horn and slow down to ask someone on the side of the road if they knew how to get to our address. They would make big hand gestures and say "No, I've never heard of it." He even got out of the car at one point to go into a pizzeria and ask for directions. Meanwhile, our cab fare was climbing at a rate of .30 Euro every 5 seconds. We also nearly killed someone in the road about ten times.

At last, we arrived at Val's nonna's house with a cabfare 40 Euro and ill stomachs. We dropped off our bags and Val's nonna asked if we wanted coffee. We said yes and she told us to get out the American coffee we brought for Val; she then explained (in Sicilian which we didn't understand) that we would take that coffee outside of the house and make it somewhere else. We had no idea what she meant but we followed her out of the door and down the street. About two houses down, she opens a separate door. Apparently, Val's nonna owns two houses on the same block: one is just a kitchen with a bathroom and a closet, the other is a kitchen with living room, dining room and bedrooms. She doesn't want to give up the extra house, however, because they only get water for four hours every other day. Why this is was never really made clear, I think the city just decided it was a good idea to conserve water.

So, Nonna makes us Val's American coffee and puts a salt shaker on the table, saying "This is sugar for your coffee." Megan puts a tidbit in her cup and drinks. Kate puts some in her cup, smells it, and it doesn't smell sweet, so she puts a lot more in. I break off part of a piece of biscotti, dunk it in Kate's coffee, take a bite, and nearly vomit. It was not, in fact, sugar--but actual SALT. We didn't want to say anything because we didn't want to embarass the nonna but it was impossible to drink that. So we just said "oh, we've had enough, thanks" and dumped it out. Val was still at school, and the four of us were exhausted from our 4:30 wake up time so we went upstairs to take a nap.

I'll interrupt here to say that the day before we left fo Sicily, they showed a movie at my school in Florence about the Sicilian mafia. It was about a man who protested the mafia with the radio and megaphones. As we were drifting off to sleep, we suddenly hear a man YELLING about something in Sicilian through a megaphone in the street. I immediately thought there was some Mafia scandal and got a little worried. Turns out, in this neighborhood there are men who drive around in trucks selling different things. So one man will drive by, saying "I've got potatoes! I've got potatoes and salt!" and another will yell about fruit or toilet paper, etc. If you live on a top floor and want whatever they're selling, you yell down to them and send down a rope, which they use to send up a bucket with your stuff. Definitely a smart idea, but made for terrible naps during our stay there.

On Saturday the group of us headed into Palermo for some sightseeing and city adventures. Unfortunately, none of us knew anything about the city and no one had a guidebook. We debated taking one of those tacky double-decker tour-buses but it was 20 Euro per person and we're all cheap college students, so we took their free map and wandered on our own instead. We got lost in some sketchy areas; like any city, there are parts of Palermo that are much like a dump. But all in all, it was a nice day, LOTS of walking but the weather was gorgeous. We visited the botanical gardens (where the top picture was taken) and had a great time just being together and enjoying Italy. Seeing those girls and travelling on my own at the end energized me even more for the rest of my stay here.

I'm glad that I'll be home in 35 days; I miss my family and my friends and the standard comforts at home. But at the same time, I'll hate not living in Florence. I've really grown to love this city and consider it home. I just hope I can stay aware of the reverse-culture shock and ease back into the home life slowly.