Ciao Messina

We decided to use our last day in Sicilia to explore Messina during the day because we assumed that’s when all the people were around. This was the case, but “all the people” is about six adolescents and a couple hoboes. We went to the Messina cathedral, which is pretty impressive and houses the largest pipe organ in the world. Unfortunately, it’s only the largest because the pipes are all spread throughout the cathedral; the organ itself is about average.

After spending over an hour wasting time in the relative cool of the cathedral, we headed down to the waterfront and sat in a park. Spencer and I read while Zach played his favorite soccer game on his iPod. After a while, Zach and I got bored of our respective ventures and took to watching traffic. We were really hoping for an accident or at least some major road rage. When a car died in the left turn lane in front of a ton of traffic we figured we had it made. Nothing great happened, but that’s about what we expected from Messina at that point.

After several hours in the park, we headed to a nearby market and bought some beers. Our excitement was quickly diminished when we realized that we had no way to open them. Luckily, we found a nearby pallet and used the edge of it, and our fists, to open them. Then we sat and enjoyed our beers while some sort of strange medieval parade went by.

We found some playing cards, headed to the station and played Egyptian-rat-screw on the platform until the train arrived to take us home.

Dear Mount Etna, You're Our Bitch

At 5:20 in the morning, all three alarms that we had set went off. I awoke to a Spencer groaning, “noooooooooooooooooooooooo…” which was quickly followed by “Etna, yeah!”. Then he fell back asleep. Approximately five minutes later, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and stumble our way to the train station. We hopped on our train and headed south along the coast. The view of the sea was fantastic, but we were exhausted, so we mostly watched the insides of our eyelids.

When we reached Catania, we were greeted by some locals. It seems that the Catania train station has the highest per capita dog population of anywhere in the world, with the exception of Labrador. There were all sorts of dogs, mostly strangely oversized (for dogs, they were small for horses). We proceeded outside and found a bar where we could buy tickets for the bus to Etna. We bought the tickets without trouble, but when we asked the lady where the bus itself was, she just pointed us towards a giant mass of buses.

Approaching the mass, we noticed what seemed like a couple bus company employees directing people. To be more precise it was four bus company employees accompanying one attractive woman to her bus (which later turned out to be the same as ours). Since these guys seemed so helpful, we headed over to where they were sitting and asked where we could find the bus to Etna. One waved his hand toward the bus pit and said, “Somewhere over there. It should say Etna on it.” The other ignored us and pretended to read a newspaper. We followed their advice, and after asking another two bus people we came across, finally found our Etna bus.

We walked on to the bus and immediately thought we had made a mistake. While it was the most diverse crowd I had seen since arriving in Italy, no one looked especially ready to hike. A Japanese business man and his wife. A couple of elderly French ladies. A black woman carrying bags of groceries. Two Ukranian women in the back who were barely wearing anything at all. A tiny geriatric Italian chewing on half of a cigar. We settled down in the empty seats in the back and pulled out our yogurt, content to sit on a bus, eat, and try to figure people out.

The first half of our bus voyage was pretty generic: narrow streets, frequent stops, discomfort. The way I know exactly when the first half of our trip ended and the second half began is that there was actually an intermission. We arrived at a tiny plaza in the town of Nicolosi, which is at the foot of Mt. Etna. The bus pulled over, for what we assumed was just another stop. Then the driver informed everyone that we were going to take a thirty minute break. He then had an Italian guy near the front translate this news into broken English. I then translated his English into real English for the other people on the bus who didn’t speak Italian.

Thoroughly confused, everyone got off the bus and started wandering aimlessly throughout the tiny grassy square. One guy, who we assumed was a kick boxer started stretching and then fought a tree ferociously. We were definitely a little frightened. For the rest of the break, we wandered and watched some locals construct some sort of framework out of rusty metal pipes and another who spent ten minutes cutting a piece of wood with a hacksaw.

Before the Italian carpenter had finished his task, we returned to the bus to head up the hill. We left the town of Nicolosi and, threading between some hills, could see Etna rising into the clouds ahead of us. It seemed like we were still kilometers away when we started to climb. The road became steep and then there were switchbacks, then suddenly all the life around us disappeared and we entered a field of volcanic rock, interrupted only by the road. As we headed upward and upward, we passed the remains of a house. Only the roof was visible, and where it had collapsed, you could see the inside filled with lava. It was strange to see such a real representation of the lava flows and the damage they cause. As we ascended, we watched the thermometer as it dropped from 35 degrees to 16.

After about half an hour of desolate black, we arrived at the Etna base camp. There were three or four buildings that looked like old barns, but were actually hotels and a small shack that was the headquarters for the Etna expeditions. There was also a tram for the first leg of the journey, which we found out later cost 50 euro per person. Being as we had no idea where to start, I wandered over to the expedition shack where everyone was gathering. There were people in heavy coats and others in intense hiking gear. I pushed past them to look at the map of the expedition route. It showed where all these well prepared mountain climbers would be getting into big tank-like buses that would drive them up the mountain. So I oriented myself, grabbed Zach and Spencer, and we headed off to the roads.

The roads were steep and made up of loose black rock. It was tough walking, but walking nonetheless. Before long, we realized that the only two other people hiking up the mountain were speaking English as well. We caught up to them and introduced ourselves. Their names were

Bethany and Sean and they were from Philadelphia. They had been staying at Bethany’s uncle’s house in Nicolosi as well as traveling throughout Europe. We quickly joined forces to form quite a

hiking team.

We walked for about twenty minutes until suddenly the road we were on disappeared. We had reached a fairly steep part of the mountain, right beneath the tram porting the wealthy and boring to our next destination. We started up and quickly had to choose a path. On the right side, we had a slope made up of tiny pebbles, almost like sand. It was almost impossible to make any headway, so we chose the left which consisted of jagged chunks of lava rock. We tried to stay on ridges so as not to get stuck. Every once in a while, a piece would break off and tumble haphazardly toward everyone below.

Above us, the trams passed by, suspended as if afraid to touch the scorched landscape over which we struggled. At one point, we heard yells from above. We recognized the language as German and the emotion as anger, or at least mockery. So we yelled some insults back. As the tram passed us by, we saw them give us a thumbs up and realized that these Germans had, in fact, been excited to see us climbing and had been yelling encouragement. I’d be embarrassed at the misunderstanding, but it’s not my fault that the German language can’t sound friendly.

Giving up on the sharp rock ridges, we moved on to the sandy slopes for the rest of the journey. After about an hour and a half in total, we crested the top of the ridge right next to a lodge where everyone was getting off the tram and loading onto their tanks to conquer the next part of the mountain. As we came into view, everyone in the line started cheering for us and some Germans, who we assumed were our supporters from the tram, were filming us. Spencer put up his arms triumphantly and informed us that he felt like a hero. At this point, we took a short break to empty the rocks from our shoes and to take some of the food samples inside the lodge.

Before long, we were ready to commence the second leg of our volcanic adventure. Almost immediately, we ran into a group of Swedish girls who wanted us to take their picture. In return, they took our picture, but wouldn’t give us our cameras back unless we did a jumping picture. It

was not a great success.

Unlike the first slope, the part of the mountain where we now found ourselves was more like a plain of pure black desolation. There was only a gentle incline and the ground was covered in tiny black rocks. Occasionally, you could see the jagged protrusion of a larger piece of rock. Looking behind us, we could see large parts of Sicilia and the tops of the clouds covering the rest. Suddenly, a cloud managed to ascend to our level and came swooping across the barren landscape like a white curtain, bringing with it near blindness and a significant drop in temperature. Then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. The next part of our walk was like this; an alternation between warm and black and cold and white.

At one point, we were enveloped in a cloud and could see only each other. From behind us, we heard the sound of an explosion. We all reacted differently. I, for example, was thinking about running, but was confused about which way to run since the explosion was between us and the way down. Zach was busy thinking how crazy it was that Etna happened to erupt the one day we were up there. Bethany wasn’t thinking about much other than fear. We all knew exactly what Spencer was thinking because he told us. It went something like this. “Should we go? We should go.” Silence from us. “We should go, shouldn’t we?” Silence from us. “I think we should go. Let’s go.” Sean, on the other hand, was just surprised that they allow fireworks on Etna. After the cloud cleared, we looked around, and seeing no eruption realized that what we had heard was the sonic boom of a jet passing overhead. Not as cool as an eruption, but I’d never experienced a sonic boom before either.

Shortly after, we reached the tank parking lot at the base of Etna’s summit. There were many signs warning us not to go closer and as we watched a great crevice on the summit’s face

emitted a giant cloud of yellow smoke. We decided that it was probably wise not to proceed further because we didn’t have enough time. So we ascended to the top of a nearby smoking crater where all the tank and tram goers were headed. We stopped at the top to eat some food

and enjoy the view. The ground was very hot, but we’re not sure if it was from volcanic activity or from being black rocks in the sun. As a mob of people approached us, we decided to head down, not knowing how long it would take us and not daring to miss the only bus back.

As we headed back across the black plains, we played one of our favorite games. It’s called “Who can hit that rock over there with a different rock first”. The four male members of our team played while Bethany judged us. I’m not sure who won, but I know it wasn’t me, so I’m going to say that winning wasn’t the point.

In no time, we had made it back to the top of the tram. We went into the lodge to use the restroom facilities and to scavenge some more food. We also tried some Etna liquor which was 80% alcohol. It was kind of like someone mixed cough syrup, rubbing alcohol, poison, fire, and red food coloring. Needless to say, we did not buy any.

Assuming that the descent of the first section would be as difficult or more so than the ascent, we decided to get going. What we quickly discovered is that going downhill on small rocks is not only easy, it’s fun. The five of us ran, frolicked, and tumbled down the slope giggling and, at times, laughing inappropriately. It was unreasonable fun and only Bethany managed to get injured. This happened when she slipped and fell on the only plant on Mount Etna, which happened to be covered in spines. We were almost more impressed than sorry for her.

After unloading eight pounds of rock from our shoes, we made it down to the bottom in about twenty minutes. We had more than an hour until the bus arrived, but we weren’t without something to do. Sean and Bethany led us to a nearby parking lot where there were three or four giant trailers selling specialty honey. The best part was that if you went up to their stand, they’d give you samples until you had tried every single kind. We tried peach, strawberry, blackberry, eucalyptus, hazelnut, and pistachio. There were probably others, and they were just as amazing. It was the perfect after-hike snack. We then headed into the lodge and had a beer to celebrate our victory over Etna.

We rode the bus back down the mountain, said our goodbyes to Sean and Bethany in Nicolosi and passed most of the rest of our trip back to Messina in a coma-like state. When we got back, we stopped by our favorite kebab place and returned to the hotel to pass out.

Sicilia: Taormina

We arose early the next morning with the humble goal of climbing Europe’s most active volcano. We headed over to the nearby supermarket to buy foods. Spencer and I combined our hiking experience to think of what foods would serve us best on our adventure. We couldn’t find peanuts or sardines, so we settled for inferior hiking food.
Once we bought our food and several liters of water, we headed to the tourist office near the train station to ask which bus to take to Etna. The people there were kind enough to present us with the bus schedule to Etna. There were only two buses each day, one at 8:30 and the other at noon. There were also only two return buses, one at 10:30am and the other at 4:30pm. Being as it was already ten in the morning and we would need to catch the morning bus to have any time to climb, we decided that we weren’t going to Etna. Just so we would be ready the next day, we asked the helpful ladies where we could meet the bus. It was quite simple, the Catania train station which is about two hours from Messina.
We decided not to waste our day, so we headed to the train station to see about going to Taormina. After a while, we found a bus headed to Taormina. We sat down on the sidewalk to wait and ate our yogurt. Of course, we didn’t have any spoons, so by the time we were finished our faces and fingers were covered in it. If we were in America, I’d say that passersby were probably wondering where our parents were. Of course, Italians tend to have free range children. It’s far from uncommon to encounter a child wandering the streets alone at two in the morning; and more often than not, when you see families walking with strollers, they’re inexplicably empty.
That being said, we cleaned ourselves up and hopped on our bus. The bus drove through the streets of Messina for what seemed like hours. We scanned the area for signs of life. Seeing none, we tried to get some sleep. Luckily, just about that time, we exited Messina. Of course, we didn’t head for a freeway or anything of the sort. The bus descended into every single costal town. The streets, of course, were barely as wide as the bus, had cars parked along them and were two way. This meant that every two to three minutes we had to pull over to let a line of cars pass us in the other direction. With all the stopping, going and car dodging, it was impossible to fall asleep. We were able to settle into what Italians call “dormiveglia”. It’s that halfway point between asleep and awake.
We had endured what seemed like an eternity of this torture, when suddenly we found ourselves on top of a rise looking out over the sea. We continued to climb until we were driving along cliffs that fell several hundred meters to the sea. We could see the coast, with beaches that were mediocre in comparison to Salento and the Calabria coast across the water. Before long, we reached the base of Taormina and began to switchback up the face of the mountain. With every switchback, we could see farther in every direction. We could see the beaches, cliffs, coves, and caves beneath us. We could see the mountains of the Calabria coast in the distance. And looking inland, we craned our necks and strained our eyes, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the elusive Mount Etna. No such luck.
The bus pulled into an unimpressive parking lot and we disembarked. The three of us wandered about a block and found an overlook. We settled down, pulled out our bread and prosciutto cotto and made some panini. After our modest meal, we decided to head into central Taormina. We were walking through what seemed like a fairly normal Italian mountain-top town when suddenly we ran into the tourist center. It was as if someone had turned an Italian town into Disneyland. There were shops in every direction and there was no indication that we were on top of a mountain, no overlooks or anything. Also, there had been a sudden shift of lingua franca from Italian to English. Suddenly, we were some of the most experienced Italian speakers in the area.
Deciding to make the best of our time, we started heading down the mountain toward a nearby beach that’s also some sort of national park. We wandered back roads and nearly hidden flights of stairs for nearly an hour. Once or twice, we found ourselves in someone’s yard and had to turn back. When we finally reached the bottom, we were tired and sweating to an unreasonable degree. We arrived at the beach and quickly became aware of several important facts. First, the beach was made up of rocks; hot, hot rocks. Second, we weren’t the only ones enjoying the water at this beach. From what we could tell, a flock of jellyfish were also vacationing in Taormina that day, making the water hazardous, if not hostile. After returning from the water’s edge in disappointment we discovered a third thing. This particular beach has the highest representation (per capita, of course) of attractive women in Italy. So, we decided to partake in a Italy’s second largest pastime (after public arguments) and watch beautiful women.
This only entertained us for so long, and after a while we were looking to return to Messina. We had heard that the train station was at the bottom of the mountain, just like us, while the bus stop was on top. That, combined with the far from forgotten misery of the bus ride moved us to seek the train station. We asked a shop keeper near the beach how to get to the station and he sent us off down the road. We walked along a busy highway for something like thirty minutes until we finally reached the station.
As I went to buy the tickets, we had yet another everyday Italian experience. There were two ticket machines. One didn’t accept cash. The other had a sign on it informing people that it didn’t give change. Of course, all Italians are accustomed to carry cash and people rarely use debit or credit cards, but thanks to these two machines, working in perfect tandem, the trend was being changed.
We made it back to Messina without difficulty, and bought our tickets for the next morning. We got kebabs at the place near our hotel and decided to give Messina night life another chance. We headed back to the place to be, finding it almost twice as full this time, meaning almost no one. We decided to get a second dinner at a nearby restaurant.
We ordered some pizzas and waited at a table outside for a long time as the table next to us was practically showered with all sorts of food products. Finally the pizzas arrived and we got ready to eat them. The suddenly annoyed busboy asked us if we planned to eat there. We were sitting, hungry, and had food, so we responded in an affirmative fashion. At this point, the guy got really fussy and took our pizzas back. As we looked at each other in shocked confusion, several people came out and put down full place settings for each of us. They then offered us drinks, but it was the kind of offer we just couldn’t refuse. Our options: water? Whiskey? We ordered a bottle of water to appease him. Then we were told something incomprehensible. It sounded like it wanted to be in Italian, but it just wasn’t. Maybe our server was sucking on marbles, or maybe he had suffered some blunt head trauma, but it just wasn’t coming out clear. After he repeated himself for the third time, we realized that he was telling us that we had to pay something like six euro extra for a cover charge and water then he instructed his female companion to stand there and wait until we paid her. Sicilians are rude. Maybe that’s why no one likes the Mafia.

Scilia: l'Arrivo

Our trip to Sicily, like any good adventure, started early in the morning. Zach and I stumbled out of bed and gathered our bags we had packed the night before. He had an oversized backpack and a duffel. I, following my tradition of packing light, was porting simply a tiny backpack. With our eyes barely opened, we shuffled our way to the Lecce train station, where we met up with Spencer. Within minutes, our first train had arrived, and we headed off to Taranto, a nearby port city. We alternated attempts at sleeping and pointing out cool pieces of graffiti. Before long, we arrived in Taranto and hopped on our train to Catanzaro Lido to head from the heel of the boot to the toe. As we traveled, we watched the landscape slowly change. The flatness that is Salento gave way to hills and the olive orchards were replaced by actual forests.
After many hours, we arrived in Catanzaro and checked the schedule board to see what platform our next train was departing from. It didn’t say and there was a note that read ‘soppresso’, which means, literally, suppressed. Obviously, we were confused, so I decided to go in search of answers. Nearby, I spotted an Italian in casual attire, thoroughly enjoying a popsicle. He seemed like the type of person who could help me, so I asked him. His response was ‘Quello treno, non c’è più’. That means, ‘That train isn’t around anymore’. Being as I was holding a ticket for that train in my hand, I was a little bit confused. Luckily, he had just been taking a break to enjoy his quickly melting popsicle. After he had averted danger of drippage for a little longer he thought to fill me in on another important detail; there was a bus which had replaced the train and it was waiting outside the station.
We hopped on the bus, on the outside of which was advertised air conditioning. After living in Lecce for a month, we’ll go anywhere with a sign that promises air conditioning so we were psyched that it corresponded to our current plan of action. We made our way onto the bus without even having to show our tickets because the driver was lazing around outside smoking. Shortly after we found seats, we realized something awful; air conditioning doesn’t work if the bus isn’t on. Unfortunately, we’re also lazy, so we sat on the bus as it got hotter and hotter and more and more people got on.
We had each claimed a set of two seats so we could spread out and not have to deal with anyone else’s body heat. There were enough people on the bus that people were starting to take empty seats next to strangers. It was at this point that Spencer decided to teach Zach and me a lesson. Each time a new person got on the bus, he pretended to be asleep; not a fitful sleep against the window, but head back, mouth open in the aisle seat. It was unreasonably effective. Although, after a close call, Spencer imparted us with a bit of wisdom, ‘Never open your eyes before the person passes you.’
We all managed to keep our seat-holdings and the bus took off to cross from the east side of the toe to the west. As we drove along, we noticed that there was construction everywhere. Seriously, I saw at least four new overpasses being constructed in a span of ten kilometers. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these things ‘Ndrangheta (Calabria’s very own mafia organization) had their hands in.
The bus ride was uneventful and relatively short and we arrived just in time to catch our last train, straight to Messina. This train ride seemed more or less like the others until we went into a long tunnel. I was afraid, from past experience, that I would end up in New Jersey, but this day I was fortunate. We came out of the tunnel along the side of a mountain. There were trees to our left, and to our right was the Tyrrhenian Sea in all its splendor. The sun was just low enough to light up the water and make it look like a sea of gold. With sunglasses, its beauty was breathtaking. Without, the pain was breathtaking.
As we rode along, Zach napped and Spencer read, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the sea. Then the coast turned and I saw it, Sicily. It was so close that I assumed I was just looking at some peninsula that we had yet to pass. After twenty minutes or so, I was starting to think it was actually Sicily, so I pointed it out to Spencer. He was as impressed and unsure as I was.
As our train started to slow, we could see the straight separating us from our destination, and then the unthinkable happened. The train, oh so slowly, oh so gingerly, eased its way onto a ferry. After our excitement finally subsided a little and we waited another twenty minutes for the train to be secured in the underbelly of the ferry, we ventured onto the deck. The ferry, like most, was pretty impressive, but the view took our collective breath away. On one side of us, we could see Calabria, on the other Sicilia and to the north, the Tyrrhenian. We stood on deck for the entire journey and as we arrived in Messina, descended to the bowels of the ferry and reboarded our train.
Our train pulled off the ferry and, within ten minutes, into Messina Centrale Station. We disembarked and realized just how little preparation we had done for this trip. We had pretty much no idea where we were and absolutely no idea where we were going. Undaunted, we set off into Messina. After a couple of blocks, we encountered a Kebab shop and stopped to sate our raging hunger. After we had inhaled our Kebabs, we asked the lady working there where we could find cheap lodging. She pointed up the street and said that there was a cheap hotel nearby.
We walked a couple blocks and discovered the hotel, and at this point, being both clever and cheap, we decided that we would rent a room for two people and sneak the third person in. Spencer and I went into the hotel while Zach staid on the nearby side street. I asked the man at the desk if we could rent his cheapest room for the night for two people. He thought for a while and checked a register and pulled out a little piece of paper. Instead of telling me the price, he wrote ‘XYZ 80,00’. He then proceeded to cross out the eighty and write ’65,00’. We’re still not exactly sure what this meant. Some sort of secret hotel language? Anyway, the deal was good enough so we accepted readily and headed up to the room. We opened the door and noticed immediately that our room had three beds. It’s almost like he knew. Spencer tried to convince Zach to throw his bag up to our room on the third floor, but it was just not going to happen, so I went out and retrieved his bag. In retrospect, this made our plan really obvious.
To celebrate our arrival in Messina, we decided to go experience the night life. I asked the guy at the front desk where the people were and he gave us some directions to a main square where people gather. So, we headed off and within ten minutes had arrived at Messina’s night life hot spot. It was a big, open piazza in front of the cathedral and an extremely strange clock tower that depicted all sorts of astrological things and had all sorts of moving parts. The piazza was occupied by somewhere between eight and ten people. We searched around, hoping that we were in the wrong place. After a little while, we found a bar, went in ordered beers and asked the bartender where we could find people. His response was something like, ‘People? Well it’s Tuesday…’. We wandered the empty streets of Messina for a while longer, dearly hoping we’d come across the place where everyone was hiding, but we did not.
When we got back to the hotel, we had to figure out a way to sneak Zach in. So, we decided to just be confident. Zach and Spencer headed toward the room and I stopped at the front desk to ask for our key. Before I even said anything, the man at the desk was kind enough to inform us that if we wanted to have a third person stay, we had to pay. It was at this point that I realized that we were renting one of two occupied rooms in the hotel. To avoid any problems, we quickly acquiesced and paid for Zach to stay as well. We then returned to our room and set an alarm for early so we could head to Etna the next day.

Laura

In a nice little dovetail with my last entry, on the day of the beer fest, my French sister Laura arrived in Lecce for a couple days of vacation. We had a great dinner when she arrived and enjoyed a bottle of Champagne. I’d like to pause here to clarify that this was Champagne from the Champagne region of France. Classy shit, amirite?!?! After dinner and some sparkling conversation, Laura was exhausted from two hours of sleep and twelve hours of travel, so she headed to bed as we headed to the beer fest.
The next day, Laura and I wandered centro a bit and bought some typical Leccese food for her to try. Then, being French, she complained a little. It was a great time and it didn’t seem like that long ago that we were living together and arguing all the time. We did, however, discover that it has been seven years since Laura lived in the states with us.
The next day, we decided to take Laura to one of the many famous beaches surrounding Lecce. Unfortunately we were just a little too late to catch a bus to any famous beaches and had to settle for Lecce’s local beach, San Cataldo. After a bus ride that lasted all of fifteen minutes, we arrived at the beach which was absolutely deserted. The three Senegalese guys on the bus with aims of selling their cheap shit on the beach looked crushed. They dismounted with us and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering aimlessly and trying repeatedly to convince us that we needed plastic watches and bracelets made out of beads and twine. We, however, had different aims and spent the day basking in the sun and enjoying the exfoliating effects of sand in a strong wind. The water was fairly chilly and fully of bits of wood. I’m not sure where they were from. Laura was the only one of us with the desire and dedication to submerse herself fully in the water.
We returned to Lecce in a timely fashion so Laura had plenty of time to purchase some gifts for the important men in her life. She then had a nearly sickeningly amorous phone conversation with her boyfriend and I caught snippets like mon cheri, and mon amour. Then we had a conversation about love approached in a logical fashion, which was just as silly as it sounds. We had dinner at the apartment and, per usual, headed to centro to enjoy Laura’s last night in town.

Goodbyes

The last week of classes was definitely a bittersweet one. We, as usual, had a great time in all my classes. We discussed our favorite Italian songs in conversation class and how to use the periodo ipotetico in indirect discourse in grammar. So, pretty awesome. When Tuesday rolled around, we headed off to our extra-didactic classes. I sculpted the hell out of my bowl and it turned out slightly better than half-decent. I was just as surprised as the overly-critical Austrian.
Anecdote, go! So, in our last sculpting class, nearly everyone was seated on the step outside class. We had all finished and we were trying to escape the oppressive heat of the workshop, when who should come along but critical Austrian’s overweight Russian friend. Of course, saying hello would’ve seemed ridiculous so this tubby snow-dweller decided to comment on the fact that we weren’t working; something to the effect of “Oh, I see only Diana [the critical Austrian’s name] is working anymore.” Being decent human beings, we didn’t respond as we should have; something to the effect of “Sorry we set reasonable goals and have finished our projects. Notice how they don’t resemble the left side-view mirror of a Fiat? Also, why are you even here??”
Of course, we later found out that the Russian had fled her cooking class after an incident with our friend Vivian. Each member of the cooking class got to make a pizza. Vivian had gone first. As soon as it was finished, the Russian tried to trundle in and grab a piece. Vivian kindly explained that everyone got to make their own pizza. At this the Russian said, “Oh. It’s too much,” and bolted elsewhere so she could judge someone. What’s the moral of this story? I’m pretty sure I don’t like Eastern Europeans.
On Wednesday and Thursday, we had exams. I was fortunate enough to have Dario proctoring my oral exam. I had never had him as a teacher, but he was a legend among the others. He’s a silly looking readhead with a mane of hair and a beard for the ages. Also, as it turns out, he has one of the most charming personalities I’ve ever encountered. He and Shelby Joy (my classmate), and I had a great conversation about fashion, music, and books and that (and a listening activity) was the extent of our test. Facilissimo! The next day, we had our grammar test which proved to be, more or less, just as easy as our conversation test. I got an Ottimo!! (Direct translation: optimal, useful translation: A)
That night, came the first bitter of the bittersweet. We had a party to celebrate those of our friends who were only staying for one month. Of course, because I have such discerning taste, I was very close to all three of them. Quick descriptions!
Mark was in my class and we bonded over being shocked by the antics of the rude Ukrainian in our class. He’s a 41 year old drummer from Philadelphia. He’s been playing for 35 years and plays with a successful rockabilly band called the Razorbacks. He’s visited Italy 13 times in the last 10 years and loves it more than most things. He’s also extremely youthful and has a way of saying whatever is on his mind, no matter how inappropriate it may be.
Vivian was a 17 year-old from Chicago who came to the program alone and was staying with a couple of Italian girls. She was, as would be expected, mature for her age and we got along famously. It wasn’t long before I thought of her as a little sister. If I ever wanted to go out, I knew she’d be up for it.
Finally, there was Alice, the Brit. She was nineteen and had come to the program because she’s studying Italian and French at Uni (British for university). If you couple our similar interests with her unreasonably strong sense of sarcasm and infinitely charming accent and personality, it’s easy to see how we’d be pretty close.
So. We decided to celebrate the month we’d spent with our amazing new friends. Of course, being mostly American college students, this meant a party. Now, that seems reasonable, but I don’t mean a classy dinner party; I mean thirty Americans knocking back bottle after bottle of wine on a rooftop and then storming centro like a drunken stampede. Being as I knew that time was short with my friends on the cusp of departure; I abstained from the alcohol so I could appreciate their company and so I could be damage control for the American herd.
The next night was even sadder because it was actually Alice’s last night in Italy. Many people had already left for their week-long vacations, but those of us who were still in town spent our evening with our British buddy. Around midnight, I walked Alice home, as had been the norm for several weeks. This time the long walk seemed much shorter. Now, Alice isn’t much for goodbyes, and I had to convince her to even say anything to the others; so her goodbye to me was, more or less, telling me to get lost and pushing me down the stairs. I’m pretty sure she meant well…
Despite how much I already missed Alice, I was determined to make the most of my time with Mark and Vivian. The next night we went to a beer fest. There were about twenty different kinds of beer, live music and about one hundred drunken Italians. I was greatly amused to see that some Italian had snuck a bottle of wine into the beer fest; classic. The music was a sort of reggae mixed with awful. At times it was pretty straight reggae and was quite enjoyable, but then an enormous black man wearing a LeBron James jersey would appear out of nowhere and start angrily yelling nonsense words. It sounded like, “Awakadabakadabakadabaka…” It would last about thirty seconds and I spent most of that time shielding my ears and looking around in bewilderment. This was a great opportunity to bond with some new friends, Chris and Lindsay. They were visiting from Ohio and we were thick as thieves in no time.
After the beer fest, we all returned to centro (some of us by car, some by 45 minute walk). We returned to our old watering hole, Nene and shared a pleasant evening together. I also met some of Mark’s friends. One bought me a drink and I had a great time talking with all of them. One of the guys, Michele lives in northern Italy, Como to be precise. We got to talking about skiing and he offered to take me skiing in the Alps when I move up there this fall. AWESOME!
The next night, we all had dinner together, walked Chris and Lindsay to their train and enjoyed the rest of our night in centro. I said my goodbyes to both Mark and Vivian and headed home.

Catching Up

Two weekends ago, we got to know the region of Salento a bit better. First, we started with a culture lesson, explaining a strange tradition called Tarantismo. A long, long time ago, residents of the Salento region were often victim to the bite of a local spider. The strange thing was that this spider’s venom manifested itself every year at the same time and recurred annually for its victims. Despite the lack of anything like medicine, I Salentini figured out a way to cure this disease; music. And so was born the legendary dance, the Pizzica. It’s a bit silly to watch. Long story short, the person rolls around on the ground for a while and people spit on them. Then, they get up and do a nifty dance. The music is really intense and the most important instrument is a big, low-pitched tambourine. In these modern days, the tradition is preserved and everything culminates with a huge festival at the end of August that draws 40.000 people to a town of 2.000.
In preparation, we had a class. Being as we hadn’t been fortunate enough to be bitten by spiders, we learned the stylized, romantic version of the pizzica. This involves the woman dancing around seductively waving a scarf and the man dancing around after her with arms outstretched as if to capture her. We all had to give it a try, and I have to say my friend Alice and I were definitely the best.
After we had become dance experts, we needed to learn a little more about Salento, so we visited a very particular region called Grecia Salentina. It consists of something like eleven towns where they speak a dialect called Griko which is very similar to ancient Greek. So we loaded onto the bus on our only excursion that didn’t include a trip to a beach. Not long after we started off on our trip, the temperature hit 40 degress (104F). Every town we visited was absolutely barren and we saw maybe four people all day. They knew to stay out of the heat, but we persevered. We went on a tour of a palazzo (a really fancy house) from the 18th century. There were all sorts of fancy beds, and kitchens, and whatnot to see and we had quite a fine time.
We also visited, surprisingly, several churches. One of them absolutely blew my mind. It was a church from the middle ages, and almost every wall was covered in frescoes depicting the stories of the Bible. It’s hard to imagine, but I bet I would’ve been more impressed if I knew any stories from the Bible. To give you an idea of how impressive this tiny little church was, my friend Spencer said he was equally impressed by it as he had been by the Sistine Chapel.
After a while, we stopped for lunch at a little old building where they produced olive oil. We all hid in a dark, air-conditioned room until we were sure that the risk of heat stroke had passed. We then toured a crazy, half-subterranean oil press and saw how olive oil used to be produced. Then, we did the only thing that made sense and headed into a tiny church nearby. As our guide was explaining the history of the church, the temperature rose steadily until we could barely stand. I don’t really remember anything he told us because I was focusing on staying standing. I succeeded.
The next day, we headed to the beach. On this day, I decided not to partake in my tradition of going to the beach and burning, so I hid in the shade with my friends Mark and Lucia. It was at this point that I received my second nickname of the trip. This one was, if possible, more offensive than the first. Lucia dubbed me, Vampiro. See if you can guess what that means. She then assured me that it was a good thing and linked it to Twilight. So I’m either cheese or the undead… I haven’t decided which I prefer.