So I may have had dinner with the Moffia….

On my way back to Spain from Sicily I had to stay a night in Palermo to catch an “early” flight from Trapani. So I got to Palermo, found my hostel, and asked for a good place to eat. The guy at the hostel took me to the window and pointed out a place just across the street and down the block a little. I thought it would be like most of the places I was in in Messina, where there would be a bar of food and I would be able to point instead of relying on my non-existent Italian to order food from a menu; I was mistaken. No big deal, I sit down at a table by myself; there’s only one other occupied table in the whole place, a group of 3. I look at the menu; I wanted pasta but I didn’t have a clue what kind of pasta they had other than pasta and I had been told they had good pizza, so I went for that. Once again, understanding very little of what comes on each of these specialty pizzas, and not wanting to spend a lot of money, I choose one of the cheaper ones that I understand to have olives, along with tomato sauce, and a few other things on it. After ordering, I notice the guy who seems to be the head of the group at the other table gesturing to the free seat at the table and saying something to me in Italian. I reply in my broken Italian: “Io non so italiano” - I don’t know Italian. He waves his hand like it doesn’t matter and says “Te invito.” These words I did understand, and not wanting to be rude or eat alone, I moved to the other table.

Gian Vito, the head of the group was the one who invited me to sit with them. He was a bigger guy, wore lots of jewelry, but dressy casual, very confident and in charge of things, he had something about him that made you think it was better not to say no , and everyone seemed to love him. He frequently stepped outside of the restaurant to take calls on his cell phone, he was very popular. Daniela was the girl in the group, from Germany, but had been living in Italy for 8 years. Alberto was the third, married with 2 year old son. Daniela and Alberto spoke a little English and between that and my little Italian we managed to converse. 

I had only ordered my pizza and a drink, but they had some bruschetta and a plate of meats and cheeses for an appetizer. Gian Vito offered me some of the food, I tried to politely decline, he insisted. The bruschetta was delicious. I took a piece of salami and prosciutto and an olive from the meats and cheese plate, but Gian Vito told Daniela to put more on my plate, including cheese.  I ate it, all of it, trying not to be rude. One of Jair’s friends had asked me if it was socially acceptable to refuse things when people offer them to you in America. I do it all of the time, so I suppose so; but it made me realize that it’s a little different here. 

Finally the pizza came. Surprise! Crust with tomato sauce, olives, onions, and anchovies, no cheese.  I’ve noticed that Italians love onions on their pizza, and anchovies on some; I should have known better. But I ate it, and it wasn’t bad.  The others each had a different pizza, and everyone said it was very good pizza. I was amused by the fact that Gian Vito, the very Italian, macho Gian Vito was eating a pizza that essentially consisted of cheese and pepperoni- how American.

We all finished the pizzas and then Gian Vito ordered us all something. They tried explaining it to me; but I didn’t understand. Finally, 2 plates of cherries came out; fruit serves for two things in Spain, and Italy it seems as well: dessert and its good for digestion. We sat around and talked a little bit. Gian Vito went to another table to talk with one of the employees that he knew.  When he came back, the other two got up from the table and were ready to leave. It occurred to me that he had paid… for all of us. I tried to offer him money, he refused. So in my very poor Italian, I said “Mille grazie”- A thousand thanks.  He invited me to go with them for a drink, but I declined, reminding them of my early bus, and this time I was allowed to refuse the offer. We said good-bye with handshakes and kissed on the cheeks, Italian style, left cheek first, and they wished me a say trip and good luck with everything.

It turned out to be a good night, interesting company to say the least. Along with the small talk conversation I received two compliments: that I was beautiful, decided by Gian Vito and Daniela; and that I spoke good Italian, according to Gian Vito….this makes me second guess the people who said I spoke good Spanish…. :/

Una settimana in Sicilia...

Italy, yeah, I’ve been there. I was there for a whole week. What did I see? Messina.  Where’s Messina? On Sicily. Must be pretty? It’s a port city, and after my trip to Portugal we all know how well I like those….

When I found out my boyfriend was going to go study in Italy I started making plans to go see him. Sicily: island, beach, site of some ancient Greek and Roman ruins. So while he’s in class, I get to go have fun. Well, I still had fun, but it didn’t turn out like I expected. To put it one way, the infrastructure in Sicily kind of sucks. Maybe that’s just my opinion after coming from Spain where there are central bus stations with ticket booths for many lines instead of walking all around a very general area looking for the store of the company you want.  But in Sicily the ticket booths are kind of scattered around, as well as where the bus picks you up and drops you off. I will say however, that it is nice that there are multiple places where you can be picked up or dropped off within a city for a ticket of the same price.

I spent the first few days of my trip worried about money, because as it turns out, I was not able to stay with my boyfriend in his dorm; but in a hotel instead for which I had to pay. The last few days of the trip I was still distressing from culture shock and the emotional rollercoaster I was on between leaving Salamanca and arriving to Messina; so I decided not to do any traveling on my own. I went with my boyfriend and his friends to Reggio di Calabria, on mainland Italy, and he and I attempted to go to Taormina, but that whole infrastructure thing….the times for buses suck in Italy too. There was a bus there, but no bus back even though the town we wanted to go to was only an hour away and it was still plenty early in the day to make the trip and back. Oh well….

It was a nice relaxing vacation. I puttered around on the internet trying to find grad schools, did some French homework, went for walks around Messina on my own, and hung out with Jair. I even got to go to some classes with him : ) I probably would have ventured around Messina a little more than I did had the weather cooperated.  I was hoping to get my tan on, people say it’s warm and I wanted a beach; but here’s the deal on Sicily, warmth doesn’t mean sun, just because there’s a beach doesn’t mean it’s either pretty or clean, and supposedly the water is still really cold. I didn’t try it out for myself; the not pretty, not clean beach was kind of in the way. But overall, it was a good time, and worth the trip. My advice, going to Sicily want to see Messina and go to a beach, find a different beach.

Yes, Sicily is pretty, what I saw of it at least; I did most of my sightseeing of places other than Messina on a bus when I wasn’t sleeping, so honestly, I didn’t see much. But it was pretty. To give you an idea, when you’re not in a city seeing some architecturally beautiful buildings, you see either the Mediterranean Sea or mountains; and it is gorgeous. 

Here are some pictures....the weather did not cooperate....

Something to do with St. Catherine

Church of Sta. Maria Alemanna

Church of the Annunziata dei Catalani

Fountain of Orion

Statue of the Virgin Mary

The Duomo, aka Cathedral

A map of Messina in front of the Theatre

The Theatre

Madonna of the Port

Government Palace and the Christo Rey

So things might be getting better….?

I ended up crying after my last class while saying goodbye to some friends.  I never used to cry, what the hell is happening to me?  People kind of seemed to lose any pity of me when I told them I was going to Sicily for a week first to see my boyfriend before going home; but honestly, excitement for seeing the boyfriend was heavily outweighed by the sadness of leaving Salamanca. 

As I’m sure you already guessed I had no will to leave Salamanca; especially knowing that I would have to carry all 3 of my bags by myself to the bus station (uphill) and then manage them through the metro in Madrid to make it to my hostel to leave 2 of them there before taking myself and the last one to the airport.  But I did it! And once I did, leaving Salamanca didn’t seem as bad. I started day dreaming of going back, that helped a little bit. One of my friends has told me I shouldn’t cry because I’m leaving, I should smile because I had the experience. He’s right; I don’t deny this at all. But it’s still not easy.  I’m in Italy now, and glad for it. I’m looking forward to a nice vacation enjoying myself and what time I have with the boyfriend while he’s not in class and studying. 

 My “culture shock” statement for the day: Spain is way better than Italy. I don’t know if you want to consider me as Spanish and call it straight up culture shock or if I’m still American and this is just some type of reverse culture shock.  This is about as lovely a question as the women from the Canary Islands in the airport trying to decide if their flight home from Madrid was national or international.  Not really I guess, but it’s still funny to ponder. 

My boyfriend seems to have easily adjusted to his new “home,” I don’t know how he did it so fast. His Spanish is going out the window as his Italian is improving while I’m still relying on Spanish to communicate even though people understand English better ( I was the same way in Portugal too, but at least I know how to say please and thank you in Italian). After 3 weeks back in Ogdensburg/Potsdam will I have adjusted? Well, even if I do adjust in such a short time, I will get another adjustment when I go to Middlebury College for French immersion for the summer.  Either way, I don’t things will ever be the same…. And that’s supposed to be a good thing right? 

Someone once told me change was good, I told them I didn’t like it; I guess that’s still true….

Agridulce

It’s my last night in Salamanca. I’ve met with all of my Intercambios this week to say one last goodbye and I’ve finished all of my tests. The only thing can think to describe this is agridulce…bittersweet. I’d love to say it’s surreal, that it’s all a dream; but it’s all too painfully real. My host mom and even my professors have noticed it in my behavior, in my face; I don’t want to leave. But I have to go home, I know this, I accept it, and to some extent I’m looking forward to seeing friends and family again and being in familiar places. But on the other hand, I’ve just barely scratched the surface here. There’s so much more to do, to live, to experience; it’s a deep ocean and I’ve only just gotten my feet wet. I’ve just started to make some good friends and now I have to leave them. People who have been a part of my life, who I’ve seen every day, or at least once a week, aren’t going to be around me anymore. It’s not just the place, it’s the people; and I’m going to miss them both terribly.  But I know this experience has changed me for the better. I’ve learned so much about myself, about Spanish, about French, about life. After a week in Italy, I’ll return to the US and then it will be back to the real world, and time to sort this all out; but for now, I´m drowning in emotions...

You don’t need a map in Mérida

So since before I even got to Spain I said 3 things:

1.       I want to go to Sevilla for Semana Santa

2.       I want to go to Fatima (Portugal)

3.       I want to go to Mérida

It’s my last weekend here in Spain and I finally accomplished all 3 of these desires!

It took me long enough…

Friday morning at 7:45 am I got on a bus with one the girls in my group to go to Mérida (I know, when I barely wake up to make it to my classes on time, how did I make it to the bus station before 8am? I don’t know either, excitement for the day made me surprisingly awake for 6:30 when my alarm went off, and then I slept the 4 hours there). We got there not having a map or anything so we asked for one at the information booth at the bus station. They don’t have any, so we asked “Where are the ruins?” Answer “In the center, cross that bridge.” So we started our adventure. While crossing the bridge we saw the Roman Bridge, so once we got on the other side we headed in that direction. It turns out you don’t need a map in Merida because there are a bunch of tourist signs leading you to the different monuments.  We had 4 hours and 15 minutes to find the ruins we wanted to see and not die of hunger, heat, or dehydration. We survived thanks to the random fountains that we saw kids running through and decided to follow their example…but in a more mature manner.  To preserve time I left it to my friend to read any signs of interest and tell me about them while I took pictures. With this method I learned that the so called Temple of Diana in Mérida wasn’t really a temple to Diana, but they just call it that, and “It was built a long time ago” when I asked for more detail the answer was “Way back when…” I promptly chastised my history major friend and reminded her that this was her career and my hobby.  When we got to the Amphitheatre and Theatre I came to the realization that I like culture I can climb on.  As I’ve said to some of my friends before, “It’s just not a vacation if there aren’t ruins…or a beach.”  Unfortunately, my friend and I kind of failed in our planning and forgot about siesta. So just about everything closed down for 2 hours in the middle of our visit. Luckily some sites were still open and we spent a lazy afternoon just walking around with occasional stops in the shade or to cool ourselves in a fountain.  Overall, I’d say it was a pretty good day; I got to see ruins, I remembered sunscreen and I got a tan :)

Fake Temple of Diana

Amphitheatre

Theatre seating

Theatre stage

Roman bridge from the walls of the Alcazaba