Boston - Apartment and Snow in Common

We've come now to the last week of our stay in Italy. By Saturday night we'll be home. Lauren and I still have a few more tests, but some people are already finished with their finals and the class is beginning to break up. For most, this will be the last time they will ever live in a truly foreign place. Over the course of the semester romances have formed. After this week, some couples will be separated by thousands of miles. We have been living here for over three months. I know specific stones in the road, items in store windows, and old plastered advertisements that I walk over and by every day. More later.

Morgantina

While Gare was in Ortigia studying and writing papers, I went to Morgantina an ancient Greek city complete with theatre, market, and kilns. I also had a huge, huge 35 euro meal! Lots of vegetarian antipasto like sun dried tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, green olives, fresh cheese made from the goats of the owners father in law! A true Sicilian experience. I asked one of our tour guides how often they eat a meal like this, the answer- typically once a week! I can't imagine, it was like Thanksgiving! Here are some pics...

The castle that is carved into the sandstone rock.

The steps in the market place, unique to this ancient greek city. Sorry I don't have any food pictures! :)

Thanksgiving!

We both wish we could be home for Thanksgiving, especially me because it is my favorite holiday, but we had a great time at school. We posed for a picture taken by our Plato professor Scott Burgess. Apparently the word describing the look on Gare's face is "stoic"
About 12 of the students came and brought a dish to share, some families were here to eat as well. Also about 12 faculty members came with their families too, I would say their were about 40 people there. I made mushrooms from my mom's family recipe, very delicious, not quite as good as the usual though. I have included the only picture I have which is also of me stuffing my face with them, below.


Gary brought bread and there was a ton of it left after dinner. I think everyone was so excited to have familiar food in front of them that they forgot the very Sicilian dinner addition of bread. I didn't have any on any of my three plates. Bonnie, a mcas student, ordered bread from the bakery in the shape of a turkey, a pretty cool addition to our Thanksgiving buffet! Pictured below is Gary's large bad of bread and the turkey.
It was a great Thanksgiving in Ortigia! Hope everyone had a great one as well!

Selinunte

Benjamins: Arch. Park, Palermo, Cefalu, and Enna.

At Monreale there is a Norman church with amazing colorful Byzantine mosaics all along the ceiling and walls. From the Monreale center there is a view of the golden bowl of Palermo with its many orange trees and one-way streets. When my parents reached Palermo we didn't go straight to sleep. We found a hotel and parking space for a couple of hours. We walked around the Teatro Massimo area, which is where Mary is shot down in The Godfather: Part III. It was a Saturday night and the young hair-gelled masses were out on their scooters and at the bars. There is cafe style seating for thousands out on the streets, and though it was kind of cold, everyone was still out.
Enna is a wild place. It sits way up on top of a hill parallel to another city and is just built right into the rocky mountain. It's the highest provincial capital in Italy, whatever that's worth to you.
This past Friday in Rising Sun, I met a guy who's grandfather was born in Cefalu. Crazy world.
At the archaeological park on Tuesday, one of my gym-mates was working and we all got in for free.

Benjamin Visit

The Benjamins came to Sicily and decided to rent a car, so Gare and I thought it would be a good idea to have them drive to Palermo (the other side of Sicily) and meet up after our school field trip. It was a good idea in theory. Gary and Kelly were jet lagged and didn't get up until 11.30! They then got stuck in tons of traffic and when they finally made it to Palermo it was 8pm! Gare and I had a nice time exploring the cathedral at Monreale and some churches in Palermo, but by 8pm all four of us were beat and just hit the sack. The next morning we got up and left Palermo as quickly as we could. We had the advantage of plenty of daylight and little traffic, but it still took us a little over an hour to get out! The slide show will have some pics of the madness.
We traveled to Cefalu, a beautiful seaside town, with a peak to walk up and then a wonderful view to take in. Lines and lines of stuff to buy, mostly the same things repeating. Big Gary was able to barter for a sweet leather fanny pack. Kelly contemplated a purse, but no one else got anything. I will keep my eye out for a beaded alligator keychain for Kelly, I know she was really sad to leave it behind. We left Cefalu for the sleepy, cold town of Enna. We were greeted by an alarm which rang for the duration of our visit, about 35 minutes. Maybe the one person who knows how to turn it off was out of town that night. Whatever, the sound was incredibly annoying and possibly contributed to our quick visit.
Back in Ortigia we had a delicious dinner. The waiter/owner spoke to us in Italian which we didn't fully understand and we got a little more than we planned on ordering. It was all delicious though! Unfortunately their visit ended suddenly and they weren't able to get a taste of even more delicious restaurants. I would love to come back one day and maybe they will be able to tag along. :)

Soccer

Gary and I played soccer together on Tuesday night, it was very entertaining. For about an hour and a half we ran after our Italian opponetns and once again beat them. I even scored! I actually scored about 6 goals because Matteo and Mimo (the two Italians on our team) kept setting me up. Gary scored the game winning goal! It was a fun and exhausting night, we might do it again. And since Gary and Kelly are coming this weekend, maybe it will be big Gary's turn to play.

Mt. Etna on November 2

My Ecosystems class took a field trip to Mt. Etna. It was a cloudy, but luckily not rainy, day and so the views weren't spectacular. It was fun to walk across a mile of lava flow! Of course it was cooled down which took away some of the fun, but enjoyable just the same. This is just one of the beautiful lava flows that we got to see.

Pompeii, Naples and Capri: 10.27 and 10.28

Rome: 10.24, 25, 26

Florence: 10.22, 23, 24

Venice: 10.20 and 10.21

Milan 10.18 and 10.19

Back in Siracusa

We got back to very warm Siracusa only 2 hours later than planned! We had a night train from Naples to Siracusa, but with one change over. That change occured at 4 am this morning and today was the first day of a train strike! Yikes! But the station set us up with a bus to a closer destination (catania) from where we caught another train to Siracusa. And believe it or not we are actually pretty well rested! And we were in good spirits the whole time. Perhaps because we knew that we would no longer be walking until our legs couldn't take it anymore! We saw alot in our 11 day tour of Italy. We will add pictures and blogs later, but here was our itinerary. Thursday we had a flight to Milan, spent the night and then the next day walking around Milan, climbed to the top of the Duomo, took an early evening train to Venice. Saw a little bit of Venice on the way to the hostel, the lots of Venice on Saturday, St. Mark's Square and Basillica, the gondolas, the Doge's Palace. Sunday we toured the Correr Museum in Venice and then went to Florence. In Florence we checked into our hotel, ate chinese, toured the city. Monday we took a day trip to Pisa, climbed the tower, toured the duomo and baptistery. Tuesday we spent looking at art! The Uffizi and Accademia in Florence, as well as the beautiful Boboli gardens. On Wednesday morning we rode the train to Rome, saw the Vatican Museum, Colosseum, Pantheon, Roman Forum, and Spanish Steps; spread out through Thursday and Friday of course! Saturday we took a train to Naples and visited Pompeii, an awesome city, then back to Naples. On Sunday we took a ferry to Capri, rode the chairlift to the top of the island and came back to Naples in the evening. We caught the 10pm night train to Siracusa, had a slight schedule change, and now here we are in Siracusa on Monday. I cant believe just a week ago we were preparing to climb the Leaning Tower!! We promise more posts soon! Ciao!