Return to Taormina and Climbing Mt. Etna

Taormina's Greek theatre

Mercoledi and Thursday (I could never remember Thursday in Italian):
After yet another delicious breakfast of almond milk and with orange blossom honey, we drove with our younger host brother to Taormina, where we would spend the day exploring. Our first destination: chasing nostalgia by looking for Heather's old favorite hot chocolate place. Next stop: a mid-morning snack. I found a delicious slice of ricotta cake in a small bakery, just perfect alimentation for the walk down to the beach.
Situated at the bottom of the steep drop to the coast from the city, beach is actually a bit of a misnomer for the coastline: it is a collection of pebbles, gorgeous to look at by horrible for the feet as we discovered when we walked barefoot to the picture-postcard island at the other end. However, the view of the ocean and the feel of the water and stones was definitely worth the temporary pain!
We took a cable car ride back up (the hill was way too daunting, especially with our tender soles) and walked over to the Greek theatre. At least 2000 years old (mindboggling numbers!), the theatre has a terrific view of the ocean and Mount Etna, and we sat for a while taking in the sun and the sites.
We lunched at a patioed restaurant, where I enjoyed ricotta ravioli with pistachio sauce and delicious tiramisu for dessert. After searching for Heather's father's favorite type of liquor, I also bought some almond wine as a gift for my host mother before meeting our host mother of the week in the main plaza.
The day was gorgeous and the plaza looks out over the sea, and with some street musicians in the background we couldn't help but sit, people-watch, contemplate, and converse for a lazy afternoon. Before leaving we stopped for gelato; my flavor was turron, an almond Christmas sweet in Spain but made with other nuts too and eaten year-round in Sicily.
Before going home we picked up our host sister and went to Acitrezza, a town with a pretty coast and the Farglioni, the rocks that Polythemus threw in Greek mythology. After walking out on the pier and exploring the city a bit, we headed back home for dinner. It was another relaxing day with a lovely artichoke pasta ending.
Thursday we woke up ready to conquer the world...or Mount Etna, as it were to be.
Etna is the volcano that defines Sicily, giving it blood oranges and substance. We drove up as far as one could and got out to explore some minor craters.
With my red-tinged sunglasses, despite the snow in the background, the mountain looked just like Mars.Lichen and small grasses are the first plants to grow back on the black rocky soil of Mount Etna.
Heading back to the car, we passed a huge truck full of blood oranges stopping to drop off a load at the restaurant there to feed the hungry Etna-expeditioners. I said in Italian that I was really going to miss blood oranges to our host father, and one of the blood-orange-truck men overheard. "Here," he said, handing me an armsful of oranges. A delicious and refreshing break after scaling the dusty rock! And just another example of the kindness and openness of all the Italian people I met.
We pushed out of our mind the sad fact of our departure the next day, and instead enjoyed lunch: pasta with a scrumptious sweet cherry tomato sauce. I had made a cake the day before, a chocolate-almond cake with Sicilian almond milk, and so we had the honors of trying it. It wasn't the best cake I've ever made (the lack of measuring cups always causes slight texture variations!) but the flavour was good and delicious with a glass of almond milk.
That night, our host sister's friends came over for a pizza party dinner...yet again, I spent most of the time in a language-barrier vortex but managed to communicate rather well when the conversation slowed down to accommodate me. All the girls there were incredibly nice, and I was even sadder to leave knowing that I would have been able to make good friends had I been able to stay. I now understand more completely when Heather says, "I miss my Italians."

More About Sicily: A (Hopefully) Condensed Version

Lunedí, Martedí:

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Recupero family was busy at work and school, leaving Heather and I on our own to explore the town of Acireale. Heather already knew it well and directed us on Monday and Tuesday mornings to the scogli, a rock beach bathed by the sun. We climbed over them and past a lone fisherman to find flattish rocks for stretching ourselves out on to enjoy the spring sun. From a one-lane highway it was a steep walk downhill to the coast, and we seemed to be the only ones walking the grassy path both days, except an elderly couple and a young one, both in love. The truth was that almost all of Sicily seemed a very romantic place.






The photos say everything I could: the beauty of the Sicilian coast is hard to beat.

We later walked back up to the main part of town and enjoyed a breakfast supplement – hazelnut-chocolate gelato or pastries ranging from liquor-soaked baba with strawberries to a delicious cookie-marzipan treat called dolcezze. We also walked to Heather’s old house (it’s incredible to think she was lucky enough to live in Acireale for three years!!), the market, and the small shops lining the main street of downtown. Lunch both days was, needless to say, impressive as usual: tortellini with sage and butter, artichokes, leftover zucchini risotto al graten with mozzarella, and the next day, a pesto pasta salad with sweet tomatoes and mozzarella, minestrone soup, bruschetta, and salad.

On Monday afternoon we drove to Taormina, a precious town perched above the sea north of Acireale. We wandered the small streets and determined that we’d come back on Wednesday to spend the entire day there – it was worth more thorough exploring. We returned home for dinner; I made espinacas a la catalana, a Spanish dish of spinach with pine nuts and raisins. We also dined on pesto pasta, lentils, and bruschetta…and of course after all of these meals, dessert was a big ripe blood orange.

Tuesday afternoon was spent quietly at home, watching Moulin Rouge (which Heather had never seen and always makes me cry) and baking improvised chocolate chip cookies. The quiet afternoon was in stark contrast to the chaos that would be Tuesday night: a reunion of Heather’s 3rd grade class in a local pizza place. As good as my Italian might have been for only being in Italy a handful of days, it was nowhere near up to pace with what seemed like dozens but must have been about 20 Italian teenagers. I sat completely lost the entire evening, but managed, through smiles and broken Italian and English, to make small side conversations with a few of the others. Added to the French host family experience in Lyon, this was the second gathering in two weeks that I hadn’t been able to understand – and yet another crazy SYA experience I never would have imagined.

Back from San Fernando; Sicily, Belated

I just got back from San Fernando, a small city of 90,000 where I spent 5 days with a Spanish host family. Leaving was incredibly sad, but it turned out to be a good thing that I left when I did – I woke up the morning after my midnight-arrival in Zaragoza to find that I had picked up a stomach bug somewhere, and I was definitely glad to be at my relative home to deal with it. Although looking at anything made me nauseous this morning, the doctor’s shot and my recent ability to ingest liquids has given me the strength to write a little about Sicily – three weeks late.

Sabato: I woke up at 5:30 after getting in from a night of tapas at 1:30 am, in time to catch a taxi to the bus station for our 7 am ride to the Barcelona airport. Heather and I were off to Sicily, and although the autobus was a slow and torturous start, we were too excited to mind.

My first introduction to Italy (and Italian) was on the AlItalia flight, where we all received blood orange juice (zucco de arancia rossa, blood orange juice, my first Italian phrase besides the few I’d memorized off some BBC “Learn Italian” printouts). Blood oranges only grow in Sicily, where their bright red color and intense flavor is caused by mineral deposits from Mount Etna, Sicily’s outstanding and still-active volcano.

After a layover in Milan we arrived in Catania at 9 o’clock pm, and waited for what seemed like forever for our baggage. My nerves were turned to high: I was about to meet the family we’d be staying with for the next 6 days, family friends of Heather’s from when she lived in Sicily as a child. Her Italian was choppy but warming up to the flowing level; I, however, was completely lost. Armed with the phrases “this pumpkin is for you” and “toothbrush”, we grabbed our baggage and headed out to meet them.

Heather recognized her old friends right away, and there were a couple of seconds of backlag for me. She introduced me to the 13-year-old boy, his 16-year-old sister, and their mother. At their house in a town called Acireale (A-chi-rey-all-ey) I’d meet their father, their dog Mimi (aka Scunia, “naughty”), and older brother, home visiting from the university. The youngest and the mother spoke really good English, and so did our contemporary once she got over her shyness, but Heather was determined to recuperate her Italian and I was excited to learn, so we spoke in both languages.

After the 45-minute car ride we arrived at their American-style home. It used to be part of a complex of military housing, where American families stationed in Sicily lived before new measures made them move closer to the base. Due to its origins, the house had an extensive yard and a large kitchen – the first I’d seen of both for 7 months!

We sat down to dinner and from the first bite I knew that regardless of the language barrier, I would understand this family: like all Italians, they appreciated good food. Zucchini-parmesan risotto was followed by a tomato and mozzarella salad with strawberries in sweet blood orange juice for dessert. (My Italian augmented: pomodoro, tomato, insalate, salad, and fraggiolo, strawberry.) I was able to tell them that I liked everything – “Tutti mi piaccionno molto”, more or less – before Heather and I collapsed, exhausted from the long day of travel, into bed.

Domenica: We woke up and after a breakfast of Greek yogurt with blood-orange-flower honey, and Italian coffee of course, we drove into downtown Acireale. While the parents went to a Palm Sunday church service in the main duomo, we four adolescents sat across the square and ate Italian ice with brioche. Italian ice is, might I say, a thousand times better when consumed in Italy. Our graniza flavor was mandorla, almond, made from the island’s famously delicious almond milk. After exploring the main square a bit more, seeing the town park (with fantastic views overlooking the Mediterranean), and buying arranccini for lunch (fried rice balls filled with spinach and cheese or meat and tomato), we headed home, where our midday meal was augmented by pasta with stir-fried broccoli, and cannoli and tartufa for dessert. Cannoli exist in the US – a fried pastry shell filled with sweetened smooth ricotta cheese – but it is Sicily’s specialty and complemented by a chocolate coating and crushed pistachios at the ends.

That afternoon we went to Siracusa, a bigger city just a half-hour away, where we saw a rock formation called the “ear of Diana”, churches, plazas, and the sea. Sicily is involved in a lot of Roman mythology, which explained the abundance of mythical references in the environment.

We dined in the center of Siracusa and I experienced my first Italian pizza. I thought of my mother’s affection for eggplant as I ordered a pizza alla norma, the typical Sicilian combination of tomato, ricotta, eggplant, and mozzarella. The delicious ends to the wonderful days soon became another typical Sicilian thing.