Here it is! Finally! The entire Sicily trip story. The Torino/Olympics story coming soon. I’ve included the original first half in case you want to re-read it. After a few days, I will move this whole thing back down to it’s actual date, and delete the old post. For now, I’ll leave it here where it is easily accessible. Enjoy!
06.2.2006 - Monday
You may have already read this earlier
On Friday the school trip to Sicily began. I started my journey by staying at Mr. Scanlon’s house thursday night. At 8AM on friday morning we all boarded the bus, double decker as usual, and rode to Cumae. Along the way, we stopped at a rest stop in Campania, and in the bathroom there was a cleaning lady who started to shout in Napoletano (the dialect of Naples) at Paul and then she tried to dance with him. I laughed, and so she began to mock me and my long hair -- It was rather hilarious, if a little insulting.
Cummae was our first example of an Ancient Greek Acropolis with temples and scattered about and the occasional roman add-on.
After Cumae came Napoli (Naples) where we had dinner; It wasn’t anything exciting, just hot dogs and pizza. Naples was beautiful, even for the few evening hours we were there. We then boarded a ship headed for Sicily. It felt very much like being on the Titanic. Once on board a social drama developed and several “conversations” and arguments occured between Pat, Margaret, Cecillia, and me. The gist of it was that Ceci was pissed about how much time I’d spent in her’s and Margaret’s room over the Florence trip. The social drama was not aided by the seasickness. The Italian word for the episode is “casino”
Other than that, the boat ride was miserable, due mainly to insomnia and claustrophobia.
In the morning we got off of the damn boat and back into our temporary motor home: the bus.
We spent Sunday in Taormina, which was AMAZING. It is a small hill top city overlooking the beaches of Giardini Naxos. It was bellissima -- despite being a little bit of a tourist trap. It had the most spectacular views of both the mediterranean on one side and the snowy summit of Mount Etna on the other side. The city itself was filled with great eateries and several quaint and very sicilian churches. It was interwoven with walking paths that led to panoramic vistas. I had my first taste of Sicilian cuisine in Taormina, and I would say that it is second only to that of Tuscany. We also got some great cannoli and gelato.
Today (Monday) we took a day trip from our hotel in Naxos to see Syracuse (Siracusa) on the southern corner of the island. At the theatre of Syracuse several students performed a piece of the Bacchantis (a play by Aeschylus) -- I portrayed king Penteo and the play ended with my dismemberment, to the dismay of Margaret. At the theatre it began to hail (at first I thought it was snow!) and it was a very strange feeling for me, lying still on the ground with my eyes closed and hail bouncing off of my face while a pack of gils swarmed around me chanting my death in Ancient Greek.
After the theatre we visited the island of Ortigia, and the sun finally showed its face. At Ortigia we saw the temple of Athena (which began as a Greek temple, then was rebuilt as another greek temple, then as an early christian church in the first century AD, and then as a Mosk when Sicily was conquered by the turks, and then finally as a Catholic church). It still has several of the original 2500 year old columns supporting a curved roof that was added in the 17th century.
After a long afternoon in Ortigia and a very long bus ride back, we returned to Hotel Nike (Nike was the greek goddess of victory) in Naxos. The next day we went to Agrigento.
Part 2 -- 8.02.2006:This is new!
Our first night in Agrigento(1) there was an international festival at the greek acropolis(2) of the ancient city. The temple to Hera(3) was lit, and in front of the temple the spectators gathered. Italian and Spanish music filled the night air as representatives from the various regions of the wold paraded down the street and then up the path to the acropolis, bearing large paper baton torches. Upon reaching the top of the hill they threw their torches into piles, and formed up in groups. There were spanish guitarists, mexican mariachi, african drumers, oriental pipers, and various other types of cultural music.
After several hours of dancing and singing around the growing bonfire, people started to walk back to their cars. In the parking lot a group of Rwandans was continuing the party with their drums, jumping and chanting. Alll sixty of the students from my school joined in and we danced and chanted rather intensely for another hour. The general sentiment was one of awe.
The next day we toured the acropolis with an Italian tour guide. She switched between Italian and English, and most of the time I didn’t notice which language she was using.
After we had a buffet lunch at a restaurant called “feelings”, overlooking the ancient ruins, we went intot he town of Agrigento where the international festival continued (in Italy one day of partying is NEVER enough). The town seemed rather dead at first, and so I consented to going shopping with Margaret and her friends, having nothing better to do. After a while, however, I had to excuse myself and go in search of some fellow testosterone. First, I thought I would just drop into the store down the street and buy a necklace that Margaret had spent a little too long looking at, in anticipation of San Valentino(4). This turned out to be much trickier than I thought, as a parade had just started and the streets and sidewalks were packed with gente(5). Long story short, I wound up in the middle of the street dancing with four russians on stilts. They made their way, and I went my own way, with a little bow, and I escaped to the sidewalk. Eventually, I did get the necklace, and then quickly rejoined the festivities.
The next day brought us to Selinunte, along the coast towards Palermo. The archeological site was right on the beach. There was an ancient quarry filled with unfinished doric columns, and so we students, who had been cooped up in a bus for the better part of a week, took advantage of the rocks’ jungle-gym-like properties. We were scolded by our teachers, but eventually they gave up. We were given an hour to have lunch on the beach, and told that swimming was strictly forbidden.
I wolfed down a snack (crackers and pesto) and then worked on convincing Margaret to go swimming with me. Once she was convinced, she tried to talk Abby into coming as well. Some ingenious reverse psychology on Jack’s part resulted in the four of us running into the 10 degree (6) water in our underwear (or less -- my boxers came down with my pants for a brief second by accident). We got out, and then realized that we didn’t have much in the way of dry clothing, or a way to change. A bunch of girls held up their jackets in a circle around Margaret and Abby while they changed, and Jack and I sat their clutching our wet selves, trying to warm up. We ended up changing quickly under the dip in a river bed.
That evening we went to Palermo to get our ferry. Getting cena(7) in Palermo was very exciting -- even more than naples had been. We went down a sketchy market lined with fruit and fish vendors and got a feast for dinnner (sandwhiches) for some spicci(8), and of course, some Sicilian canoli.
On the ferry I shared a room with Pat, Rachid, and Max. They found it hilarious to lock me out of the room and then turn the lights off while I was in the shower. Eventually, they left, but they came back and started banging on the walls and flicking the lights. I yelled at the top of my voice “F**king STOP!” and they complied. Then, when I turned off the shower water, I heard a very meek feminine voice say “Are you ever going to come out?” I quickly got dressed and came out to find a very scared looking Margaret. We had dinner with Pat and Rachid and Max.
The rest of teh ferry ride was not very fun. Margaret got very seasick, and so I toiled to make her comfortable untial she finally fell asleep, at which point I returned to my room where my roomates kept me up tutta la santa notte(9)! We had to wake up and disembark at naples in 6 AM, and my journey then changed completely as I headed for Torino and the 2006 Winter Olympics, but that’s another story.
Footnotes:
(1). Agrigento is a city on the western most tip of Sicily. In ancient times it was one of the wealthiest cities in the world, and thus had the largest number of temples, as well as the largest temples, of any hellenistic greek city (6th - 3rd century B.C.E.)
(2). An acropolis is the top of a greek city (always built on a hill). It was the politcal, religious, and economic center of the city.
(3). Hera (Juno in Roman) was the head female diety, wife of Zeus.
(4). Valentines day;
(5). Gente = people;
(6). 10 degrees centigrade = about 50 degrees farhenheit;
(7). Cena = dinner;
(8). Spicci = small change;
(9). Tutta la santa notte = the whole damned night;
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}