Tuesday, March 27, 2012

No parlo italiano: Part due of our adventures in Italia

So we’d just gotten to Palermo, right? Even though we’d had a light breakfast in Trapani, we were starved and so keen to eat some real Italian food, so we staked out a nice little pasta place right away. We checked into Casa di Amici, then walked around the corner to the restaurant the woman recommended and OH. MY. GOD. We shared a bottle of the red house wine again and started with bruschetta (pronounced bru-sketta!) as an appetizer and the freshness of the spiced tomatoes and the crispness of the bread and olive oil were the perfect blend of I don’t even know what. It was the freshest tasting bruschetta I’ve ever had, with just a hint of salt. I didn’t think there was any way the pasta would compare, but I was pleasantly surprised. I had a type of flat noodle with red sauce and bits of what I think was sausage, but may have actually been beef. Seeing as we don’t speak Italian, we started off doing a lot of ordering based on the few words that looked familiar and hoping for the best. And I wasn’t disappointed in Palermo, that’s for sure. We shared bites of each other’s dishes, and I think it’s fair to say we were all incredibly jealous of what the others had, but also equal parts glad to have ordered what we did.


Once we cleaned our plates, we rolled ourselves to the counter to pay – we never really did figure out if you were meant to go up and pay or leave it at the table for the server to collect. Whoops! Still, we were surprised at this first restaurant to have a service charge of a few Euros each. We made sure from then on to look at the menu beforehand, but most everywhere had some kind of charge for eating in. It took us aback a bit, but it didn’t end up being an issue, just a minor annoyance for incredible food. We carried ourselves back to our B&B and decided it was time for a much deserved nap to appreciate the day’s worth of food we’d just consumed in one sitting.

We woke up an hour or so later, got ready for the night, and went back out to find drinks and gelato for the night. Since it was still before dinner-time, we licked at our gelato while exploring a bit and just bought our own bottles and took it back to the common kitchen area and balcony. There we enjoyed a few drinks on the terrace, appreciating the fresh, Italian night air. Before we realized it, a few hours had passed and we began to get hungry again, so we set out back into town to continue exploring and find food. A number of vendors were still out in the street, their tables set up to display the array of bracelets, rings, coin purses, scarves, and whatever sort of knickknacks they had to offer tourists with money burning holes in their pockets, i.e. us.


We walked away a few Euros lighter for our purchases and wandered down the main bar street and found an appealing late night beer-and-kebab offer that just happened to be showing a soccer game as well. It may have been the combined atmosphere and excitement, full of soccer, alcohol, and promise for an unbelievable trip, but I think it was the best kebab I’ve ever eaten. Perfectly spiced, fresh lettuce and tomatoes, on a pita-esque type of flatbread. We took our time wandering back to our room where we continued to listen to music and chat, having fully enjoyed our night out.


We rose the next morning and donned our swimsuits, the plan of the day to go to the beach and brave the chilly temperature for the sun that was brilliantly shining. Once we found the bus, again with the help of kind strangers, it was a thirty-minute ride to the coast where the beach was splayed out in front of the mountains on either side, rows of little cafes and gelato lining the street opposite the beach. How pretty!




We ordered Stromboli/pizza-roll things from a little shop and walked along the beach a ways, and I was so relieved to have my feet back in the sand. Of all the things I miss about Australia, the proximity to the beach is close to the top of the list, just behind everyone I met there. After walking a bit, we found a place to sit and enjoy what was again a delicious, cheesy masterpiece.

Unfortunately, it ended up being a sandy, delicious, cheesy masterpiece, because the wind was blowing something fierce. To the point where I was worried I might actually have scrapes or burns from the sand whipping me in the face. Luckily my sunglasses protected my eyes and the long sleeves and pants I’d worn protected most of me while allowing me to watch the water and pretend I wasn’t being stung repeatedly. We walked along the beach a bit more once we’d finished eating before we gave in and called it quits with the swimsuits and appreciated the beach from inside. We had coffee in one of the small cafes and soaked in the gorgeous view laid out in front of us before making our way back to the bus stop to go back into town.


The afternoon turned out to be one full of learning lessons the hard way, starting with a valuable travel lesson on the way back from the beach. We had all nodded off during the thirty minute bus ride, and we were woken up by some of the public transport security/police officers. Eventually, the girl next to me was able to translate, and we were told that since we didn’t buy a transport ticket, we would have to pay a 53 Euro fine. I was skeptical, but since they were wearing jackets and hats with the public transportation logo and had official-looking, ticket pads of paper, it seemed legit. As soon as the guards were out of earshot, the girl next to me suggested that we just make a run for it when the doors opened (not the only time running from the public transport police was suggested that week, as it turned out), but they already had one of our passports, and we figured we shouldn’t take off without it. Instead, we stayed and ended up handing over the 53 Euros. Wah. I’ve since been advised to insist on paying the ticket at the office in order to ensure that the authorities are legitimate, but also because they’ll often drop the charge if you do. Lesson one: learned.

We spent the next few hours in the hostel lobby soaking up what bit of internet we could before making our way to the harbor where we would catch our ferry that night. On the way, we looked for somewhere to have dinner, a bit before 6:00, and lesson number two was there to meet us. No one, and I mean no one, eats or serves dinner or anything resembling a substantial meal before about 8:00. We found a few pastry or sandwich shops, but nothing was open and serving dinner. Literally forty minutes and eight failed attempts later, we stumbled upon a deli/gelato/bar/restaurant that was actually open for dinner. Success! Or so we thought. We started with another bottle of red wine that did not disappoint, followed by another incredible bruschetta. I’ve never been much of a fan of the stuff, but Italy knows how it’s done! Shocking, right? Unfortunately, the incredible food stopped there. Roz and I had ordered the same spaghetti dish, having only recognized the word “spaghetti” with what we inferred was red sauce and then assumed came with a kind of meat, and we had been hoping meatballs. Caitlin had figured out that her pasta came with a white cream sauce, but we weren’t able to figure out what kind of meat she had either. Turns out we all ordered seafood. Caitlin’s crawly things were still looking at her, and Roz’s and my best guess as to what we were eating was sea urchin. EW. Thus lesson three was served: don’t order something if you don’t know what it is. We’d lucked out previously, but this set a new standard for the trip. We wrapped up the food to appear less rude and ordered gelato, but the damage had been done.


We traipsed disappointed to the port where we saw a cruise ship-type boat in the harbor before checking in, where we found out that that was the boat we’d be taking! Once aboard, we explored the few bars, seemingly endless staircases, movie theater, game room, lounge/library/cards room, and the seating room where we had booked seats. Instead of going straight to bed, we played cards and chatted in the lounge and played cards before finally acknowledging how tired we were. Though the chairs weren’t super comfy and it ended up being fairly cold, we slept a bit before pulling into the harbor in Naples, or Napoli as the italianos say. I was the first to wake up, so I stood watching the sunrise over the city and Mount Vesuvius – I only just now figured this out as I’m writing, courtesy of Google maps, so I’m feeling excited about it all over again! What an incredible sight to see.


We arrived in Napoli almost rested and stopped right on the harbor for a quick chocolate pastry and coffee before trying to find a map or shuttle or something to do before picking up our car at noon. We had a fairly lazy morning and afternoon wandering the city (and finding most places to be closed!) until we decided to look for lunch before getting to the airport for our car. Unfortunately, lesson number four turned out to be: no one opens for lunch until noon. One woman – who also operated a hostel and even spoke English – let us sit down at her restaurant and have a drink with snacks while we waited for the taxi she was kind enough to call us to get to the airport. Though we were only in Napoli for a short time, the people were so hospitable and kind, and the architecture proved to be incredible, from the ancient ruin-esque looking castle to the fancy and more modern though still very old looking town square.




At the airport, we picked up the car we hired – a Fiat Panda for you car enthusiasts like my dear father – and made our way onto the road. Since I was the only one in our group who could drive a stick, I took on driving responsibilities for the trip, and Roz and Caitlin gratefully performed the ever important and demanding task of navigating. I was a bit nervous about driving period, and the Italian drivers did nothing to assuage my fears with their lack of turn signals, quick stops and starts, and endless line of Vespas zipping around everywhere, but we made it to the highway without any real issues. Luckily, highway driving proved easier to manage than the city.

The drive between Napoli and Roma proved to be an interesting one. About an hour into the two hour drive, we start coming up on an armored police vehicle, and I slow my speed a bit, unsure of who has the power to pull you over in Italy. As we pass the “polizia” from the middle lane, Roz gets a big grin from the driver in the car, and they proceed to pull behind us. With three American speeding tickets and a number of accidents to my name, fear was my first reaction, and I immediately made the conscious effort to hold my speed at 110km/hr (don’t let the 110 freak you out, it’s still under 70mph!). The car continued to the left lane and passed us, and I received a cheesy grin and wave of my own from the officer in the passenger’s seat. Next, they passed in front of me and back into the right-hand lane. Still with my speed consistent, they allowed us to pass them and they started their loop again! This happened four times before they motioned me to put my window down, at which point they mimed drinking coffee and we agreed to follow them to the next rest stop/exit to have coffee. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.


Twenty minutes later, we pulled off the toll road to the rest stop where the police officers got out and all but helped us out of the car. It was at this point we learned that none of them spoke English, and we already knew we didn’t speak Italian. Our saving grace was the one officer who spoke some French! Through him we learned who was the boss of the three officers, what part of Italy they were from, that they worked in Rome, they did not in fact have a prisoner in the back of the car, but oh by the way, they had in fact just taken one to a mental institution in Napoli. Just a regular day’s work, you know, driving around mental prisoners and picking up girls on the highway for coffee. We told them about our studies in France and our plan for Italy, and before we knew it, everyone had finished their coffee. The officers walked us back to our cars, kissed us on both cheeks in the proper European fashion, and we parted ways. Oh, Italian men!

Needless to say, the remainder of the drive was reasonably calm, comparatively speaking. We checked into our hostel, the Peter Pan Hostel, a thirty minute bus/metro ride outside of the city and lovely as can be. The single man at the front desk was incredibly helpful and quirky, marking the map of the city for us and telling us all the best places to eat and shop. Since it was already late, we decided to have dinner around the corner where we asked questions and made sure we knew what we were ordering and had a wonderful meal of calamari, bread, wine, and pasta. We made our way back to the hostel and gladly gave into our food coma, ready to rest before our only full day of exploring Rome.


I’m posting this now, just to have something to post before getting into the last half of our adventures, but I’m still writing! So expect the end of Italian adventures, my weekend trip to Toulouse, and my girlfriends’ visit to me coming up shortly. Thanks for bearing with me as the weeks stretch between posts once again, though I hope they find you in a good place. Love and miss you all, and I can’t wait to tell you more about what’s been happening here!

Here and there,
Kiley

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

No parlo italiano: Part uno of our adventures in Italia

So much has happened in the last week, it’s ridiculous, so I’ll try and hit all the good bits and include as much info and pictures as possible! It’s been about two weeks since I last posted, so I’ll pick up where I left off, going into the start of last week.

I mostly stuck to my plan of buckling down and getting things done to prepare for winter break, our one week off of classes before midterms. On Monday, my host family had to cancel our dinner, so I stayed in and Alison, one of the girls from the program, came over to cook dinner with Carly, and they were kind enough to let me crash it. Alison had a recipe for pasta with this creamy avocado sauce, which was absolutely delicious! I need to look up some stove top recipes to cook here, so if anyone has any good ones that don’t require an oven, please send them my way!

Also some time that week, Carly and I noticed a musty, moldy kind of smell when we used the microwave. We checked the food we’d just taken out and since that all seemed fine, we didn’t think anything of it. Until the next day when we realized the smell was coming from the actual microwave. We took off the glass plate, and I nearly spewed right there. White, green, and blue fuzzy mold covered the underside of the rotating plate. EW is an understatement. It took about an hour, but through the power of Google, we were able to figure out and execute the cleaning of said infected microwave (pour water in with soap, bleach, or a number of other cleaners, microwave for a minute, dump the water, repeat). After I started dry-heaving when we dumped it the first time and the mold slithered out, Carly took over that job on her own. Moral of the story: don’t EVER leave any moisture in the microwave, no matter what, and make sure you clean it meticulously. From now on, you will never find a microwave cleaner than ours in all of Provence.

Anyway, I was doing well and being productive school- and chore-wise. With laundry done and letters and birthday presents in the mail, I was feeling pretty on top of the world by Wednesday afternoon when things took a downward turn. I went to bed early since I was feeling under the weather, then woke up on Thursday with a raging sinus/head cold, feeling weak as can be. I don’t usually stay home sick or even acknowledge the fact that I don’t feel well, but I was incapacitated on Thursday. I slept through my first class, hoping that I would wake up feeling better, but I definitely did not. Instead, I moved from my bed to the couch for a few more hours of sleep and movies before I made it into the shower and out to buy orange juice and flu meds. After that, Roz came over to get our last plans in line, then I went back to bed and skipped my evening class, too. With leaving for vacation the next day and being too stubborn to confront foreign health care, I was praying I’d just start feeling better after my day of rest.

Luckily, when I woke up Friday morning, I did feel loads better, which was good because I didn’t have the choice to skip class – it was time for our midterm for methodology. I went into class armed with tissues and doped up on the French equivalent of Theraflu (which isn’t so effective, actually…it may be my vocabulary, but I haven’t found meds in France that are as good as the ones in the US – hopefully I’ll be healthy the rest of the time here and won’t find out, though). The exam is a bit of a blur, but nothing I can do about that now, so I’m trying not to worry until the exams are handed back to us. That may be this week, or in three weeks, since none of us are quite sure how the French system operates!

By 1pm, Roz, Caitlin, and I were waiting for the bus to the Aix TGV station to go to Paris. Unfortunately, by 1:30, we were still waiting for this bus. Once the bus came, we ended up stuck in traffic, took a different exit, got turned around, and were sitting in front of the train station where the bus driver wouldn’t open the doors. This decision was met with yells from the back of the bus: “Ouvrez la porte!” (open the door) was heard repeatedly along with other French obscenities, but my favorite was “Je sortirai par la fenêtre!” (I’m going to jump out the window!). Why we were being held, I don’t know, but we were eventually let off the bus, and we ran to catch the train, which we made just in time. During the ride, I realized it was the first time I’d taken the trip in daylight, and the French countryside did not disappoint! We saw plenty of small villages tucked into the hills on the west, and the ruins of what may have been castles or towers or maybe military structures – I really don’t know – sprinkled the foothills of the mountains to the east. Roz and I chatted the whole way up to Paris with high hopes for the week ahead of us.

Once in Paris, Caitlin went to find her French friend who she was staying the night with, and Roz and I went to meet her friend, Alex, who was kind enough to put us up for the night. We went straight to dinner with him, a few of his friends, his dad Tim, and a friend of his dad’s. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, but I had one of the best burgers ever! (I wish I’d been journaling all week, because now that I’m sitting down to write about this, I’m having quite a bit of trouble remembering it all.) It was this incredible little place on the corner in the gay district in Paris, and the food was amazing, just like the service – our waiter is a friend of Tim’s and talked to us about his break dancing while showing us his “fresh” dance moves! Afterward, we went down the street to a club called Sept Étages (I think that was the name…) where we had a drink and talked before going next door to a really cool place called Yono. It’s a gay bar owned by this incredibly fun couple that can make the best Long Island iced tea I’ve ever had. The next time I go out in Paris, I would love to go back, because all the staff was friendly, the drinks were great, and the atmosphere and music were fun and welcoming, too.

Roz and I got talking to a few guys that sat down at our table, and it was nice to speak French in a social, non-academic setting. We probably spent a good solid thirty minutes talking with them until the group decided it was time to leave. At that point, we went followed every outside, and the guys followed us – which was when we saw that they had motorized scooters! And they let us ride them up and down the street. It was AWESOME. I believe the two guys we’d been talking to worked for the scooter company and were promoting the scooters, but we got to try one out, so I was a very happy camper. The last stop of the night was this snazzy little bistro/diner-type place where I had my first Croque monsieur, basically an open-faced grilled cheese with ham under the cheese. Delicious! And this was only the first night of encounters with incredible food.

Roz and I crashed at Alex’s and ended up sleeping in a bit later than we had planned. Our morning then consisted of brunch at another bistro kind of restaurant where I had an incredible chicken sandwich. It sounds simple, but the chucks of chicken, Dijon mustard, and fresh veggies on the sandwich, along with the fries, were a magical combination. After eating, we went straight to the Arc de Triomphe where we went up to the top to appreciate the view of all of Paris. The weather was much, much better than the last time I was in Paris with Ole, Leelou, and Max (thank goodness!), but it was still a bit cloudy and foggy. Even still, we could look out and see Montmartre, the highest point in Paris, and the Eiffel Tower. Sometimes the top of the Eiffel Tower was blurred by the clouds, and it looked kind of creepy and cool as the clouds passed over it. We had to part with Alex, his friends, and Tim when we came down from the tower to catch our flight, but I can’t tell them thanks enough for putting us up and for taking us to so many cool places in such a short amount of time! I’m so appreciative of everything!


Roz, Caitlin, and I caught the métro to the bus to the airport and thus the second leg of our epic journey began! We touched down in Trapani, Sicily around 10pm, and it was one of the roughest landings I’ve ever experienced. Good grief. Since we flew Ryan air, the tickets were really, really cheap. The tradeoff? There are no free snacks or drinks, you’re only allowed a single carry-on bag, the landing frankly scared the crap out of me, and I’ve heard from friends that they’ve been on planes with duck-taped windows. The baggage proved to be difficult for me to handle, but I managed to get a week’s worth of clothes and toiletries into my LLBean backpack and keep it under 10kilos. Whew. The plane we got on seemed to be in pretty good shape, and the seats were rather comfortable even. Still, that landing was frightening. But not so frightening that I’ll cough up the extra hundred+ Euros to fly a different airline. Oh the priorities of a traveling college student.

We took a taxi from the airport to Paceco where we were actually staying, and we got our first taste of Italian driving. Again, good grief! It felt like we were in a racecar with how fast he drove, and there were little Vespas zipping around us. He paused where there were stop signs, just enough to make sure there was no one coming up the cross streets. We did make it to the bed and breakfast, the Aldebaran, in one piece, and we were pleasantly surprised to find a very nice room for three! There were sweet, fruity biscuits left for us on the desk, and the guy at the counter told us how to get into town to find food.


So, we ventured into the town square where nearly everything was closed up, even though it was a Saturday night. We ended up finding a small pizzeria where we all ordered our own pizza and of course traded pieces with each other. I’ll never look at pizza the same way. My salmon, tomato, and multiple cheese pizza was SO good. We don’t speak any Italian, and the waiter didn’t speak English, but we were able to communicate that we wanted a red wine too, so he brought the house wine, which was also incredible, though I couldn’t tell you what kind it was. The cheese was perfectly melty, the ingredients – especially the tomatoes – were fresh and crisp, and the bread was fluffy but crunchy and delicious. I mean, wow. Prepare for some more raving and drooling over the food.

We went home to the Aldebaran full and completely happy with the first night of the Sicilian beginning of our vacation. On Sunday morning, we got directions to the bus stop, though between our lack of Italian and the man’s lack of English at the desk of the B&B, it was difficult to understand where to go, though he was incredibly kind and eager to help. We eventually got to the square, which was also just beautiful, right there in the middle of this small, quiet town. We'd gone through it the night before, but without proper lighting, it was hard to appreciate it.


Unfortunately, the bus stop we found didn’t seem to go to Palermo like we wanted. We approached a few older men walking through the square and were discouraged when we first realized they didn’t speak any English whatsoever, but they were so unbelievably helpful. They walked with us to the bus stop and explained to the other man waiting there where we wanted to go. Through basically gestures and sign language, they let us know that we had to go to Trapani to catch a bus to Palermo and that it would arrive in forty minutes. We sat waiting with the other man who didn’t speak English either, and when the bus came, the group of older men came back to speak to the bus driver to make sure that we would get where we were going. How nice and kind to go out of your way to help traveling strangers!


We arrived in Trapani around midday, and the bus driver directed us to the bus stop to Palermo. We waited again before eventually boarding and making it into Palermo a few hours later. During the ride, however, we were treated to some of the prettiest countryside and mountains I've ever seen. While some of the terrain we saw could have been fields in Indiana or Ohio, the mountains in the background and the tidy long rows of what we assumed to be olive trees in some of the fields couldn't have been more different!



It wasn't until we pulled into Palermo city proper that we realized we had no idea which stop we wanted, nor where in the world our B&B would be from where we got off the bus. Roz was the trooper and made her way up to the bus driver (who didn’t speak English either) and found a wonderful Italian woman who not only told us which stop to take, but got off the bus with us and walked us a good half-mile toward our destination. The genuine kindness of people truly amazes me at times.

Thank you, Italy, for renewing my faith in the human race. Not that I'd been particularly doubting it, but it’s always nice to be reassured. After being in France where we’re told to be cautious about making eye contact (because it makes people uncomfortable and makes us potential targets, since we’re American), it was so refreshing to be in such an openly friendly country where people are eager to help, regardless of whether you speak any of the language at all. It’s not that French people are unfriendly (as a lot of stereotypes may lead you to believe), but the culture does seem to be less inviting and less open to strangers in the community, as far as I can tell. The few times that I’ve managed to break the initial barrier and get talking to someone in France, they’ve been just as friendly and welcoming as anyone we met in Italy, that I met in Australia, or you might meet in the US, it’s just that first chance to talk to someone that is a little harder to come by in France.

I’ll leave my story here in Palermo, on Day Three of our Italian adventure, since this is getting to be rather lengthy and because I have a midterm on Thursday to study for! I know, who can think about midterms when there are beaches, Italian police officer interactions, sunrises over mountains and monuments, and more to tell about from the rest of the week? I allowed myself the night to catch up on letters back to Abby, BRoy, and Kathleen, and this post, but tomorrow is all business. Thursday brings my first lit. midterm, as well as my Expression Orale midterm-recitation, but I’ll do my best to catch up on the rest of the break after that! Then of course, I’ll be in Toulouse this coming weekend visiting a friend from high school, I have two more midterms Monday and Tuesday, and then Jenn and Brooke will be arriving Thursday, but somewhere in there, I’ll get cracking on the rest of winter break. Thanks in advance for bearing with me, and I hope this finds you all as happily busy as I am! Love and miss you all, wherever you may be!

Here and there,
Kiley