Christmas in Venice

For Christmas this year Shannon and I decided to go to the unique and beautiful city of Venice. Venice is a long way from Sicily in just about every way. Geographically it lies in the north, where as Sicily is as far south as one can go in Italy. The tourist attractions in Venice tend to be from the 13th century on and in Sicily most of the sites are at least 2000 years old. The people of the two areas talk, dress, drink and eat dramatically different from each other despite being in the same country. Although one expects different regions of a country to have its own culture and history, perhaps it is more interesting once you realize that by square mileage Italy is actually smaller than the US state of New Mexico.
The original settlement on Venice has interesting origins. In 421 Germanic tribes were raiding Italy which eventually led to the fall and sacking of Rome, Italians fleeing the invaders sought refuge on the group of islands that makes up modern day Venice. Over time Venice would go on to become one of the most powerful cities in the world becoming a center for trade, art and culture.
On Christmas Eve Shannon and I flew into Marco Polo airport, gathered up our luggage and caught the water bus that took us to the group of islands making up modern day Venice. After checking into our hotel we got right to the tourism and went to St. Mark's Square. It was a bit rainy our first day in Venice but at least it kept the crowds and pigeons down. St. Mark's square is one of the greatest piazzas in Europe boxed in by the Grand Canal, the Doge's Palace, St. Mark's Basilica, and the Procuratie built by Napoleon. We first visited St. Mark's Basilica. St. Mark's got its name when Venetian merchants stole the relics from the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist from Egypt and they changed the name of their cathedral to St. Marks. The interior is very impressive with high ceilings, marble floors and intricate gilded mosaics of biblical scenes, saints and important Venetians.
From the Basilica we went next door to the Doge's Palace. For a thousand years Venice was a republic and Doges were the leaders elected by the city-state's aristocracy. The palace was the residence for the Doges during much of that time and like many Italian Palaces it has many rooms filled with oil paintings, tapestries and sculptures although it is surely more impressive than most.
Later we were at dinner and had ordered when the well-dressed man seated next to us, in perfect American English, asked "What are two Americans doing at a sushi restaurant in Venice on Christmas Eve?" A fair question to be sure because although there were plenty of tourists in Venice at the time, few Americans come all the way to Venice to eat at a sushi restaurant. So I explained that we live in Sicily and that traveling is our only opportunity to get something at a restaurant other than pizza or pasta. So the question had to be asked so I asked it "you're an American eating at a Sushi restaurant in Venice, what's your story?" Apparently he also lives in Italy and is in Venice on business, he explained that the meal was his Christmas present to himself.
We had a nice meal but when we emerged from the restaurant to head home we found that the city streets had flooded. It was raining all day but the reason the city was flooded was because of the tide. When tides are just right, parts of the city flood. The good part is that because tides are based on the moon, most of the time the floods can be predicted and residents can take proper precautions. These kinds of floods only happen a few times a year, we were just lucky I guess. Shannon was wore her boots and I took my shoes off for the walk back. At our hotel the water was about even with the threshold at the door and we found all of the furniture on the ground floor up on bricks.
The next morning was Christmas and when we went downstairs it was obvious that the lobby had flooded. There was still standing water that the staff was coping with as we left. We learned from our Christmas in Rome last year that a good approach to a city on a holiday is to see things that don't close. We first went to the Frari Church which was built in 1338 and houses a sculpture by Donatello, Canova's tomb and a famous hand carved choir. Shannon particularly took a liking to Canova's tomb. We headed to the Rialto Bridge. The Rialto Bridge you see today was built in 1591 and is one of only 4 bridges that cross the Grand Canal. It is a popular tourist attraction surrounded by many shops and popular restaurants. We ended up heading to a bar later that was playing some American Football and was decorated with bras on the ceiling. There we met up with some students from New Hampshire and spent the rest of the day wandering the city with some Americans.
The next morning we awoke and took a water bus down to the far end of the Grand Canal from where we were staying. Our destination was the Galleria dell'Accademia which houses the largest collection of the great master painters of Venice. From there we went on to the Peggy Guggenheim museum which is also an art museum but rather than Venice master painters, the Gugenheim Collection is one of the most important collections of modern art in the world. We finished our day with another water bus ride and a great dinner at La Zucca, a restaurant recommended by a friend who recently visited the city. On our way back to the hotel we swung by St. Mark's Square one more time just to see what it looked like at night.

Holidays

A major adjustment when moving abroad is celebrating holidays differently. Some holidays Sicilians celebrate differently and some they don’t celebrate at all. The biggest adjustment is not to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with your family but since everyone over here is in the same situation, there’s always somewhere to go and good people to celebrate with.

For Halloween our friend Dawn had a big party on her rooftop. I went as a gangster of some sort and my bride was a baby girl. It was a typical Aci Trezza party with Americans and Sicilians mingling and playing games. There were many rockers this year with members of KISS and Guns and Roses showing up.

We ended up celebrating Thanksgivings many times this year. The newly-wed Muldoons started off the Thanksgivings with a huge meal and lots of friends.
For the actual holiday we went over to our friend Lisa’s house for Turkey. Lisa is a pediatrician so there were lots of people over from the hospital.
We also went over to the Knoell’s house and Monika’s house.

Shannon and I decided to get a Christmas tree this year. In Sicily there doesn’t seem to be a tradition of going to cut down your own but we ended up finding a reasonably priced small tree at a hardware store in Ognina. We decorated the tree and it made our home a little more festive. Interestingly Christmas trees in Sicily come with the roots still attached in a pot of soil. This allows the tree to stay green longer and it is a tradition in Sicily for families to go replant their tree after the holiday season.

Shannon had a bunch of ladies over for her annual Christmas cookie making day. Shannon likes to make my Mom’s recipes and the other ladies brought some of their recipes over too. I tried to stay out of there and the cookies they produced were awesome.

Shannon planned a progressive dinner for her department holiday party. For the progressive dinner we moved to different people’s houses each with a different course of dinner. The homes are all out in town North of the base so Shannon rented a large van and driver so everyone can get around easily. For appetizers we started off at the Mitchell’s house, the pasta course was at the Knoell’s house, main course over at the Rosenette's house (who live in the same building as us) and desserts at Kim’s house.

For Christmas Shannon and I went to Venice but that deserves it own blog entry so that will be the next installment.

For New Year’s Eve we went over the Knoell’s house along with the Mitchell’s and the Jolly’s. We ate well and stayed up late playing board games and guitar hero.

Murphys in Sicily

Shannon’s parents came to stay with us for two weeks in October and they had the opportunity to receive the most comprehensive tour of Sicily we had yet provided our guests. Like many of our guests they had been to Italy before but never made it all the way down to Sicily. However Paul and Susan may have been our most prepared visitors yet having read tour books and novels to gain an understanding of their travel destination and the new home of their daughter.
The first day we showed them around our apartment and the town of AciTrezza where they had the opportunity to eat some local cuisine at some of our favorite restaurants. The next day we got started in full speed taking them first to the ruins of the temple at Segesta. The temple there was built by Greeks in the 5th century BC and sits at the edge of a gorge and is surrounded by mountains. Next we headed to Marsala which is on the complete other side of the island from where we live. In Marsala where we had lunch and toured the city square and Duomo. Our path North from Marsala took us along the famous salt marshes of Trapani where sea salt is produced in large ponds along the coast. We ended the first day at the mountain top town of Erice. Erice overlooks the city of Trapani and offers great views of the Mediterranean sea with the Egadi Islands.

The next morning we awoke in Erice and had the homemade breakfast at our hotel. Erice is famous for its pastries so our breakfast spread seemed more like dessert. I wouldn’t have it any other way! We spent the morning touring the convent and the churches of Erice.
Some of the days they were visiting Shannon and I had to go to the base for the day. A few of those days our Sicilian neighbor Agatha showed Paul and Susan around the area giving them the inside scoop on the real Sicily. One day Agatha took them north along the coast between Aci Trezza and Taormina to many of the charming fishing villages. On another day Agatha took them into Catania for a tour of the city and the university where she went to school. Agatha also took them up the mountain to show them the villages up there and took them to the highest points on the volcano you can drive where they could overlook the island and take in views of the craters from previous eruptions.

Together we all took a day trip to Piazza Armenia, which is

about an hour and a half south west of us. In Piazza Armenia there is an old Roman hunting lodge, built in the 4th century AD and buried in a mudslide in the 12th century AD. The site was not fully uncovered until 1960 so what remains is an impressive example of roman architecture and some of the most impressive and best preserved Roman mosaics in the world. The lodge is huge and the mosaics illustrate many parts of Roman life at the time as well as displaying mythical depictions.

After the hunting lodge we headed to Porto Empedocle, a costal town on the Mediterranean sea. Porto Empedocle is the setting for the Montalbano mystery books, which we had all read, so we stopped in the town for some lunch and Susan had a visit with Inspector Montalbano's statue. After lunch we headed over the Agrigento to see three of the best preserved Greek temples in the world.

On the second weekend we all went to the island nation of Malta. Malta is out in the middle of the Mediterranean sea and its strategic location has made it a popular place for world powers to occupy. Perhaps its most famous rulers are the Knights of Saint John who occupied Malta for hundreds of years after leaving Palestine at the conclusion of the final crusade. Their most recent occupiers were the English up until the end of World War II so in a nice change for us, most of the people in Malta speak English very well.

Today Malta is independent and a member of the European Union. We stayed in the resort town of St. Julian which has lots of nice hotels and good restaurants. The first night we went to their famous Blue Elephant restaurant which features Thai food. Thai food is difficult to find in Sicily. The next day we toured the city of Valletta. Valetta is the capital of Malta and it overlooks the main port of the island. Because Malta was subject to so many invasion attempts over the past 1000 years, the entire harbor is walled off turning the whole city into a huge fort. That night we went to a Maltese restaurant which offered traditional cuisine featuring seafood and rabbit.

On the final day of their visit we took Paul and Susan to the ancient city of Syracuse and showed them the ruins of the Greek and roman theaters and the city which features archeological sites and views of the Ionian sea.

During their visit Paul and Susan had the opportunity to not only see where we live and see some sights but to meet many of our good friends here. In addition to spending time with our neighbor Agatha they went to a going away party for our friend Amy where they met a dozen or so of our good friends. They were even lucky enough to have dinner at Monika’s house and got to eat some of her famous German cuisine. Thanks for the visit, Paul and Susan!

Oktoberfest 2009

My friend James came up with a great idea- not only go to Oktoberfest this year but rent an RV and drive there from Sicily. For the last week of the 199th Oktoberfest 5 guys piled into an RV in Catania and headed north to the world’s largest fair. After stopping overnight we arrived at a campground in Munich on Monday afternoon. We quickly cleaned up and headed downtown to the beer tents. Over the course of the week we would hit up most of the major tents at the fair. In the beer tents we met people from all over the world. There was a really positive spirit in the air, everyone was very friendly and excited to meet new people. The tents would close at 11pm and most of the time we would head out to a bar afterwards with our new friends. We also toured the city a bit and tried out some of the famous beer halls such as the Hofbrau House and the Augustiner House. We also found some beer gardens in the main central park of Munich. We met lots of nice people and we would sometimes go to the bars until very late with our new friends. On our last day my friend Sara and her friend Sarah came to Oktoberfest on part of their epic European tour so I got to hang out with one of my good friends from home at the festival too.
Munich is a really nice city, everything is clean and organized. They have very good public transportation that runs until very late. Our campground was actually in the city and we could take the subway from our campground to anywhere in the city we wanted to go.
We stayed for 5 days and it’s a good thing we didn’t stay longer because we were a mess by the end. We were exhausted and all of our voices were raspy from trying to talk in the loud beer tents. We had a joke going that when you met someone you could tell how many days they had been at the festival based on how their voice sounded.

(It is not me in the picture below)

Friends in Sicily

Shannon and I were fortunate to have many visitors in the last 6 weeks. Our friends from the States came to Sicily to visit and we had a great time showing them the things we have learned about our Sicilian home.
Christina and Kelly came in late August when Sicily is still very hot. We took the girls out in Aci Trezza on their first night and introduced them to our favorite pizzeria and to some of the places to get a beer. We took them to Pontile which is a bar on a platform built over the volcanic rocks on the shore. The sea comes right up under the platform where you sit and it makes for some nice views. Then we took the girls over to Mario's bar where Antonio taught them a new drinking game. The next day the girls went on a day of the beach and shopping, thankfully they left me behind. They started off at Taormina to do some shopping and then went down the hill to Isola Bella beach. However after the beach they were headed up the mountain to do a wine tasting and the car died. Shannon called me and I was able to get my friend Chris to come and help. Chris is a mechanic but he was unable to get the car started so he was nice enough to tow the car all the way back to Aci Trezza. Later that night we took the girls out to a seafood dinner in Aci Trezza where we got them the Misti appetizer which comes with different food every time we go there. Some of the things they tried were whole small fishes, octopus, urchin and calamari all caught in the waters off Aci Trezza. That night we were seated at the table next to the mayor and he must have been taken by the three ladies because he bought them all another shellfish delicacy.









The next day we took the girls down to Syracuse to take in a little bit of ancient Sicily. We saw the ruins and the church and had a nice day in the town. We took them to Shannon's favorite Sicilian restaurant for dinner where they tried some of their famous pistachio pasta. That night we had a real treat for our visitors. Our friend Derrick was having a party on his rooftop. The theme for the party was a "white trash party" so people were supposed to dress up like they might be white trash. The ladies did not dress up but I did. The party was a whole lot of fun. The party was so much fun the next day was necessarily a day of recovery and was spent at the lido sunning platform down in town. In the evening we took them to Cafe del Mar which has a pool party every Sunday night and then we went out to dinner with a big group of our friends. They left early the next morning.

The next weekend our friends Matt and Christa came to visit. Matt and Christa were going to spend over a week in Sicily and do some touring around the island besides the area Shannon and I live in.

On the first night we showed them around the town introducing them to some of our Sicilian friends and later we bumped into a bunch of our American friends over at Mario's bar. The next day we all went over to Agrigento. Agrigento is on the other side of the island and Shannon and I had not visited the site yet. Agrigento used to be the site of the ancient city of Akragas which was established around 582 B.C. There are three temples to explore and two of them are in very good shape. There is also a field of ruins to walk around in and a museum with artifacts found at the site. That night we took Matt and Christa over to Monika's house because she was having a Monte Carlo themed party. Monika is from Germany so she there were many of her German friends there and also people from Sicily, France, Russia, England and a bunch of our American friends. It was cool to show Matt and Christa all the people we hang out with and Matt even won some money at the end of the night. The next morning we rented some kayaks and paddled around the waters of Aci Trezza and Aci Castello. We took them from one end of the cape to the other which is a tour that takes you to a Norman castle and around the Ciclope islands. We pulled the kayaks up on one of the islands and did some swimming in the Tyrrhenian Sea and Matt and I did a little bit of climbing and jumping off the islands. After cleaning up at home we all went up on the mountain and did a wine tasting at the Gambino Winery. Gambino is on the slopes of Mt. Etna and offers great views of the the surrounding terrain and the sea. The next day Matt and Christa took a ferry to the Aoliean islands off the north coast of Sicily. While there they would climb an active volcano and view lava spurting into the air.
Two weeks later our friend Sara would come visit with her friend Sarah. The girls were on a month long tour of Europe and made Sicily a part of their trip. I picked the girls up at the airport and took them into Aci Trezza for a granita treat. After showing them our home I took them down to Syracuse for a tour of the city and its ancient sites. The previous stop on the girls' trip was Rome so they had already seen a lot of churches but I think they liked the Duomo in Syracuse. The Duomo started off as a Greek temple and was subsequently turned into a Christian Church, a Mosque and back to a Christian Church. The cool part about the church is that you can see evidence of each one of these stages. After Syracuse I took them to San Gregorio to pick up some wine. A few months ago Monika showed Shannon and I this store in San Gregorio where you can buy wine. If you didn't know it was there you would never be able to find it because it looks like an alley. The store has 6 Sicilian wines to choose from- each in a barrel 10 feet in diameter. I told the girls that were were going to buy two wines and the man who runs the store let them taste them all to decide. They chose the Nero d'Avola and an Etna wine. You bring your own vessels to fill up and he charges by the liter. After leaving the wine store Shannon called and asked us to pick up some calamari on the way home. We went to the fish market down in Aci Trezza and picked up the calamari we wanted and had the guy clean it for us. By the time we got home Shannon had a very nice spread of appetizers for us so we started the evening drinking prosecco and snacking on the terrace. That night we took them into town where we met up with about 6 of our friends for some pizza. We proceeded to Mario's bar and then to an after party at a friend's house. The next day we had an unsuccessful attempt at kayaking in the harbor, in the two weeks that had passed since we went kayaking with Matt and Christa the weather had changed a lot and the seas were too rough to have any success kayaking. That night we took the girls into Catania. We walked around the Piazza Duomo and saw the church and the elephant statue in the main square. Then we took them to the ruins of the Roman Amphitheater and on to dinner on the only hip street in Catania, Via Santa Filomena. The next day we took the girls shopping for some famous Sicilian ceramics and then up to the beach at Isola Bella and to Taormina. That night we took them to Reitana restaurant which makes the best pastas we have been able to find so far in Sicily. The next morning the girls had to catch a plane back to the mainland.
Shannon and I enjoyed having so many visitors. It is fun to see the sights of Sicily and I enjoy introducing people who we have known for many years with our friends in Sicily. We have lived here for more than a year now so we are pretty settled and used to life on a Mediterranean island. For visitors we have many ideas about what to show people when they come and perhaps more importantly we know how to get there without getting lost.