Cortina

It doesn’t snow in Aci Trezza so for President’s Day Weekend we took a trip to the Italian Alps for some skiing. We flew with our friends Adam, Derrick and Jodi from Catania to Venice and drove up to the town of Cortina. Cortina is in the middle of the Dolomite section of the Alps and is supposed to have some of the best skiing in the world. The town itself is a quintessential ski town with hotels, restaurants and upscale shops. Although they are in the same country, Cortina is much different than Aci Trezza in many ways. Cortina was actually a part of Austria until after World War I so the town is looks a little Austrian, German or Swiss and much different then Sicily with its Middle Eastern, Greek and African influences. We ate well on our trip Cortina had exotic foods we hadn’t seen in ages… like beef.
The slopes were great. It wasn’t too crowded and the weather was nice. I had never skied anything even close to as great as the mountains in the Dolomites. The views were amazing looking out over the range and the ski runs were so long you could ski on and on for what seemed like forever. For lunch we would stop at the chalet on the mountain for some food and some hot chocolate. We would eat outside taking in the views and take some time to relax.
Back on the skis I fell about a million times but had lots of fun.

Agathas

St. Agatha is the patron saint of Catania. She was born in Catania in the 3rd century and belonged to a rich and important family. Agatha was a Christian in a time when Rome controlled Sicily and Christians were being persecuted. When Agatha refused to marry a Roman Prefect because he was not Christian, the prefect had her tortured in an attempt to force her to marry him. In the end she would not give in and was eventually martyred in 251 AD. As a saint she is credited with specific occurrences of saving the city from Mt. Etna as well as saving Malta from Turkish invasion in 1551.
Every February Catania has a festival to honor St. Agatha. It is the second largest religious festival in Italy and we wanted to be a part of it. A group of us from Aci Trezza went down to Catania and joined the fun. It was packed, you could not see any part of a street that was not full of people. We jostled for position and were able to view the carriage that carries her remains as it went by.
From what I can tell every town in Sicily has a patron saint and it is common for parents to name their child after the patron saint of the town they live in. Our neighbor Agatha invited Shannon and Jodi over for some Italian cooking lessons one Sunday. They made Arancini which is some rice balls with meat sauce. They are very common fare at the Tavola Calda restaurants around here and the girls wanted to know how to bring the deliciousness home.
I took some pictures and ate the finished product.