Catania, Catania! Who wants to come to Catania? Anybody, anybody? With a reputation as Sicily's crime capital (actually it is in competition with Palermo for such esteem), a town that is as shady as elm trees and people who are as sketchy as a college art student's portfolio on exam day, this was my latest stop on the itinerary. Want to stay at a hostel that is near the Duomo that has a bar, an underground restaurant, Internet, and is near a famous fish market and some Roman ruins? So did I! But when I showed up, it turned out that I was supposed to stay in the other building of the hostel, which, at the end of an alleyway, was slightly farther away from the Duomo, had no bar, had no underground restaurant, had no Internet, and was certainly near no famous fish market and some Roman ruins. It did have more mosquitoes than the Amazon and Kenya combined, though, a TV (with crappy channels that stopped working on the second day), and air conditioning (which was unnecessary). And no other tourists to be found. Hooray (can't you see the enthusiasm erupting?). It was especially exciting that this happened as soon as I arrived, considering the fact that when I had left Siracusa, I had passed by the bus station at 2:49pm to find out about bus times, found out there was a bus at 3pm, so I hustled back to the hostel, paid the bill, and made it back to the bus station with 2 minutes to spare. Needless to say, welcome to Catania.
When I got to Catania and all of this happened, I was simply exhausted, and since I knew the city wasn't seeping with activity (or at least I guessed as much), I decided to take a nap and that touring could wait. An hour later, I took to the streets. I visited the Piazza del Duomo and the Cattedrale di Sant'Agata to start off. And in the piazza, there is the Fontana dell'Elefante, the Elephant Fountain, a lava fountain which was made in 1736 by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini. When he constructed the elephant, however, apparently he had carved the elephant without visible testicles, an attribute that Catanian men perceived to be an attack on their virility, so they not so kindly requested that the situation be rectified (hahah). I couldn't see the changes.
Since I arrived to Catania on an Italian holiday (April 25 is Italian Liberation Day, as that is when fascism ended), that meant everything was closed. I was still able to walk the pedestrian streets and see where the stores were (even though they were closed) and see lots of people who were also in the streets. Thus, I feel that I am justified in my conclusion that lots of the people are not (ok, don't *seem like*) the kind of people you want to have a gelato with. I ended up trying another Sicilian staple called the arancino, basically fried rice balls filled with lots of things. Though they can be made with a variety of ingredients, mine had ragù (meat sauce), mozzarrella, and I'm not sure what else. It wasn't the lightest of snacks, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Later on, when I went back into exile, I found the lemons in my bag that I had gotten from the old guy in Siracusa. In a place where I knew nobody, where I actively tried to meet people (by staying in what's supposed to be a pretty good hostel), and the city is shut down for Italian holidays and the locals seem sketchy, what's a girl to do? I brought the lemons into the kitchen (yes, the new hostel actually had a kitchen) and physically made lemonade. And it was good!
When I woke up on a beautiful Saturday morning, I thought, ''Okay, it's a whole new day. I'm going to Mount Etna, so everything will be okay (because, just like you have to go through El Calafate to get to those darn glaciers, you really have to go through Catania to get to Etna).'' But of course, when it rains, it pours. We were 8 people on our 4x4 tour. At first it was fine. When we were going to pick up some of the people, there were two American girls who were studying abroad in Florence and had started studying Italian there a couple of months ago. There were also two Italians from Rome. And we were on our way to pick up a family of three who had come from Palermo. During this ride, it was amusing because I was translating from Italian to Italian, from the study abroad girls to the Romans and back, because they were using their limited vocabulary to communicate to the Romans, and the Romans were just drawing a blank on their English that day. Oh well, good practice for me! Then we picked up the family, the father of whom was molto annoying. He kept saying to the tourguide that he thought the tour would be a passeggiata (a leisurely stroll), because he wanted to show Etna to his young son (maybe 11 or so), and he and his wife are 50-somethings, so would there be lots of difficulty involved? And the tourguide said well, yeah -- medium difficulty. And it went back and forth (oh and by the way, since those people were last to be picked up, that guy got inside the jeep instead of in the back, thus forcing me to have the middle seat...this was not turning out to be a good morning) before we got out of the car for our first photo op, thus putting an end to the conversation (thank Dio). After a few quick photo op stops, we were going to start a one-and-a-half hour hike to go to Bove Valley, a valley that is supposed to give spectacular views (of course), but because it started to rain, our tourguide decided to reverse the two items on our itinerary. So, first, we went into this grotto, where it was pitch black and we were walking on lava for about 300m or so with low-level flashlights and low-level ceilings (and broken helmets). After we got out, the rain had stopped, so since there was a snack built into the excursion, we had a break for focaccia and juice box (yep, that's right -- I paid to go on a tour where a juice box was included, but no, I was not aware of the juicebox-ness beforehand...lucky for me, I had my trusty ''you never know'' snacks and water in my bag). And after the snack break (during which it was thundering), it was no longer raining. Turned out, the rain was just a gateway. It's not, when it rains, it pours. Rather, when it precipitates, it ''blizzards'' -- nope, not kidding. The snow was a combination of snow *and* hail, so we went back to the tourist center to reevaluate our plan (still on Etna). I went in and got a hot chocolate, which turned out to be a cup of chocolate which was, simply, heated to a temperature warmer than that of ''room.'' Honestly, it tasted like hot chocolate pudding (which isn't bad, but when it's snowing/hailing outside, and you see a sign for hot chocolate, you crave hot chocolate). When life hands you a cup of hot chocolate pudding....We ended up going on a 10-minute hike to see this other crater and never got to do the real hike. Bummer. We found out, too, that Etna had some actual activity two days earlier. Interesting. Snow on Etna in April, though, not so common. Guess we'll have to mount Etna another time.
Upon our arrival back in Catania, I decided to continue my tour of the city, since Sunday everything would be closed simply because it was Sunday. I started by going to the Roman Theater, where, having learned my lesson in Agrigento, when they asked me what I studied, I replied ''italiano...e storia dell'arte!'' Excited that I included art history in there, I took my 1€ discount (hey, a discount's a discount) and made my way inside the site, where I was greeted by a sign that said: ''Forbidden to take photos.'' First of all, no one is going to forbid me from taking photos for something that I paid to get in to see (unless it is a real museum or some performance or something extra special). Second, this place was outside -- no one is going to forbid me from taking photos of things that are *outside.* Third, rule of thumb: even when these signs exist, you always get at least one photo, because if they kick you out for taking a photo, at least you will have gotten one. Nevertheless, I took my photos, and I took them proudly. The Odeon (not the movie theater) was also located at this site, so I went up the steps at the Roman Theater and found my way there. Once I finished at these ruins (which were surprisingly in tact, except for the fact that a 1669 Mount Etna eruption left the marble of both of these theaters covered in lava), I walked to the Roman Amphitheater not very far away. This place had no entry fee (finally!), and it was even possible to walk through the tunnels that gladiators used to enter the arena. On my way to this site, I passed by this other no-name temple (well, it has a name, and it's Tempio di Sant'Euplio, but I wasn't looking for it), so really, I'm knocking things off my list that were never even there to begin with. Following my trip through a Roman time capsule, I walked along the pedestrian street, stopping for another Sicilian specialty. This time, it was a brioche. I know what you're thinking: that's not Sicilian, that's French. Oh, but wait. So, you know ice cream sandwiches? Peter (England, my friend in Palermo) and I were discussing this the other day. We concluded that this is a topic that must have gotten lost in translation. Perhaps Italians (sorry, Sicilians) understood it as ''sandwiches of ice cream'' (it would be panini di gelato, though I've never heard this term) and decided to bring the tradition to their own hometown. Well, they've certainly made it their own. What they do is, they take a brioche, cut it in half, and -- are you ready for this? Get a pen, and write this down, it gets complicated... -- put gelato in the middle. Yes, seriously. It really is a gelato...sandwich. It's not really that bad, either. I could do without the bread, though. Of course, then it would just be gelato. Anyway, now I know. When life hands you a gelato sandwich...
After my gelato sandwich, I went to the Castello Ursino, thinking that I haven't seen a castle in awhile, so why not fill the quota? But, it turned out that I tricked myself, because it happened to be a museum housed in a castle, and we all know (or we all know now) how much I lovvvvvvve museums. Fortunately, that, too, was free (for students and others alike). Later, I walked through the Pescheria, an old fish market where they now also sell fruit and hanging chickens (almost enough to turn a newfound meat-eater into a vegetarian). I bought blood oranges.
At night, I was talking to the guy who was working in the hostel, an Argentine trying to get Italian citizenship (his mother's Sicilian). In the course of our conversation, I found out that the one item I had left for Sunday morning, the Bellini Gardens, was closed for renovations. Go figure -- gardens that spread over 70,000 square meters and would thus give me something to do on a day where everything else was closed, were also closed. How do you like that? (I don't.) And then on Sunday morning, at breakfast, there were no plastic spoons left with which to make hot chocolate (not hot chocolate pudding), so I had to use a plastic fork instead (my idea, since the girl working at the hostel just relayed the information that, well, there were no spoons left). When life hands you a plastic fork...
After I took the bus to the airport, it was a little after lunchtime, so I found a café in the airport and got myself a sandwich and fresh squeezed orange juice (which, in Catania, is red, because they use blood oranges -- still equally delicious). However, because my luck was still flying high, there was no empty table at which to sit, so the guy behind the counter told me I could just stay at the counter and eat there. When I was finished, I said to him, ''There's no way I could sample that pastry there, is there?'' pointing to the almond pastry that had a per-unit price. For once, the gods were with me. When life hands you a free almond pastry...!
But, of course, with a trip that went the way this one did, you can't end on the almond pastry note, so when the extreeeeeeemely friendly ticket agent slapped me with a 109€ fee for excess baggage (damn the cheap airlines that have luggage limits of practically nothing), I was none too pleased. (By the way, 109€ would be about $170 at today's rate.) To make an unnecessarily long story significantly shorter, I got away with paying them 13€ (about $20).
Needless to say (but clearly I'll say it anyway), by the time it was time to go, I can't say I was disappointed that my time in Catania was over. I went, I saw, and that's that. And then it was time to get the cazzo out of there. There's only so much lemonade you can make in one weekend.
missy
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com
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