New week, New trip. We love Italy

This weekend we went on another trip with the base tour company. This trip was to the castle at Carini (which means pretty) up on the northern coast of Sicily past Palermo. You probably (oops, I meant you don't) need to know that except to know that we were on the coast.

However, concerning the castle........don't think we saw this beautiful castle filled with beautiful furnishings. First of all, everything here is made of stone and was pretty much bombed during several wars. Second, they just don't take care of their antiquities like other countries do. So we went to some big ole' falling down stone place where the only real claim to fame was that someone was killed there. Some baroness who was beheaded by her father for dirtying the family name by having an affair.

But then.....we went to the town of Sferracavallo (try saying that three times fast).

Part of the tour was to eat at a seafood restaurant that was popular with the area people. Oh, my, what a meal. It actually turned into a seafood marathon .... once they started bringing food .. it just never stopped ... plates of Octopus, fish, shrimp, muscles, oysters and little balls of fried fish, followed up with a seafood bruchetta ......... and this was just the appitizer portion. Next comes the Pasta regimine ... three different platters .. one with seafood, another a risotta .. and yet a 3rd, flavored with fennel ..... Had enough?? Hope not .. we haven't had our meal yet ... so, out come heaping platters of broiled and blackened fish, succulent lobsters and bright red whole shrimp ..... (did I mention this was ALL you could eat?? plus a little more??)

Dessert anyone?? (Groan)

After the meal we went out to walk around a little area where vendors were offering a variety of jewelry, scarves, hats, tools, belts, and .....shoes. Bob needed a new pair of tennies so browsed a bit. He found a pair he liked and a helpful young man found the right size (apparently he wears a size 42 shoe). At first glance the name and insignia looked like Nike but upon closer inspection they weren't Nikes but Yikes.....Yikes! The young man told Bob (in very broken English) that the shoes should cost a hundred and a thousand but for him they were only 15 Euro. It was a tough decision but for fifteen Euro they were a steal (maybe literally). Somewhere in Italy there is a truck minus a few pair of Yikes ... but, somehow, I don't think anyone really cares ..

Hey! Look at this neat place.

We were invited to our friends' house (the ones with the pizza oven) last Saturday evening. Joyce said, "Come about 3:30, and we can show you a great deli that we love."

So, we went, arriving at about 4:30 .... now remember the Italian 'repose' .. close at 1 .. re-open, sometime later -- usually about 4. Oops, they were closed but a nearby fruit stand was open -- so using our Best Italian, we asked when the deli would open .... and using Their best Italian, we were given the standard Sicilian answer "They are open, when they are open" ... that is a good expression to remember because it sums up the Sicilian attitude.

Anyway, it was a great deli and we spent quite awhile just looking then bought way too much. It's not a typical deli for Sicily but you can find them here and there. We're definitely going to have to go back.

In another vein, Bob and I are finding that we can understand more and more of what people are saying (if they speak VERY slowly and repeat several times).

No, really, this morning the truck was supposed to come to deliver our household gas. He called to say he couldn't find our place and I understood enough to know he couldn't find our place. I tried to explain it but my Italian doesn't include "Go up highway 192 from Sigonella toward Catania" let alone the rest of the directions. So we ran over to our neighbor yelling, "direzione per favore" and handed her the phone.

Good thing I didn't try to explain to him because it took her a full ten minutes in full steam Italian. Interestingly I had put the phone on speaker phone and we could hear both sides of the conversations. We understood enough to know he was thoroughly lost on the highway that doesn't even have an exit near our house. Mima enthusiastically (All Italians talk enthusiastically) explained several times to him how to get to our place. We were excited to understand destra (right) and sinestra (left) scattered in the conversation. Apparently she got the message across to him because he got there soon afterward.

We finally saw....

the Mediterannean Sea. Now you may think that's not a big thing but we had to travel across the island to get there. And you know what? It looks just like the Ionian and the Tyrranhian Seas. It's a beautiful blue, not like any other body of water we've seen. Maybe it looked prettier because we had set out on our own and actually found it.

Bob got an old map poster that we plan to frame and the name there is "Straits of Africa." Guess it can be called anything---the important thing is to find it. And we Did!! The photos here are of the Mediterannean and the beach we found.

The trip that day was to a town called "hideous" by the travel books. I don't know if that's a good word to describe it but Gela isn't the most beautiful city in Sicily. It looks as if a whole city were half built. Concrete buildings looking like skeletons with no glass in the windows, no paint, just not finished. Or...buildings finished with no paint, no gardens/yards, no beauty at all. In a the nearby town of Falconara we did find a nice restaurant with really good Minestrone soup.

That's where we found the Med, too.

On a personal note, I'm officially "excessed". That means my position is being cut out here at the naval base. They say I will most probably have a job next year but it's not known yet where we'll be. Wherever it is will be a new great adventure. Could be several places in Europe or the Pacific. We'll have to wait until March (I think) to find out where our new assignment will be. Then we'll make a decision whether to stay with this for another year or come home.

quiet

All the Fletcher-related family blogs have been pretty quiet this past week. Bob's mom is very ill and most correspondence has been to find out the news. Jae drove to Joplin to see Grandma for a bit and then traveled to Kansas City to see Ken and Lynette before heading back to Grand Rapids.

Bob and I are stewing here in Italy wishing we could be there.

In other news, we gave away another puppy. Now we're down to two. Marianne sat in front of the Commissary ALL DAY on Saturday with a sign and a puppy. Many people were very interested but finally late afternoon a nice young couple took her home. It may be worth sitting there another Saturday.

We didn't go to Milan because the trip was cancelled--not enough people signed up. However, we did do some exploring on our own. Nice weekend. We'll write about that and attach pictures soon.

This says Titolo....I'm guessing it means Title

I don't know how but my blog site or computer has discovered we're in Italy and now all the instructions are in Italian. I can read a word here or there and recall where to find the necessary icons to add pictures but don't expect anything fancy----(did you ever?).

We got back safely after a very long flight. No sleeping on the plane but we were so tired that most of our seven hour layover in Milan was spent in their recliner-type chairs "stackin'-the-z s". Biz made it pretty well. He did well with the bathroom thing but the ladies in the restroom in Milan thought it strange that I was in there with a dog and a potty pad. American Airlines wouldn't let us take him out of the carrier on the flight to Chicago but Alitalia airlines personnel didn't seem to care.

The puppies were well taken care of while we were gone but I'm afraid they've grown so much they don't seem like puppies anymore. It's going to be harder to give them away.

We awoke this morning to a beautiful Sicilian sunrise that almost made us think of staying here forever. But then I tried to call Jae and woke her up because of the time difference and immediately wished I were back in the states where the time is relatively the same.

Lynnette........Dreamgirls is playing at our theater so I'm going on Tuesday evening. Pursuit of Happyness and Night at the Museum are also playing. Good week for movies.

Off to America

Christmas in Michigan. I ordered snow but I don't think I would have enjoyed it so much with visions of tropical Sicily still in my head. The idea of snow was what I wanted---not the cold and slush of real snow. We had much too short a visit with the girls. Wonderful Christmas morning. My favorite part of Christmas morning was seeing that Madyline loved her necklace as much as we loved giving it to her. And...watching Jae open her box of many Italian food goodies. My second favorite thing was seeing how hard Tracy and Bill's kids had worked to make wonderful gifts for each other. (for an example link to Tracy's blog at the bottom left on this blog).



All the grandchildren have grown so much it's hard to realize we've only been gone three months. Madyline, especially has seemed to mature a great deal. She's becoming such a beautiful young woman. Harrison is still full of wonderful stories and we love to hear each one.






I wish I could include a video of Grant opening his gifts. He has perfected the "tear and toss" method.




The plane flight to Missouri seemed like child's play after the trip across the seas. Sophia is growing and smiling so much. What a joy to watch her play. Ken and Lynette are blessed.









Joplin was a mixed blessing. Bob and I both came down with something. Bob's started in Michigan and he just couldn't shake it--took what seemed like boxes of medicine. I had the 24 hour (almost to the minute) bug and spent one night at Mike's crawling between the bathroom and my bed. We were both afraid to visit Bob's mom in the nursing home for fear of passing our germs on to her.








Other than that we had a great time in Joplin. When we got into town we stopped by Sam's to see if we could find a party platter for New Year's Eve. As we went through the fruit area, I happened to notice they had blueberries at a reasonable price so I got some for the kids.




We called as we left Sam's to tell Mike we had stopped and would be there in a few minutes. He said, "Did you get blueberries?" "Yeah, how did you know?" He said that Micha had just said Grandma and Grandpa were late so they must have stopped at Sam's to get blueberries. Mike told her not to be disappointed if we didn't bring blueberries but Micha said, "No, Grandma always brings me blueberries." Phew!!! ...I almost picked up the strawberries instead.









Only a couple of days left in the States before heading back to Sicily. Can't say there's anything I have missed in the States except my family and friends. On TV there is a new show called "GREASE--You're the one that I want" and "Armed and Famous." Nothing on to miss there. The news programs here keep telling us how much the United States is hated and all about the bad things happening. I think I prefer our house in Sicily with no television. Just give me a nice cocoon to live in.