new year's eve

On New Year's Eve 2001 I was in Siracusa (Syracuse), Sicily, with my then-boyfriend M. I remember the next day the euro officially debuted. Sicily was not my favorite place but I would probably go back just for the food.


From the home page I kept at the time:

... A very ancient city indeed. In those days it [Siracusa] was generally limited to the island of Ortygia (which is only about 300 feet away from the mainland), and Ortygia is where we generally looked around, the rest of Siracusa being generally modern and uninteresting. One very odd highlight, if you can call it that, of the modern part is a very strange church built around a statue of the Madonna that was said to weep. Hence the building is supposed to resemble a tear. It’s just ugly, like a big evangelical church you’d see on the side of the highway in Kansas or something.

Ortygia itself is not that big. Almost all of the buildings date from after 1693, when there was a devastating earthquake. Giovanni Lanza took the opportunity to refit the entire city in the Baroque style, again not my favorite. But there were plenty of winding narrow streets, lovely decrepit buildings, and of course, great views of the Ionian sea. The first day there, while meandering through we stumbled on quite a good restaurant that wasn’t in any of our books, but we noticed a Slow Food sticker on the door, so we decided to go off the book for once. Mike had some really excellent shrimp, like nothing I’ve ever tasted. They were barely cooked and quite sweet. I had some sort of tiny fish fried that look like extremely small transparent squid or something. Everything was fresh fresh fresh needless to say.

That first day we also noticed a man selling raw sea urchins in one of the piazzas. You can just eat them raw right there. I really wish we had bought some then, but we weren’t in the mood—it was a bit early—and we thought we’d see him again. But we never did! I think sea urchins may be overfished around there—and he did have sort of a shifty look about him. We also had some great fruit juices—I had some good lemon juice and another day we got fresh squeezed orange juice, with blood oranges. Another day we stopped at an alimentari by the daily market and picked out some cheese and salami. Then we asked the guy about bread, and he gave us some really great stuff, spicy and with bits of olives in it. I wish I knew the name of it. One night we were too stuffed to eat a big dinner, so we just stopped at a panino hut, which seemed to be very popular. They had all types of sandwiches, including…horse meat! So of course M. had to get it. It was tasty—like beef only more so. But I just kept thinking of poor Mr. Ed.

We were in Siracusa for New Year’s Eve. For some reason I felt like we had to go to dinner, so we made a reservation at a nice place. Of course we ended up not being hungry at all, and we were facing a 7-course meal. It was not even that wonderful. At midnight they gave us a bottle of sparkling wine. I didn't really want to be inside the restaurant at midnight, but there was no way we could leave with the bottle without looking like jerks, so we stayed. Afterward we just walked around for a bit, watching drunk people and trying to avoid fireworks set off in the street. Then we went home and tried to ignore the huge patches of mold on the wall of our room. Happy 2002!

For me, I hope 2010 brings a lot more travel, to Italy and elsewhere! May the New Year be joyful and prosperous for you and yours.

Christmas in Italy

I spent one Christmas in Italy, the year I lived in Rome. The holiday is typically a little more spartan than Americans are used to--there are some lights, of course, but decorations are pretty low on glitz for the most part. There also aren't many Christmas trees--instead everyone pours their energy into presepi, or Nativity scenes. These can get pretty elaborate, with tableaux not only of the holy family but of village scenes, such as women drawing water from the well or even, I remember, a pizza baker, who shoveled a pizza in and out of an oven. Other versions take more artistic tacks--I saw one that was artfully created out of twisted and folded paper, origami-style.

Not that there isn't a festive atmosphere--people are out shopping, of course; the air smells of roasted chestnuts being sold in paper cones on the corner; and there's a Christmas market in Piazza Navona. I remember loading up on amazing profiteroles from a bakery in my neighborhood, having Christmas lunch at Agata e Romeo, listening to choral singers at Santa Maria Maggiore, and for some reason watching Pope JP's midnight mass on TV.

However, it's always nice to be with lots of friends and family at the holidays. I am currently hoping that the ice storm in Chicago today passes in time for me to make it to Boston tomorrow so I don't have to spend Christmas Eve alone and Christmas at O'Hare! Fingers crossed.

more tales of Italy

I thought I'd post a few entries now and then from my old home page from when I lived in Rome. A home page, kids, was kind of a proto-blog. The main difference is that I was writing for friends and family--there was no expectation that the general public would find or even be interested in the pages.

I've edited a bit here and there for readability and included some explanatory notes.

Some background: I arrived about a week before 9/11. (I'll have to write about the experience of being in a foreign country during a national crisis and not knowing a soul sometime.) To my eternal regret, I was faithful to my boyfriend at the time instead of availing myself of the many attractive Italian men around.

I read this and I am touched by how young and giddy I sound.

11/18/01
What a terrible correspondent I am. No updates, no pictures! Well, I can write something for you now, though I haven't taken any pictures lately. I should be able to rectify that soon, when my brother and Mike [the then-boyfriend] come to visit--I'll be more motivated.

What have I been doing lately? Well, mostly just pottering around, going to my Italian classes, and shopping for myself, under the guise of looking for Christmas presents. I do need to get some warmer clothes, so I have a vague excuse. It hasn't been too terribly cold yet—except for last night! I went out with Rachel and Roberto [a couple I got to know and am still friends with--Rachel is British, Roberto is Italian]. First we went to a pub that apparently is very popular with American students. It was OK, except that I felt really old, as usual!* Then we met some of their friends and went to a bar near Piazza Navona. It was about what you would expect—loud, crowded, lots of semi-drunk people. Not really my scene. But I haven't discovered the Roman equivalent of Simon's or the Hideout [two bars in Chicago I used to go to a lot] yet—if there even is such a thing. Roberto's friends were very appreciative of the waitresses in artfully cut outfits showing off lots of skin, so maybe that's why they put up with everything else. We did want to go to this wine bar, or enoteca, that I've been going to eat lunch at lately—it's very popular at night though, so we would have had to wait about an hour for a table. That would have been nicer, quieter, and we could have nibbled at food with some good wine. Next time maybe.

I did get a chance to speak some Italian to Roberto's friends, although when they talked amongst themselves it was once again apparent how much I have to learn. I could pick up words, and usually get the gist of what they were talking about. Roberto said "You speak Italian very well!," but I'm still very limited. On the way back to the car we walked through a nearly empty Piazza Navona. The piazza is a huge tourist thing, always filled with people, so you can imagine how striking it was. (Lisa [my American roommate] says that her boyfriend and his friends used to play soccer there at night when they were kids.) That's the secret of beating the crowds—just stay out til 3 in the morning! It was really lovely—we also passed the Pantheon, no one around, and incredibly, lots of stars visible. If Mike and I can stay up that late after gorging ourselves on dinner, we should walk around there. But it had become absolutely freezing! I don't have a proper winter coat, just a leather one, and anyway I didn't think I would need much of a jacket that night. But I was pulling my thin scarf over my nose as we walked back. I thought it would be really cold today, but it's not too bad. Actually now there's a thunderstorm, but I like storms.

Friday night I actually went to go see a play in Italian. It was called "Odio e nazisiti in Illinois," so you can imagine that I was intrigued by the title. In English that's "Hatred and nazis in Illinois." I thought there was a slight chance it might have something to do with IL and if so, it might make a good Our Town [a now-defunct section in the Chicago Reader] to talk to the writer. After reading the description I thought it even more unlikely, but I went anyway—I didn't have anything else to do. It was one of those "relationship comedies"—a really neurotic woman who rarely leaves her apartment gets a call from this basketball-loving, normal guy (he actually wore a Bulls jersey in the first act), who is supposedly a long-lost boyfriend. Then (I think) after a long time talking they actually figure out after talking for a long time that he called the wrong number, it's a huge mistake, ha ha! I did actually understand some of the jokes, but the guy especially talked so fast, it was just a blur of rolled r's.

Here's my wacky observation for the week: Italians talk to themselves a lot. You pass them on the street, in the store, mumble mumble, paranoia, are they talking about me? I think they just love to talk so much that keeping it inside their head doesn't come naturally.

Here's another thing I experienced: Desert Rain. No, it's not just a vaguely hippie-ish perfume oil you can buy at Whole Foods, it's an actual phenomenon! Last Sunday I was waiting for the bus in some slight rain and I noticed that my bag was covered in spots of dirt. And then my skirt and my boots, too. Apparently it's dust or dirt from the desert carried in the rain. Which desert? I have no idea. It made a mess though—all of the cars and the sidewalks were filthy. The sky that day was really weird too—if it was in Chicago I would say it was tornado weather—it was sort of orange, and warm outside too. Very odd.

Lisa just came to my door and said, "Are you journaling?" Argh! "Journal" is not a verb!*

*I was all of 31. I didn't know from feeling old.

**Still fighting the battle against this.

Sometimes, on a bright day, the skyline looks like a toy model that you could pluck from the ground.

A Day Without . . .

Today is No Berlusconi Day in Italy, a rally against the country's libidinous leader with all the legal troubles (I'm watching the Rome rally live on Rainews24). I wish we Americans had thought of doing this with Bush! Maybe this is something we could consider here in Chicago--a No Daley Day in protest of truly horrifying waste, corruption, and total disregard for the welfare and wishes of the majority of Chicago residents.