Mount Etna

On Sunday there were nine of us that took a little trip to see the mountain. It was a beautiful fall day, so we lucked out. It’s been raining like crazy here, the day will start out nice and then in the afternoon it will pour until it gets dark. At least it’s exciting rain, sometimes we get some pretty wicked thunder and lighting.

Etna is still an active volcano, in fact, when I first arrived in Catania, it was erupting like crazy. From my balcony you could actually see the lava as it spewed out the top and oozed down the side.

In the winter it snows on Etna, so I knew that if I was going to see it up close I should go soon. It was pretty darn cold and windy when we arrived near the top. It reminded me of my trip to the volcano in Hawaii, only waayyy colder.

We went a little ways down and had lunch in the forest. I was surprised to see pine trees on Sicily. Combined with the cold weather I thought I was back in Oregon for a second. When we were heading back to our cars we saw the park ranger feeding a small wild animal. I am not really sure what it was, it looked like a fox, and it was beautiful to see up close and live. Normally I only see wild animals in museums or on TV.



This was my first weekend in Catania for almost a month. I was able to sleep in for the first time on Saturday since September. Next weekend I am going to Rome, then I am going to start planning some trips for November, hopefully leave the country soon!

Ahh, later that night I looked outside my window. Miss Etna is erupting again, it’s sooo cool lookin’. If you get a chance, try to find a good webcam of Etna, preferably at night. Nate told me the one linked to my site is not working.

Venezia

Ahhh, bella Venezia!!



I took an early morning flight from Catania to Venice on the 14th of October. You would be amazed how many people are at the airport at 6 AM. I also find their system of organized chaos intriguing. They don’t really line up in Italy, it’s more like get as close as you can to the corral and maybe you will get in. If you don’t cut in front of someone then someone will cut in front of you. You also don’t enter the plane from the terminal, you have to take a shuttle out to the plane.

So I arrived at the Venice airport which looked like a luxury hotel compared to Catania’s. Unfortunately I left all my information about the weekend at home so I had to try to remember which bus to take to reach the meeting point for all the other Aiesecers. This was a planned weekend for anyone interested in seeing the sites of Venice, organized by the Aiesec LC in Venezia. After about an hour and a half of being on the wrong buses I finally met up with everyone. Well at least I thought it was everyone. Apparently others were coming in a bit later than the scheduled 11am meeting time. So we checked into our hostel just outside of Venice, dropped off our things and headed into the city.



We walked around the city all day, it was beautiful. I can’t imagine trying to navigate the streets by myself though. The “streets” are tiny winding alleys that barely 2 people can fit through, then they open up into a piazza here and there. I loved all the canals and the gondolas. I heard that to take a gondola ride it would set you back 70 Euros. Yikes! I also heard that they don’t do singing anymore because the neighbors complained about it, but later in the night I did hear one.

We ended up at St. Mark’s Square. It was gorgeous, there were tons of people and tons of pigeons there. People would feed the pigeons and let them crawl all over them. Gross! My friend Nema (from Canada) was sitting on some steps and got pooped on. It was awesome, we took pictures. We went inside the Basilica and up into the Tower where you could take incredible panoramas of the city.



Later that night we went to dinner at a place called Ae Oche. I turned to my friend Dhiren and said Ae Oche? And he replied, yes I’m fine, are you OK? Dinner was great, I had lasagna and some chicken and veggies, accompanied by some white wine. I slept like a baby that night.

The next day we headed out to Treviso, a small community outside of Venice. There was a wine festival that day. I ‘sampled’ ( I use the quotes because they filled your glass) many different local wines. All were awesome. Unfortunately I lost the paper that had all the names of the wineries. At the end of the day it’s not the wine that is important to remember, it’s who you shared the day with, who you danced with in the streets, who you met, and who you bonded with that matters.

Monday, October 9th

I normally wouldn’t write about an arbitrary Monday but I had to tell what happened. I took my train like normal on my way to work. We were about 20 minutes into the train ride when we passed a road then stopped suddenly. One of the ticket checkers put her head out the window and gasped. Then the other passengers started asking, “what happened? What happened?” Then the other ticket checker started yelling. Apparently we hit a pedestrian. At first I thought it was a young child, but eventually found out that it was a 73 year old man. I could see people looking under the train with this look on their face…. I decided for my own well being that I was not going to look, it was upsetting enough. But not as upsetting as listening to the wails of the man’s wife just outside the train. The ambulance and police came and moved the train to find the body. We sat there for about an hour before they let us out to find alternate transportation. I was in a weird mood all day because of it, even though I didn’t actually see anything. But explaining to your boss that you are late because your train ran over someone is a unique experience.

Napoli

I attended an AIESEC national conference in Napoli on October 6-8. It was hectic getting there for sure. We (Carla and I) were going to take the bus to Messina and meet Roberto, but that day was a strike for some buses. So we had to take the train. Messina is the city that you take the ferry to the mainland of Italy. Roberto lives there but attends school in Catania a couple times a week. So we caught our train, met Roberto, got on the ferry, then got on our train to Napoli at about 9:30 PM. Our expected arrival time in Napoli was 4:30 AM. Our assigned seats were in a cabin with 3 others so it was full. Wanting to sleep comfortably, we searched for an empty cabin. After 2 tries we finally found one that no one was using and were able to recline all 6 chairs to make one huge bed and tried to sleep as much as possible during the night. It was still uncomfortable but we managed.

I had heard terrible things about Napoli. Every single person I talked to told me to be careful and to keep an eye on all of my bags and pockets. We arrived in the Napoli train station just before 5 AM. The streets were fairly deserted but I still felt uncomfortable. In the train station there police everywhere, but it still didn’t feel safe. I could see people walking or standing around in the station for no reason. They would all watch you as you came off the train. Even Roberto kept one hand in his pocket while we walked through. We found our bus to get to where the conference was being held and made it there safe and sound.

I slept for about 2 hours in a real bed then got up for breakfast. Apparently the night before some people didn’t go to bed until 5:30 AM. You could see it in their eyes when they showed up for breakfast. Then I spent the first half of the day in leadership sessions, which was all spoken in Italian and I didn’t understand all of it so I don’t think I got much from it. The second half of the day I met about 7 other AIESEC interns: Nema and another guy who I can’t remember his name right now (Canada), John (Brussels, Belgium), Darren (London, England), Marco (Porto, Portugal), Katryn (Bremen, Germany), and Peter (Ostrava, Czech Republic). I tried to see if Peter knew Tereza but he said he recently joined AIESEC so he didn’t know her. We all talked about our experiences so far and our culture shock. They were all very fun.

That night we had a global village where every country or AIESEC LC brought food, drinks and other items from their countries. It was one big party with music and dancing, great times. I brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Oreo cookies, Nutter Butters, and maps and postcards from the US and Oregon. Italians don’t really know what peanut butter is, let alone a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. A lot of people liked it, and how could you not? It’s sooo good. I loved all the different cheeses and meats there were. And I got to try cherry beer from Belgium which is awesome!

The next day after breakfast we had roll call, then a small short session, then packed up and left. I got home around 11PM Sunday night.

Got made in Palermo...

Got Made in Palermo

I spent the weekend in Palermo with Carla. We were able to find a great hotel in the middle of the action. I am not exactly sure what I was expecting from Palermo. The city itself has over 1 million inhabitants, and comparing that to Catania which only has 350,000 inhabitants, I was a little scared.

After the hotel and getting something to eat, Carla and I found ourselves walking through the gardens of the Chiesa di San Giovanni degli Eremiti. Unfortunately half the place was closed for renovation, but I did get to see some cute kitty cats lounging in the plants. Then we headed to the Catacombi museum. They have hundreds of preserved bodies there hanging from the walls and resting in coffins. It was really kind of creepy. Some of the bodies were very well preserved and you could still see what they looked like, even still having facial hair. Unfortunately they prohibited photography so I couldn’t take any photos. Getting to the catacombs was interesting too. The streets of Palermo can be difficult to navigate and my map only had the central portion on it. So I finally decided to ask a nun where to find them. I figure if you can’t trust a nun….She started to tell us where to go then decided to walk us there. She was 80 years old and was practically sprinting up the street, it was difficult to keep up.

We headed back to the city and stopped at a beautiful cathedral. The churches in Italy are so big, and I haven’t even been to Rome yet. Then we stopped by the Teatro Massimo, and the English Gardens. On the way there, at about 4pm, we noticed there was an extraordinary amount of people out on the streets. We stopped in this one piazza because there were scooters upon scooters lined up on each side and people everywhere, just hangin’ out.

That night we headed out to dinner and then hit up I Candelai, the part of town that has all the bars and clubs. Unfortunately the one good dance club they have was closed because it got busted for something the previous Thursday. I was so exhausted from walking all day anyways that all I wanted to do was sit and have a drink. So we did, and it was fun. But on the way back to the hotel at 2 in the morning we were approached by numerous men, old and young. They were very aggressive in Palermo, not so much during the day, but in the evening and at night. Carla took the brunt of it because she speaks fluent Italian. I on the other hand just pretend like I don’t know what they’re saying. We were VERY happy to get back to our hotel.

Then the next day after an awesome included breakfast, we went to Mondello Beach just outside of town. The beach was very busy but it was nice to relax and not have to walk around so much. We met a really nice guy from Westham, England who had decided to fly to Palermo to watch the Palermo vs Westham soccer match. Then we got back on the bus and came back to Catania. Strange as it sounds, it felt good to return “home”.

Siracusa

On September 21st I took the train to Siracusa, a quaint little town about an hour and a half south of Catania. It was my first time on the train, and I enjoyed it. I sat with 2 older couples from Switzerland; Bern exactly. They were very nice although I couldn’t understand a word they were saying so they could’ve been plotting how to distract me and steal my bag for all I know. They were speaking German, which at first I couldn’t figure out if it was in fact German because it almost sounded Swedish or Dutch to me (as if I know what that sounds like other than the Swedish chef from the Muppets!). Later that night when I got home I told Carla this and she said that Swiss German sounds very funky, so that is why I couldn’t recognize it.


Siracusa was gorgeous, but not as cute as Taormina. My first stop was the Archeological Park where they had the Greek Theater, the Roman amphitheater, and the Ear of Dionysius. All very cool. The Greek Theater was huge, I guess it could hold 15,000 spectators in its day and it looks out over the ocean. The Ear of Dionysius is this cave that looks like an ear from outside. You go inside and the cave is gigantic and dark. Then you yell or whistle or whatever you want and listen to the echo.

After that I walked the length of Siracusa to the other side of town that has the Temple of Apollo in the middle of its piazza. That was pretty cool. What I like about a lot of these sites is that they are out in the open, and anyone walking by can observe it. I had myself a gelato and people watched.

Holy Spandex!!

I joined a gym recently to work off all the pasta and cornetti con crema cioccolato I have been eating. It has 3 floors: the first is the reception and classes, the second is cardio and weights, and the third has the locker rooms and a spinning classroom. At first I was a little turned off by the place because all the equipment was very close together and it didn’t smell the best. Not to mention it felt like a sauna in there. Then I went to about 2 or 3 other gyms to see what they looked like, and the first one was definitely the best. It makes me appreciate 24 Hour Fitness soooo much more. Luckily my gym is around the corner from my apartment so it only takes 5 minutes to walk there.

But anyways, I would take pictures but it’s a gym so I can’t. I don’t know why but Italian men wear more spandex than Italian women I am sure of it. It must be something about showing off what you got that they like because even their jeans or dress pants are tight. And if you go to the beach…well, you get the point. It doesn’t matter how old they are (or how hairy) either because I have seen one too many older gentlemen at the beach in their skimpies. Yeee—uck! Auntie Shaula and were lucky enough to witness an older gentlemen changing from one speedo to another on the beach in Taormina. We didn’t need a picture to remember it.