Our new house!

Today we met our landlords- Lucia and Guiseppe, at the front gate of the base and had a translator prepare our lease for us. So I was well aware that most Italians will do the "double kiss" on the cheek when they greet you. I even knew that you're supposed to do left cheek first. But I panicked. I went right, Guiseppe went left, and BAM. Kiss on the lips. Awkward.

We signed the lease, everything went well, then our friend Rob followed them in his car for us to go to the gas company. Signed our name to some Italian contract which apparently last for 10 years. Es no problem. Afterwards the landlords invited us back to the house to check it out. Which obviously meant being invited to their apartment, having espresso and biscotti and some type of potato chips? Met their daughter and her twin 2 year old boys, Francesco and Dario. SO CUTE. Their daughter Leah is about my age and lives on the 3rd floor. She speaks a few more english words than Mama y Papa. We had our friends Rob, Kim and their baby Julietta with us for the visit, ended up leaving with the bag of chips, and some random toy that Lucia took from a crying Francesco and insisted that baby Julietta have. They are so hospitable and so sweet, we were able to translate "a chair is always open for you at our table". We are in FULL Italian immersion mode now- no turning back!! We move our loaner furniture ( ours won't be here until the 25th) and things in next thursday or Friday- I can't wait!!

Catania

On Wednesday our orientation took us on a bus trip to Catania. Its the major city ( 2nd largest in Sicily) about 10 miles north of us. The city itself sits on the water, so has a very large port and also beach areas ( very pretty) . We spent the day in the city center, in Italy always called the "Piazza Duomo". It is almost always found adjacent to the mother church and various statues, temples etc of the city's patron saint. In Catania, the symbol is the elephant. ( I have to find out why??) But we spent the afternoon exploring the churches ( beautiful), the cafe's ( yum) and the fish market ( stinky). They have the largest street market in Sicily here, full of fish, meat, vegetables, spices, fruits and anything else you can imagine. It's unbelievable- the sights, sounds, smells are out of this world. We plan on returning every Sat morning to buy fresh foods. Not for the weak stomach though- there were def. large animal heads and carcass' everywhere- live escargot and prawns crawling all around. Mangia! For lunch I had the best swordfish I have ever tasted- such a fun day!!

"Ottobrata" : Italian for honey and street meat.

Today we took a bus from base to the Ottobrata festival in Zafferana. It was so cool! It's a mountain town about an hour from us, and was one of the largest street festivals I've ever seen. Full of Italian street meat, pastries, wine and honey- the local specialty. I enjoyed some kind of traditional pasta dish and Gabe tried the traditional street meat. Horse. Yes, really. Horse meat. At first I was horrified, but honestly, looked good and tasted like steak. Mangia! We're struggling with the language but getting by with a lot of pointing and various hand gestures which Italians seem to relate to very well. We sat at a cafe with another couple outside for a cappuccino when an older woman gestured that she would like to sit because she was tired. We offered her a chair and she sat down with us. Through a lot of repetitions, hand gestures and our "Speedy Italian Pocket Guide" we realized she was born in 1926, is 83 years old, and would like us to get her a coffee, because obviously we should respect our elders. She was awesome. Bought her a coffee, spoke some more Italnglish then bussed it back to base.

House hunting- es no problem.

Thursday we went house hunting to a few different towns with an italian translator from the base. What a trip! The first few we went to were in the middle of the city of Motta, and didn't work for us with the dog. Of course any time we asked a question, the response was "Certo, es no problem". When to me, not having a patch of grass for 2 square miles was def. a problem! Each listing we saw before we went hunting said "one car spot, or one car garage", but when we told them we would have 2 cars and a motorcycle, each landlord told us "No problem, you can have my spot". It's wild- so different than the states. It came down to 3 houses we really liked.
1. 3 story/3 family farmhouse. We were greeted by 18 cats and 4 dogs, "Papa" and "Mama" ( as we were told to call them) . Had an unbelievable yard and garden with olive, lemon, and lime trees, blackberry bushes, tomatoes and various herbs. Papa peeled everyone a prickly pear fruit and showed us the house. Beautiful apartment, great view of Mt Etna, but on the 3rd floor. ( Not ideal for walking the dog every day)
2. Beautiful 2 family home all completely redone and modern. At first we were sold because it was so beautiful. There was an underground garage where the landlord kept his 4 jaguars, island beater and 2 motorcycles. Hmm Said landlord gave us a very strange feeling, and apparently owns multiple businesses in the little town. A little too Mafioso for us.
3. Another cute old Italian couple, they dressed up in a suit and dress to meet us at the door, put up balloons and streamers in the house to "welcome" us. This was the house we ultimately chose. Its a 3 family house, our apartment is on the ground floor, 2 bdcm 2 bath, with a back patio overlooking their garden. Really modern and beautiful, looks like they recently refurbished the property. Its in the town of Belpasso, its a pretty busy city which is nice because we can walk to local restraunts and cafes, it seems like our street is quiet enough that we won't be run down by any Fiats. We won't move in until 11/6 but will def. take pictures and post!!

I'm only here for the food...

The last couple of days have been spent in "indoc" , the military's orientation program for enlisted and spouses. We took a driving course, learned about the fitness center , WIC, and every other obscure social service on base. As part of the "intercultural relations" program we took a field trip today to the town of Motta Sant Anastasia. The town is crazy, the houses are stacked on top of each other, all the roads are cobblestones and about 5 feet wide! The deal was you went for a short tour of the town, saw Motta Castle, and were then treated to lunch. Obviously, we went for the food :) A little pizzeria which generally doesn't open for lunch opened up for our group and served us amazing carbs. Pizza, bruschetta, some kind of sicilian potato pie, sausage and a weird gelatin thing that we didn't eat. The food was great!! Here are some pics of Motta.

Umbrella girls, "baby feeesh" , vino rosso and jet lag.

So after our first weekend in Italy we have learned a lot of new things , had some fun and AMAZING food and wine. Friday night we went to eat at a local place near the base. Luckily for us most of the waitstaff spoke pretty good english. We ordered the "Sicilian seafood friday night special". Which essentially means enough food to choke 8 italians. We started with the appetizer course which was baked mussels, oysters and some mystery fish that looked like sardines. We asked the waiter what they were and he answered "Ahh, dooze are da baby feesh". The baby feesh were fantastic salty little guys that you could eat like french fries. After the appetizer we had linguini with clams, and then a grilled fish. An ENTIRE grilled fish, head, eye balls tail and all. A little freaky, but DELICIOUS. We ordered a liter of "vino rosso" and a bottle of water. The liter of wine was 3 euro. The liter of water was 3.50.













The next day we went to Gabe's friend's house. He lives in a villa out in town that is absolutely beautiful. His backyard is full of lemon and olive trees. His landlord lives next door and grows his own tomatoes, basil, oregano and wine. Yum. The view from his hose was absolutely beautiful.




We traveled all around the island yesterday. On the way we noticed girls ( always black girls) sitting on the side of the road in beach chairs with umbrellas all alone. Apparently these are the "umbrella girls". Legal prostitutes. Girls flown in from africa and under the control of the Sicilian mafiosa. Yikes.
In our travels we went to Mt Etna, an active volcano. We saw a house that was completely buried by lava and lava rocks everywhere. The top of the mountain is always smoking, and could apparently blow at any time.











We finished our day with a trip to a Sicilian mall- much like American only there is a grocery store next to the H & M. It's like food Nirvana. Bread, cheese meats, OH MY! And then had dinner at a local trattoria in Motta . Our friends are already in with the owners, who held their baby the ENTIRE time we at dinner. So cute.

Up until Saturday night we had been feeling great, no jetlag at all. Neither of could fall asleep Sat night until 3 am. Then we slept until 2pm today. Whoops. The best part is that Sophie was irritated when we woke her up at 2pm to go out for the first time.

First Day

Well we finally arrived yesterday afternoon around 4:00 Italy time. Sophie survived riding in cargo, although the person in charge said "that boston terrier was the only one who was really freaked out". Thats our girl! Checked into the Navy Lodge and have managed to eat Pizza and drink cappuccino within our first 12 hours. Have not explored anything outside of the base yet but we plan on going out to eat tonight out in town with Gabe's buddy and his wife. Will post pictures and updates soon!!!