Carnevale

Yesterday we went to Carnevale in Aci Reale- the 2nd largest mardi gras festival in Italy, the most famous is Carnevale in Venice. It was crazy!! Everyone carries confetti and silly string and throw it in the faces of random strangers. Most of the adults will toss it at you and smile, but some of those damn kids with chuck handfuls of confetti right in your face! Most of the children are dressed in costumes, and some of the adults. Almost everyone wore masks or hats or something silly. The main attractions are the giant floats. Half are made of fresh flowers, and the others paper mache. They spend the night circling the main streets in a parade. Each float has it's own DJ and most have performers or dancers that perform on it or in front of it. We though the music was so funny- some Italian pop music, but a lot of American music!











The streets were lined with vendors selling toys, balloons, masks, and all kinds of food and sweets. We enjoyed some delicious Italian street meat sandwiches with crispelli- Italian fried dough with honey and pistachio's for desert.







Look at my facebook album to see all the pictures from the day: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2249079&id=11002081

Hey nice ride!

Dinner with the neighbors

Ciao everyone,

No pictures to post this time, but we should have lots to post after this weekend, we are headed to Carnevale ( the Italian celebration of Mardi Gras). We hear it is pretty awesome so hopefully we will have lots of pictures to post!

We've been laying pretty low the past 2 weeks, Gabe has been very busy at work with his annual 2 week inspection, but passed today with flying colors!

We attended a wine tasting night at a little wine store in our town a few weeks ago. It was advertised as 'Wine tasting with food complements". Turned out that not only did we taste each wine, we had a glasses topped off as much as we like! I was the driver that night and had to keep telling the heavy pour sommelier that I didn't want anymore! Gabe drank himself silly and it was all delicious! The food pairings, were brought in by the owners and some of their friends. Everyone had home-made a dish to pair with the wines. Everything was so tasty, I was stuffed by the time we left. Not bad for 10 euro!

Sunday our landlords invited us up for lunch. Always an experience. I've decided that they remind me of a sweeter Costanza couple. Both short, and almost look alike, and CONSTANTLY talking over one another. Giuseppe will speak to me a mile a minute, and when Lucia gets the sense that I'm getting lost, she will tell him NO no no Giuseppe, No capito!! And then she will begin to tell me the exact same thing at the exact same speed, adding in hand gestures to increase my understanding. I do think my Italian language class is helping, I'm starting to understand most of what they are telling us in context, and can even manage to get out a few sentences and ask a few questions myself. I learned that Lucia will not fly for longer than an hour and a half because she is afraid, so won't visit her friends in America. She sits like a mummy with her arms crossed over her chest rocking back and forth and her eyes rolled back in her head while she flies, I suppose in prayer? Not sure but it was quite a scene while she was explaining and her and Giuseppe both assumed the "airplane" position.

I asked them where they buy their olive oil, because I noticed their's was in an unmarked bottle. They told me they buy it in large quantities once a year from friends who own a farm, and then gave us a bottle!! It's so delicious, much better than store bought. This November we are going to buy a truckload too!

So things are still going well, I will post pictures of our weekend at Carnevale in a couple of days- Happy Valentines Day!

Ciao Ciao

Hey everyone! We have been busy doing lots of exploring the last few weeks. I have GPS unit from work we can use, so we have been driving all over the island with the assistance of our trusty Tom Tom named Bonnie. She's good. Two weeks ago we went to Gambino Winery. Its a vineyard all the way up the mountain. Beautiful views of the island and the ocean. All the grapes were gone because its winter, but we plan to go back in the spring when everything is in bloom. Wine tasting in Sicily is a very different experience than in the states. You sit down and are served one glass at a time, complemented by cheese, olives, bread, artichokes etc. It's a 2-3 hour event, not a 10 minute throw back. Definitely one of my favorite experiences so far on the island and a must do for any visitors!





Last weekend we booked a pet-friendly hotel in Palermo and spent Sat & Sun exploring the city. Palermo is the capital, and largest city in Sicily. We really loved it. Our hotel was walking distance to all the ancient sites to visit, and lots of modern shopping, restaurants and bars/pubs. The best sites were the ancient cathedral, open air markets, ancient fountain and the catacombs. If you're not familiar with the catacombs- go here; http://motomom.tripod.com/index-3.html ; it was the most surreal thing I have ever seen- real dead bodies within arms reach on display. The mystery is to why some are so well preserved and others aren't. Some of the 300 year old bodies still had skin and hair. The most bizarre is the 2 year old girl, who died in 1920 and looks like a sleeping doll. She is perfectly preserved. Its unreal. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures here, but definitely look at the website!








On Sunday we made a stop in the town of Cefalu, a famous beach town. It has a beautiful city center and cathedral as well. We all enjoyed a weekend at a hotel with lots of sightseeing fun. ( Sophie too)






All tuckered out from a busy weekend.


Recently I've started a 3 hr/week Italian language class and have been working on Rosetta stone. Slowly but surely its coming along! I just booked a trip home in April for some job training and Julie's bridal shower, and Gabe and I are coming to Boston together June 26-July 12th. The Salinas' will be meeting us in Boston too! So things are going great, we're still having an awesome experience and can't wait to come home for a visit!!

Christmas and New Years

Sophie enjoying her presents from her Grandparents.

Happy Holidays everyone! We've been having a really good time celebrating our first holiday season in Italy and first holiday as Mr & Mrs! Christmas Eve we went to the town of Caltigirone which is very famous for their ceramic pottery. If your pottery says "Caltigirone" on the bottom then you know its authentic! Here is the famous stair case with ceramics on each step and Gabe with Julietta.







For New Years Eve we found a really cool middle eastern restaurant in Catania that was having a special dinner. ( Leave it to the Americans to eat Middle Eastern food in Sicily) but it was delicious and really fun! At midnight the owners handed out a free bottle of champagne to each table, and all the other Italians in the place came over to our table to greet us and wish us "Buon ananni" at midnight.

Festival of Santa Lucia and Agrigento

Most of the month of December is celebrated as the Festival of Patron Saint Lucia in our town. Each town in Italy has their own Patron Saint and have a festival during the year. The festival goes on for a few weeks, with cannons and fireworks like I said last time. On the day of the Patron Saint, Dec 13th, everyone in the town and surrounding towns gather at the mother church to present the statue and have a procession through the town. We went to church and were then in a crowd of probably 5 or 6 thousand people watching as 30 or 40 people in white robes carried the statue out of the church and placed her onto a carriage ( think Cleopatra) and pulled her along the streets of the town from church to church for 24 hours. It was unreal. The christmas lights through the center of town are pretty awesome too- big arches of colored lights the entire length of the street.There have been street vendors every day with candy, italian christmas sweets which I can't remember the name of but are like fried dough with honey and sugar and crepes. Nativity scenes are a huge deal here, we went to a contest where you voted on the best one that people made by hand.











On Saturday we took one of the base tours to the city of Agrigento, on the southwest side of the island. It is famous for the ancient Greek Temples. They date all the way back to 463 B.C. and most are still in pretty good condition. It was a really cool trip.