Erin Miller

It doesn't snow in Sicily.

This Thursday it was snowing in Perugia (AGAIN) so we left and went to Sicily.
We got on the bus to the train station knowing only the time our train left for
Filigno, to go on to Rome, and then to Milazzo, a port town in the north of
Italy. Unfortunately Florence was getting 2 feet of snow (virtually unheard
of) so all the trains were late, and we got on our train in Perugia an hour
behind schedule. Luckily, they knew that everyone was going to Rome, and held
the train in Filigno. We got on the train in Filigno as it was pulling away. In
Rome, our train was delayed two hours due to the snow in the North so we went
to get dinner. We came back an hour later to learn that they had found a new
train and it was leaving, so we ran down to the tracks and just barely got on.
We arrived in Milazzo 14 hours after leaving Perugia.
Our destination was actually a small archipelago of off North Sicily. The
archipelago has several famous islands. Lipari, is the largest and most
developed. Vulcano is small, with a large ACTIVE volcano, a small village, and
hot springs in the ocean, and Stromboli is also the home of an active volcano,
which actually still has lava flowing from it that lights up the night. We had
to decide which island to go to, so we bought tickets to Vulcano. We boarded
the aliscarfi (boat with wings) with our hands full of corona, lemons (lemons
grow everywhere in Sicily so drinks are always paired with them, as opposed to
limes) and salt. One of the crew members, Guiseppe, was so impressed with our
provisions that he let us sit outside, on the back of the ship in "primo posto"
(first class). We were the only people allowed to sit outside, but we had to
duck so that the captain didn't see us. Guiseppe asked where we were going and
when he heard Vulcano, he said, "why go there, there is nothing there, go to
lipari for the night life" He would let us ride the extra distance for free, so
we agreed. As it turned out, his mom conveniently rented an apartment on the
island. We took a look at the place and got to stay in the apartment with 8
beds (there were 5 of us) 2 full kitchens and two bathrooms for 15 Euro a
night.

We were told to take a 30 minute walk to check out the famous Spiegga Bianca
(white beach). All of the volcanic islands have black sand beaches, and you
forget that most beaches actually have tan colored sand. We walked for an hour
(Italians always underestimate walking times) and finally came across a
completely deserted beach full of black sand with a few white rocks, with a
large sign that read Spiegga Bianca. A few of us headed back to the nearest
town to get snacks, drinks and a lighter, and the others gathered firewood. The
next two evenings were spent facciamo un bagno (swimming) off a deserted beach
in the Mediterranean and enjoying beverages around a fire. True freedom.

The second day we took a day trip to Vulcano intending to hike to the top of
the vulcano and swim in the aquacalda (hot water from the sulfer deposits in
the ocean). It rained all morning, and during the off-season they drain the
touristy pool that is filled with aquacalda during the summer, leaving only the
"aquacalda" ocean. We could see the steam rising from certain spots so we threw
our clothes on the beach and jumped in. Hot springs in an ocean don't work as
well as one might think. There were spots where we burnt our feet on the hot
rocks, but generally the ocean was only mildly warmer than usual. We quickly
put our layers of clothing back on. Mine still smell like sulfer.
After warming up in the only open bar on the island we hiked to the top of the
volcano. Looking into the crator of an active volcano is quite an experience,
but requires holding one's breath to avoid passing out from the gases that rise
from the center. They use to lead tours into the crater, but in the 70s it blew
again, and now there are some half-hearted Italian signs at the trail-head that
warn tourists to stay away from it.

The third day we rented scooters and a go-kart and toured Lipari looking for
the most amazing panoramas we could find, and there were plenty. The go-kart
was not much smaller than most of the European cars which passed us on the
mountain roads.
We returned to Perugia early Monday morning. And it has been sunny, if not
warm, the last couple of days. We anxiously await spring and the opening of the
home-made gelato store on corso venucci.

We had our Italian friends over for dinner last week. We made them a
five-course dinner in an attempt to repay them for the five-course, five hour
dinner they cooked us a few weeks ago. It took me a full week of wandering the
city to find all of the necessary ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. The
Italians loved them though. There aren't any cup measurers here(duh) so I just
sort of guessed, but when one of the Italians asked me for the recipe I said
that there was a problem because it used weird "parole americani"(american words.) He was convinced he could figure it out, so I copied the recipe for him
but when he looked at it he asked, "what's a cup?." Somehow, during dinner, we
Americans got on the topic of Smurfs. The Italians asked what we
were talking about so when we described them they said, "oh, si, i pufi. I pufi
sono communisti." When we asked for an explanation as to why the smurfs were
communists they explained that there was one leading older man, only one girl
and she dressed in red, none of them ever used money, their enemies were the
capitalists and they ate their babies. I'm not sure how this rumor got started,
but it sounds like the result of a fascist government to me. When we asked another Italian about the communist pufi he said, "well, yes, but not all communists eat their young, only some of them, and only during this one time..." So, there you have it, I pufi sono communisti.

We had an interesting conversation with Willy Wonka this week, the man who owns the candy store by our house. The store sells only candy and alcohol so we go for gummy bears and beer about once a week. He asked us why we were learning Italian, when we said it was fun he didn't understand. "so, you guys have how many states in the united states, 40 or 60?" We told him 50. "Well, you guys have 50 states and they all speak English. We have 25 states in the EU and we speak 23 languages." Turns out that he was very bitter that the EU was agreeing on 4 governing languages and Italian wouldn't be one of them. Even though it is the language "il piu bella". He claims that if the
EU is going to refuse to use Italian, it should at least use Latin because it
is the language that everyone learned in school, and the language "degli arte e
medicina". But alas, it looks like he will have to learn French, Spanish,
German or English.

Only other big event this week was going to a disco outside of town Saturday
night. We danced all night and took the bus back to Perugia at 5 in the
morning. I decided that we should stay up to watch the sunrise, so we wandered
around town and found some kids from Barcelona hanging out by the fountain.
They are studying in Perugia. My roommate asked what they had done that night
and one of the girls said that she had stayed in. Apparently, she had just come
out to dance and sing with her friends in the streets at 5:30 am. We got bored
waiting for the sun so we asked a garbage man, "Cuando arriva il sole?" he said
that we were crazy and still had an hour, so we should go home a take a nap. We went home to eat breakfast. When we went back outside a fog had settled on the city so we never even saw the sun come up, it just went from a dark cloud to a light one, but we did put in a good effort.