All right, so its been a while my faithful blog-readers- I apologize for the lack of communication. In the last few months I've become a little to busy actually living my life abroad here, and have been finding (or creating, I guess) less and less time to write and digest/ reflect upon what I've been doing. Not all of my days here have been fantastic, (late November/ early December was a little rough for me to be honest), but nobody likes to read sad or frustrating blogs (perhaps I don't even have the courage to write such things), so maybe that explains some of my silence. However, right now I am enthusiastic and ready to share some of my recent experiences from my 3 week winter vacation from December 18th- January 11th. I spent Christmas in Sicily, New Years in Copenhagen, and the first week of January in Berlin!
The fun part about being a student traveling abroad is the whole traveling on a budget thing. And by fun, I mean frustrating and wonderful and hilarious :). This means often flying through budget airlines such as EasyJet and RyanAir, sometimes being a stow away on a train (on accident, I swear), frequently staying with/ mooching off of friends and family (or families of friends!), and getting creative about how to get meals, use public transportation, and succeed at sight seeing. This also means learning a certain degree of patience, grace, and how to smile when those “budget plans” don't exactly work out in your favor. See below.
Operation get to Balestrate, Sicily (Italy) from Clermont-Ferrand, France: 22 hours of travel
Operation get to Copenhagen, Denmark from Balestrate, Sicily: 16 hours of travel
Operation get to Berlin, Germany from Copenhagen, Denmark: 8 hours of travel
Operation get to Clermont-Ferrand, France from Copenhagen, Denmark: 13 hours of travel
Three week grand total: 59 hours of travel. If nothing had gone wrong or been delayed/ canceled, missed, or forgotten about... ideally this would have taken about one third less the time it actually took. Let's just say it feels nice to stay in one place for a while, and to be welcomed back into the apartment of my host family (not to mention my host mom's amazing home-cooked meals!) My next traveling adventures do not begin until Jan 31st, when I'll be traveling to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Alexandria in Scotland, as well as Lyon, France over the course of one week... (after which I will return to the U.S. on February 7th.) After which I will rest for one week before heading to Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada for 10 days of teaching at a circus camp with the Aerial Angels. After that, I'll be making trips to visit my brother and sister in NY and NC respectively. (All before the I move into my new FIRST apartment on March 25th and the Spring term at Kalamazoo resumes on March 29th!) Moving, moving, moving. And always looking for new inspiration!
Anyway, here begins my tellings of Christmas in Sicily: I stayed in the small summer-thriving town of Balestrate, west of Palermo by about a 30 minute drive, on the coast of the the Gulf of Castellamare with my friend Sal, his family, and another friend from K, Logan. Rundown of highlights include: making homemade pasta with a legitmate Italian grandma, making a “snow angel” on Christmas morning on the beach in the sand in 65 degree weather..., watching Sal's grandpa drink Jack Daniels like a pro (and dress up as a very convincing Santa for the kids), fresh oranges, tangerines, and clementines from Zio Giovanni's farm, fresh eggs from Zio Vito's farm (which were sold to the locals via the shutter window in Nonna and Nonno's house every morning), Palermo catacombs (creeeeepy!), meeting 7 OTHER members of Salvatore's family ALL named Salvatore (at one point we had collected 5 of them in the same room...), and intense days and nights of loud gambling card playing (Italian games including Scoba, Briscola, and Coocoo sure to get everyone appropriately riled up). Other surrounding cities visited (day trips): Palermo, Montreale, Eurice, and Segesta- all with amazing sites.
For those of you who know me, I don't eat fish. It's not that I'm allergic (although my mother is), I just never had much of a taste for it. Little did I know that Christmas with the Italians in Balestrate could also be renamed as FISHFOOD FEST 2009. Since the town is located right on the coast, you can imagine how amazing the seafood is in the region, so for special occasions they get out the good stuff. The good stuff consisted of (in a 2 day span) octopus salad, cooked octopus pasta, fried cod, shrimp with heads on them in pasta, muscles in pasta, and anchovy dough roll-ups. YUM. I politely ate the first two meals involving these fishtastic delights, slyly pawning some of my fish to my lucky American friends' plates, proceeded to get ill to my stomach, then fessed up, and was exempt from all future fish adventures. Phewph. Goodbye octopi.
The most wonderful part about being in Sicily for Christmas (aside from smiling while choking down squiggly slimy fish delights) was actually getting to stay with a family; a loud, hungry, busy without really being busy, family who kisses each other hard on the cheeks, makes foreigners feel strangely at home, and not only says whats on their mind at every moment, but nearly yells it. (Yes, that includes telling the foreign girl that she's too skinny and needs to eat more, and asking which of the young boys' fiancée she is.) Aside from all the chaos I encountered during my week in Balestrate, being in that kind of atmosphere was extremely helpful and invigorating, enough to get through any homesickness I might have been feeling during the holidays, and for that I am extremely grateful- thanks LoGrasso's!
Next edition includes: New year's in Copenhagen, and the following week in Berlin, updates on the yoga reimbursement “situation”, and final thoughts on Clermont-Ferrand (I leave in less than 3 weeks!)
Picasa phtos: http://picasaweb.google.com/colleenmcintee (sadly my camera lost battery once I got to Berlin, but I hope to soon be able to steal some pics from my friend Moe!) Check out the Sicily and Copenhagen albums!
Love,
Colleen
1 comment:
Colleen that was my Aunt you were making pasta with. Not sure if you know but her husband my Zio Salvatore passed away on Saturday. They are one of the heart loving people i have ever known.
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