Before I left you last time, I was getting ready for our fall break. I told you our plans previously, and let me just say, we had an absolutely, incredible time! We seriously lacked sleep most of the trip, spent too much money on food, drink, tourist attractions, and transportation, but it was one of the best weeks of my life. We went to the Van Gogh Museum, Photography museum, Heineken Brewery (which was one of the coolest things I’ve done in my life thus far), and even saw the Anne Frank House, all in Amsterdam. In Brussels, we ate Belgian waffles and Belgian chocolate and just explored the city on our own. After that, we traveled to Southern Germany in the Forresta Nera (Black Forest) and relaxed right in the middle of lakes and mountains and even got a few feet away from a bunch of ducks that thought we had food for them! We took a chairlift to the top of the Feldberg mountain, which is the highest peak in Germany aside from mountains in the Alps. It was covered with snow, yet it was hot since the sun was beaming down on us.
We boarded a night train after two days and traveled to Prague, another amazing city that I am so grateful to have visited. We saw the Prague Castle, St. Charles Bridge, explored the city on our own once again, and went to a five story club right on the water!! That was so much fun! Basically, Europe is awesome. Lastly, we flew from Prague to Milan. We ended up there for much longer than planned because we had to wait for the bus back to Siena. For some reason, we couldn't get on the 2:30 bus so we didn't leave until 4 (we'd been there since about 11am) and returned to Siena around 10pm. The next day was Halloween and of course, being Americas, we celebrated. We planned on going wine tasting, but it was a little more expensive than we thought and it was also raining cats and dogs out. We went to Conad instead and got a bunch of wines ourselves and had our own event. :)
And here begins the commentary on my weekend in Catania, Sicily. The people in southern Italy are great, first of all. They were very friendly, even to us tourists who wore shorts and tanktops in November (I mean, it was 75 degrees!). The first day we got there, we settled into the hotel and explored for a little before heading out to take a cooking class. We went to "Congusto" cooking school where the head chef taught us how to make a few typical Sicilian dishes. He told us about himself, a former lawyer, and spoke about the history of the food. He made a small pasta dish, a vegetable side dish with almonds and eggplant (amongst about a thousand other ingredients) and pistachio cake. They gave us free aprons, pencils, the recipes for the dishes made, tomato paste, some catalogues, and a bag to put everything in (perfect size for groceries!). After a long night, we caught up on some sleep and set out the next morning to meet with an anti-mafia group, Addio Pizzo.
Addio Pizzo is run by mostly young students, who advocate businesses not paying the "pizzo," the tax, if you will, that the mafia imposes on the majority of businesses in Catania. They publishe brochures with the names of businesses that stand up against the mafia and promote awareness to the public so that consumers can support businesses that are against the mafia. It was really interesting to listen to them talk about their organization because they were very passionate about their work, rightfully so. They even gave us free t-shirts. :) We had that night to ourselves and decided to go to a restaurant, Il Sale Art Cafe, which does not pay the pizzo. Each one of us ordered an entire pizza, which was about the size of a medium or large pizza. Speaking of food, Bronte, a town near to Catania, is famous for its pistachios, so of course we ate plenty of those while there. Some other typical Sicilian dishes are "arancini," basically a fried rice ball. Inside the arancini is rice, mixed with butter, spinach, or ragu, or sometimes other ingredients. I think I ate four or five of these in one weekend...I also had a couple of canolli. Everyone knows what canolli are, so I won't go into detail but in Sicily, they are authentic. And not to mention gigantic! We didn't realize it until we got to Catania that us silly Americans say the plural word "canolli" when we want a single "canollo!" And we say "canollis" when we mean plural. Che disastro!!
Our last full day in Catania was spent hiking through the woods and basalt rocks atop of Mt. Etna. How cool does that sound? First things first, Mount Etna is gorgeous. There was so much to see and we could have spent so much more time there. The geologist that guided us, Sandro, was extremely passionate about this volcano. He said at one point that all the homes he's lived in were facing Mt. Etna so he could always see it and check its activity from his windows at any time of day. That says something about the man. You could see a bunch of trees and plants there that are exclusive to the volcano, in addition to all the lava flows from past eruptions, its destruction caused, old wine houses, craters, and even a honey stand at the base. Small towns surrounding Catania are known for honey, so many people set up shop and sell small jars of homemade honey (with flavors of clover, strawberry, pistacchio, eucalyptus, and many others). It's delicious!
Anyway, time to go write my history paper. Ciao a tutti!
Melanie Bianco
CET Siena Student Correspondent, Fall 2010
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