Trip 2
I didn't get to do as much as I had planned. I had hoped to accomplish some genealogy research on this trip, but as you read, you'll see it just didn't happen. We did have a great vacation though!
Saturday,
March 16, 2002 - OK,
here we go again, SICILY! Amazingly
enough, the weeks finally passed and it was time to leave for Sicily! We left bright and early Saturday morning.
I brought Gabriela and Jason again of course, but this time for my
helper, I brought Zach. Ryan would rather die than return to Sicily.
The whole trip there went very smoothly and I was feeling really good
about the trip. I guess that was
the problem, I was feeling too confident. Any
of you out there that know me and know la famiglia Scott, know that things just
DON’T go smoothly for us!! While
standing in line for the Avis rental car, feeling happy, content, confident,
practicing what to say in Italian to get my rental car . . . .
I started thinking of the last time I was in the line, feeling much more
nervous, then my mind wandered more . . . I had a flashback of standing there
last time, looking at my “Wrigley Field Cub’s” Visa Card . . . OH NO . . .
. the CREDIT CARD!!!!!!!!!!! I
purposely left my credit cards home because I just used cash on the last trip,
except, I had forgotten, the first day for the car rental.
Well, at this point, I didn’t even try to speak Italian, I recognized
the sales clerk and hoped he’d recognize me.
He called the main office and it was a no-go.
I had the credit card number with me in my notebook from my last trip, I
was hoping it was in their computer from the last rental, we even tried leaving
a 600 € deposit, he just said sorry. In
Italy, point-blank, you just need a credit card to get a car rental.
Now what . . . sleep in the airport for 6 days???
Our hotel was a good 45 – 60 minute ride from the airport.
By now it was 8 pm and dark. I
knew there weren’t any trains that go to Bolognetta where the hotel was
anyway. I had the salesclerk call
my distant cousin who lived in Cefalà Diana to see if he could at least take me
to the hotel, then I’d sort out what to do for tomorrow.
He came to get us . . . HOW EMBARRASSING!!!
I hadn’t even told him I was coming because he did so much for us last
time, I was scared he’d feel obligated to show us around again.
I was just going to call him while we were down there and stop in to say
hi. Well, we just dropped out of
nowhere and called him alright, but that wasn’t really how I had intended on
doing it. He is a super nice guy
though and took us to the hotel with a smile.
He suggested getting a hotel in Palermo where I could at least do some
sightseeing by foot, but the thought of staying in downtown Palermo kind of
scared me! He took us to our hotel
and said he’d be back tomorrow night and take us out for Sicilian pizza.
Now the difficult part, calling my husband to let him know what happened. As most of you know, he likes Sicily about as much as Ryan. He said he’d go to the local Avis office in Germany and see if he could “prepay” on the spot there. I still don’t see why that would be a problem, everything is computerized, but it wasn’t possible. He tried Hertz, and every other car rental. Nothing! The other option was to get my tickets changed and just come home early. Sitting in a hotel for 6 days with Gabriela and Jason just didn’t appeal to me. There was nothing close to the hotel to do, it would be a LONG walk down a major traffic road to get to Bolgonetta. I guess paying the 70€ fee per person was the only option and go home. Finally about 10:30 pm, it was lights out and hopefully, we’d wake up to a brighter day!
Sunday, March 17th - Well, Jeff called back telling me my airplane tickets weren’t refundable OR changeable (even though when I bought them they told me they could be changed). I was going to have to pay about $2,000 for a one way trip home! After chasing the kids around the hotel room and the grounds of the hotel for 2 hours, going home was looking good at any cost. He made reservations through our military travel agent emergency line, and told me to try to set up a ride to Palermo. The hotel found someone to drive us there, but luckily before we left for the airport, Jeff called back to let me know that he couldn’t pay for the reservations. Since it was Sunday, the Alitalia sales were closed!!! I decided at that point to ask the hotel if they knew of a safe hotel in Palermo, then I’d at least be closer to the airport to catch a flight out Monday. As we loaded up the car, Gabriela broke out into hysterics . . . “no, we can’t leave, you said we’d be here 6 days, My Sicily, my Sicily, we can’t leave, our 6 days isn’t done.” Everyone was asking me what was wrong with her, I told them she wanted to stay! Anyway, the guy from the hotel took us downtown. My heart started sinking as we drove down there. On a Sunday afternoon, things are pretty dead, not many people. It looked like an inner city ghetto. A few scraggly people walking around, it looked like no stores were there (the have the big metal garage-type doors that come down over the shop windows like in the big cities . . . which were all covered with graffiti.) We pulled up to the Hotel Moderno on Via Roma in the old section of Palermo. We got out and were “beeped” in. in the lobby, there was a nasty old green caged in elevator that looked as old as dirt. I was wanting to cry now!! At first the guy at the desk said there were no rooms, but the guy I was with talked him into a room. I was surprised, the room was really nice, even bigger than the other one. There was a TV with remote control, so Zach was happy. It was 20€ more a night, but that was still a decent price, I was getting a special deal at the other hotel. (For those of you that don’t know . . . the € or Euro has replaced Lira and most other currency in the European Community . . . for Americans, it makes shopping easier . . . $1.00 U.S. is equivalent to about 1.11€, almost the same. I do feel sorry for the Italians though, they still have things listed in both Lira and € and the storekeepers convert it with a calculator. It is a difficult change for them, the exchange rate is about 2,000 Lira to 1€). Anyway, at the new hotel, it was now about 3 in the afternoon and I was trapped in a hotel room for the rest of the night with the kids. I was scared to venture out for a restaurant (the hotel didn’t have one). I hadn’t been able to get a hold of Giovanni by phone, so I had told the hotel to please let him know where we were when he came to get us for pizza at 5. It got to be later and later and I figured he either didn’t want to come, or the hotel hadn’t told him . . . so we just ate our Cheerios and bottled water and I ate some candy, and luckily the kids fell asleep by 7 and 8 pm. How depressing! Maybe I’d wake up tomorrow and things would be brighter!! This just couldn’t be happening!
Monday,
March 18th
- Well, the next morning, we
looked out the window, the sun was shining, the streets were actually alive with
people, not just scraggly people, but woman walking alone and kids, the
graffiti-covered garage doors were now raised and there were actual shops all
down the street we were on, so we figured we’d at least venture out and try to
find something to eat while Jeff was working on making new plane reservations
for us.
We
were out for a few hours, got some fresh food, fresh air, and fresh ideas! We walked down to see the ferry boats, we went in some nice
shops, we had freshly squeezed lemonade. The
sun was just so invigorating after all the rainy, cold weather we were used to
in Germany. If I had to just walk
this street for the next week, I guessed it wouldn’t be so bad after all!
We went back to the hotel with renewed hope and called Jeff to tell him
I’d stick it out rather than pay the extra $2,000 to go home early.
I was kind of scared to tell him that because he had spent hours and I
mean HOURS on the phone trying to get us the heck out of there! Luckily he wasn’t mad.
The stores in Italy close up for a few hours during lunch time and
don’t open back up until 4, so lucky for us, Jason actually took a nap and we
just relaxed and watched TV. Amazingly
enough, kids (with the exception of Jason of course) will watch anything,
whether it is in a language they understand or not!
We
ventured back out at 4 and did more looking around.
There was a nice open market right down the road.
There were a lot of families out now, women with little kids, so I
actually felt pretty safe. With my
dark hair, we seemed to blend in well enough, I even had somebody stop and ask
me directions, they had assumed I was a local until I talked!
The train station was down the road, so we walked down to check out
prices and times of places to go. We
had decided to go to Agrigento tomorrow, which was a 2 hour train trip.
It was just under 20€ round trip (Zach was half price, Gabriela and
Jason are free). We arrived back at
the hotel just at dark. The kids
were exhausted from all the walking and fell asleep right away.
The trip wasn’t so bad after all!
I laid in bed and looked over my Sicily tour guide books that I brought
along. It just killed me that I was
so close to Cefalà Diana and couldn’t go!!
We had also wanted to go to Mt. Etna, but that was about 4 hours by train
each way, and just wasn’t an option! I
was done complaining though, things were looking up and at least we were eating
more than Cheerios and doing more than chasing Jason in and out of the bathroom
and watching him flip the lights on and off!
Tuesday, March 19th - We left early for the train station for Agrigento. The train trip was nice. Half of the trip was along the coastline east, then you cut down through the center of the island. The big difference in scenery was how green everything was now. There were still a lot of rocky areas, but all the brown, scrubby looking stuff and plowed under fields we saw in November, were now all green. We saw fields of artichokes growing and yellow and orange dotted the countryside from all the lemon and orange trees. The kids were actually pretty good on the ride there. We took the local bus to the Valley of the Temples. The first section we looked at, looked like a pile of rocks. Gabriela shouted “what, we’re going to look at this, I don’t want to look at an old pile of rocks!” It was so funny! We walked and walked. By now, Jason had fallen asleep in the backpack. My back was killing me! He took a 2 hour nap and we walked around that whole time! The ruins there are really nice. You can see the sea from the hilltops, too. The weather, again, was sunny and beautiful. The trip was nice and went very smoothly, we got back to Palermo just at dark and went back to the hotel. Jason looked a little silly, one side of his face was a bit sunburned because of the way he had fallen asleep in my backpack! Once again, the kids fell asleep right away and I had a bit of time to relax and watch a little TV.
Wednesday, March 20th - Today we had decided to go to Cefalù. It was only an hour away by train. We had driven through it on my last trip and it looked like a nice town. It was much cleaner than Palermo, but we noticed the prices in the shop windows were a lot more expensive that Palermo. We walked down the beach. The beach was still dead this time of year. We walked along the beach for probably over an hour. All 3 of the kids had the best time looking for sea shells. We didn’t find any spectacular shells, but did come home with a little bag full of them. We found great little place to eat, they had some tubular looking pasta with eggplant in it. It was sooooo good. Zach had some pizza. There really wasn’t that much more to do there, so we decided to go back. We had planned on taking a bus over to their Cathedral to look around, but it seemed like a lot of effort! Of course, we did stop for some gelato (Italian ice cream) which we ate at least once a day, usually more!! Zach got brave and tried it on bread. We noticed a lot of locals eat their gelato in some kind of bread roll instead of a cone. He said it was good, but I think I'll stick with a cone! Jason fell asleep on the walk back to the train station and slept the whole way back on the train. We got back to the hotel and still had some time to kill until the shops were open again. Jason was a real pain getting into everything. . . we went back out before the shops opened. We were within walking distance to the “four corners” and the cathedral, which I had seen last trip with Giovanni, so I took Zach to see it. He was pretty impressed with the cathedral. We went back to the main street where our hotel was and stopped in my favorite bookstore (there is a huge bookstore there where I bought some really nice books that had photos of what Palermo looked like around the turn of the century when my ancestors would have went through there). The were just finishing up “story hour” for some preschool kids and were getting ready to do an arts and crafts project, so I had Gabriela go over and join them, she had so much fun, they made little clay flowers. We got back after dark. I wrote out a note for Giovanni and asked the hotel clerk to call him and “read” it to him. I am pretty good reading and writing Italian, but to speak it or listen to it . . . . I’m terrible!! I had asked Giovanni if he didn’t have any plans tomorrow to get us for a short time so I could see Cefalà Diana one more time and my trip would be complete. He said he’d be there at 10 tomorrow morning! Once again, the kids slept great!! This trip was turning out great after all! Weird, how a few days ago, I was thinking . . . ugh, how am I going to survive staying here for 6 days . . . . now I’m thinking . . . ugh, the trip is almost over!
Thursday, March 21st - Well, the kids were up at 6 again (like usual). I tried sorting our suitcases a bit (tomorrow we leave already). We went out at 9 when the shops opened to get in a little more shopping. The prices on clothes and shoes were really pretty good down there. I could have went wild shopping if I hadn’t had the kids with me. I tried on some clothes. It was a bit difficult trying on clothes while trying to keep Gabriela and Jason from opening up the curtain! On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at a stand to buy some soccer jersey’s of the Palermo team. I was so proud of myself for bargaining (in Italian, thank you very much) for a cheaper price on buying 3 of them!!! I got the peddler to agree. Then guess what I did. I overpaid the guy! He took the money and kind of looked funny at me . . . he took out his converter calculator and looked at it again, kind of funny and scratched his head. Then he gave me 1€ back. After I was about a block away I figured out that I had given him more than the original price!!! So much for my discount! Oh well! At this point, I didn’t even care! We stopped back at the hotel and dropped off our bags, then waited down stairs for Giovanni. We hopped in the car and drove to Cefalà Diana. He took us the back road through Bolognetta. When Gabriela saw the castle in the distance, she went crazy screaming “my Cefalà Diana.” When we got to town, we stopped at the bar and had a drink and the kids had pizzette. We stood in the piazza a few minutes and looked around. So much more quiet there in the little village with the narrow streets than on the busy Via Roma that our hotel was on. At the hotel, we hear traffic all night long! Anyway, we went drove up to the castle, they were doing more repairs on it, so this time, we couldn’t even walk up the stairs to get a closer look. Zach wasn’t overly impressed with the castle anyway. Gabriela showed Zach where we threw Papa’s hair last time we were there, she had remembered. We drove to where my cousin is fixing up a country house. He showed me around and the kids chased the dogs and cat. Jason liked “baa-ing” at the sheep. He took me through his garden and pulled up some “finocchio” which is where fennel seeds come from. I had never eaten the root before, but it was good and the kids even loved it! He took us over to Villafrati (the next village over) where a bunch of his friends were sitting by the road talking. He wanted me to meet his friend that spoke good English. While still sitting in the car, one of his friends came over and was talking to Gabriela, then asked if I was her sister! I know what you are thinking, the guys must be nuts!!! Well, the guy seemed very normal, let me just accept the compliment, no questions asked!!! We hung out there, had an espresso (even Zach, who said it was delicious) and then we headed back for the hotel. We stopped for a quick bite in Palermo and got some Panelli (those sandwiches that have fried patties in them made from cecci). When we got back to the hotel, everything was closed up, so I put Jason down for a nap. We went back out at 4. We went to the Piazza Marina where there are these really weird looking trees, but we didn’t stay long enough to take pictures. There wasn’t a lot of people around and I didn’t want to wander off the main track! On the way back, we found a hat shop. The one thing I had wanted to buy this trip, but hadn’t found anywhere was one of those flat hats like the old guys wear. We ran across a shop and they had them in all sizes for only 7€ so I bought one for Jason. We walked around some more and got a bite to eat. We could have stayed out more, but by now, I was pretty tired and we had a big day ahead of us to go back to Germany tomorrow. I was feeling pretty sad now, knowing this was it!!
Friday,
March 22nd -
We
got up early as usual to a sunny day, enjoying every last drop of sunshine,
knowing that we would be returning to rain (Jeff said it rained EVERY day we
were gone).
Our plane didn’t leave until 1 pm, but the kids were going crazy in the
hotel room by 8:30, so I decided to just go.
We packed up, had a quick bite to eat, and had the hotel guy call a cab
to the train station.
We were close enough to walk, but not carrying luggage and a car seat!!
We got there just as the train was ready to leave.
We had a 4 hour wait at the airport, but we walked around and enjoyed our
last few moments in Sicily.
Gabriela controlled the hysterics this time when the airplane took off.
I looked at her and she looked sad, but she bravely said, “I’m going
to miss Sicily, but I AM going to come back when I’m growed up.”
(When we were at Giovanni’s, I had told him this was our last trip
because we are more than likely going stateside this year sometime . . . he told
the kids they can come back when they are grown up and I believe Gabriela will
take him up on that!!).
I told her to give me a call when she goes and I’ll come along!!
The layover in Roma was nice, Jason slept almost the whole time in his
backpack (which I just set up in a chair).
Our plane had a group of about 30-40 Japanese tourists on it.
While waiting in the lobby by our gate, Gabriela was bored, so she got up
and was singing and kind of dancing around . . . these 2 Japanese ladies started
clapping their hands to the beat, then she really started singing and dancing
around!
It was so cute.
When she finished her little song and dance, all these Japanese people
started clapping for her!
It was hilarious!
The flight to Germany went pretty quick.
The weather upon arrival, was, yup, you guessed it . . . cold, damp, and
rainy.
The Flightline Van was actually there and WAITING for us, a real change!
We were home and Gabriela was in bed by 9:10
and the clean house was trashed by 9:20!
So ends my last journey to Sicily . . . . but, I’m sure you are all asking . . . . is this really the last trip? Will she really be content to never visit Sicily again? I think you all know the answer to that question . . . I’m a glutton for punishment . . . I’m sure, sometime, somehow, somewhere in the future . . . if it is in my power . . . . everyone already knows the answer to this question . . . . . I WILL return again!
