La Festa di San Giacomo

On Saturday, Dorota, a Polish girl I met in Bologna last year, arrived in Catania for a language course. Yesterday, we took a bus to Caltagirone, a hilltop town an hour an a half away from Catania to attend the Festa di San Giacomo, a festival celebrating the town’s patron saint that occurs on the 24th and 25th of July.

As I began to research my thesis topic back in the winter, I came across this festival and knew that I had to see it, regardless of whether I would concentrate my research on city plans, or architectural decoration. This is entirely because of La Scala Illuminata, “the illuminated staircase,” when La Scala di Santa Maria del Monte, a monumental staircase of 142 steps, is decorated with candles placed inside of colored paper bags. Through my limited research, I came across photographs of the staircase from previous years, and I knew that I had to see it in person.

The trip was haphazardly planned: I mentioned to Dorota that I wanted to see this several months ago, and we had been planning on going, but then we found out there were no late buses back to Catania on the weekend (the latest leaves Caltagirone around 7:00 pm). We briefly contemplated staying up all night, then taking the earliest bus at 6:00 am, but then decided that that was a poor decision, as we both had things to do on Monday. Unfortunately, there are no hostels in Caltagirone (which is why we entertained the idea of staying up all night), then 3 hours before our bus we made some calls and found a room for 35 euro per person. Not cheap, but definitely not the most expensive option. Having figured that out, we felt more comfortable bringing our cameras, which was well worth it in the end.

The bus ride to Caltagirone was crowded with kids from Palagonia, the only other stop, returning home on the last bus at 5:30 after a day at the beach. I sat next to a lawyer from Caltagirone, and we chatted about my thesis, America, Italy, and Sicilian Baroque. He ended up giving me advice on a few places to see (mostly places in Noto and Palermo). Also, the countryside near Caltagirone was gorgeous, and I could not stop taking pictures of it.





When we arrived in Caltagirone, the first thing Dorota and I noticed was that it was not hot! There was a cool breeze and the temperature in this hilltop town was closer to 80 than the 95 we had been accustomed to in Catania. Toward the end of the night, it was getting quite chilly, and I almost wished that I had packed my light sweater.

After checking into the hotel, we went on a mission to find the staircase (easy: just follow the crowd), and were distracted my some more beautiful panoramic views of the countryside, and beautiful churches in the centro storico. We eventually found the staircase, just in time to take pictures of it, and views from the the top of it, before nightfall.







The pattern shows San Giacomo (St. James) on a horse. After a brief search (http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/21250) I found out that he is the patron saint of pilgrims (think pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in Spain), knights, soldiers, and rheumatic illnesses. (To me, the first three seem related, the last one not remotely.)

At 9:00, the procession began at one church in the centro storico, and then wound around the town for the next several hours. It began with a giant tent, followed by church officials, monks, people in 17th century dress, a reliquary, a statue of San Giacomo under a baldacchino, and a marching band. Upon seeing the reliquary and the statue, most people crossed themselves and some shouted "Viva San Giacomo!"

At 9:30, the staircase was lit by hundreds of people. They covered the staircase beforehand, slowly lighting the candles and moving away to eventually reveal the masterpiece.





It was an amazing trip, and there's another festival with La Scala Illuminata August 14th and 15th, and I'm sorely tempted to go.

Cupcakes and Barbara Beach

My weekend began this week on a Thursday, with a "Cupcake/Alcol Party" planned by me and a couchsurfer I've been seeing a bit lately, Vale. She wanted to cook some "American sweets" so we made chocolate chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting, and chocolate chip pancakes. Besides a few burnt cookies, it all turned out well, and we invited over a few of Vale's friends, and many couchsurfers I'd met. It was an international evening, with Italians, Americans, a Swede, and a Korean, who was a friend of another couchsurfer. The Swedish girl stayed the night, as she was visiting Catania from Modica, where she lives in a B&B and teaches English to the owner's children, and coming to my party was a last minute decision.

The next day, I woke up too early (it's getting to be so hot here!) and cleaned. (Aside: maybe I should have more parties, the apartment is always cleaner afterward) The Swede and I went to get a granita (I got almond a strawberry) before she got on the bus back to Modica. She invited me to Modica, a 2 hour bus trip from Catania, which I should take her up on, as it's known for its "Baroque center."

Then, last night I went out with Vale and a friend of hers I had met the week before to another discoteca on the beach called Barbara Beach. (Before getting there, I thought it was Barabara beach.)

This discoteca is unusual in that, while it does have the mandatory "house" dance floor, it specializes in rock, and the rock dance floor is much larger, and much more crowded. The night started at 11, and we got there maybe around 11:30. There was a live band from Palermo playing, which was very good, but no one was dancing yet. Instead, we got a drink, sat in the sand, touched the water (it always seems warmer at night) and chatted. After the band, the dj came back on and started playing rock music, and everyone started to dance.

What was also unusual about this place was that just as many men, if not more, were dancing here: in my previous experience, in Catania, Bologna and Rome, much more women are on the dance floor, and the dancing men are just trying to find women. Instead, most people were just jumping around, punching fists into the air, and moving too a music. There was very little sexy-dancing, let's call it, and hilariously, most of it came from guys, which was hilarious (one was dancing on a table).

The music was like a trip into the past. There were a few recent songs, like one by the Arctic Monkeys, but the majority was 90s favorites: Nirvana, REM, Weezer, Offspring, etc., and there were even some older favorites, like the Beach Boys and the Beatles. We danced for hours and had no unwelcome advances (thank goodness) and it was a great time.

Tonight, a friend I studied at the Bologna language school arrives in Catania, I hope I can show her the best of Catania, and even get some traveling done.

A summary of the past few weeks

While I do have internet at home, it's incredibly slow. Dial-up slow. So adding images to blogs, or sometimes even trying to look at a blog, is like watching paint dry at Lascaux. I'll try later to add some photos - now you'll just have to use your imagination.

Anyway here are some highlights from the past few weeks:

My roommate, Teresa, has invited me three times to have lunch at her mom's apartment. We travel by vespa, and arrive around 1:30 for lunch at 2:00. Lunch in Sicily is like a big family dinner in the US - multiple courses (pasta, salad, meat, eggplant parmigiana, followed by fruit - usually watermelon - and gelato) over about 1.5-2 hours. The last two times her brother's family was visiting. His wife is French, they live in London, and have a 4 month old baby, Carla. She was super cute, and sometimes when you smiled at her she'd stop fidgeting and smile back.



A few times Teresa and I have gone to visit our other roommate, Angela, at the hostel, where she is more than she's at home. I might have mentioned before that the alley is full of kittens, but now I have photographic proof! We also watched the World Cup final there, among a very international crowd staying at the hostel.



I've decided to start using couchsurfing as a way to meet more people and practice my Italian. I've been having a pretty good track record meeting interesting people, and I've decided it's a bit like trying on shoes: some you figure out relatively quickly that they're not for you, others you never want to take off. I met up with one girl, Valentina, and we talked for several hours walking around Catania and going to the Internetteria (an internet point and cafe). She invited me to Ragusa and we went on Thursday. It was incredibly gorgeous Baroque town.







We walked around, had lunch with her friends (who were as kind as she is) and had fantastic gelato at a gelateria/enoteca (wine store) called DiVini (a play on words meaning "divine" and also "of wines"). They had gelato flavors like white wine, red wine, rosé, ricotta, pistacchio, carob, and many, many more. I got carob and ricotta, and I'm still dreaming about it.

To understand the discoteche

The music you could hear in a discoteca is a mish-mash of English/American, Italian, and house music. Sometimes they play real oldies - like "The Twist," Beach Boys, and the Beatles. Other times, some American rock music may come on - but usually it's at least 5 years old. One night I was laughing the entire time - the DJ played everything from U2 to Good Charlotte. A friend asked my what was so funny when Good Charlotte was on, and I said this music is 10 years old; almost exactly 10 years ago I received my first CD for my 11th birthday - Good Charlotte's self-titled album. And then, of course, there's the house music. The pounding, pulsating beats and electronic voice of house, which you cannot listen to without dancings at least a little bit.

So in addition to the previous post about the beach clubs, this video provides a bit of audio - "the most popular song of the summer" they're calling it. To get the full impression - start the video at 0:47 - you never hear the full version on the dance floor.

Shopping, and the Wild West

In addition to supermarkets and mini-marts, Catania has great open air markets, which, unfortunately, occur from about 9-1, when the library's open. So today I took the day off and went to the Museo Civico and did some shopping.

One market takes place in the newer part of town (i.e. ugly fascist architecture) and when I went there to look at an apartment last week, which was really lovely, all I saw of the open market were stalls filled with cheap clothes, shoes, and general knick-knacks. The other market, called "la pescheria" or the fish shop I think because it was originally just that - is almost entirely made up of food stalls. It's in the older part of town, and takes up several "blocks" of windy streets near the Piazza Duomo. Each block has a different theme - fruit and vegetables, meat, cheese, fish, bread, etc., and behind some stalls are some mini-marts.



It's an incredible sight to see - so much food and color! Also, the prices are incredible: I bought 3 plums and 2 peaches for 50 cents (that's 62.6 cents US).



Yesterday, I also did a bit of shopping, but of a different variety. In July, many, many stores in Italy have "i saldi" - something similar to Labor Day sales or Presidents' Day sales in the US, but lastly most of the month. I walked around via Etnea with my roommate, Teresa, and found a gorgeous pair of heels - something I had been looking for since realizing how uncomfortable my stiff metallic flats were, and also realizing that, although Italians are on the shorter side, the women usually go out in some sort of heel. Fortunately, these gorgeous shoes were "in saldo," so I gave in.



After that, I met up with Daniele, who told me that a shooting had taken place in Piazza Dante - where many humanities-esque departments are located. There was a protest against this "far-west" American-style shooting - with speakers saying that Catania was a civilized place and this would not be tolerated. Many people were there - including the chief of police, who Daniele knew (of course) and introduced me to - but no politicians showed up, and many people kept saying how terrible it was that there weren't there to support this "manifestazione" (protest).

I looked up the shooting the next day, and it turns out that two relatives had been fighting all day in the piazza, with one taunting the other by making the "corni" gesture at him - where your hands in a fist with the pinky and index finger extended towards someone. It's basically a non-verbal way of saying "go to hell." Around 1 pm, the man became so sick of his relative, that he pulled a pistol on him and fired several shots. Neither of the men were hurt, but he wounded a female university student who was walking through the piazza. The police arrested him later, who defended his actions by saying he was provoked.

At the protest, Daniele also introduced me to an archeology professor from Palermo who studied ancient Rome and Jerusalem. He told me that the 18th century church in Piazza Dante was never finished because the Vatican didn't want any church to be taller than Saint Peter's. That may have been true, but I went in this morning, and there was only a pamphlet saying they ran out of funds. Either way, it's interesting to see because it looks so strange - half finished with half columns and the upper brickwork exposed. The inside is bare and mostly under construction - with the most interesting part being the "Meridiana" - a line that runs through the majority of the transept and reveals the date due to the direction of the sunlight. Unfortunately due to the construction, you can only see the southern part of this - where July, August, and September are.