9/27/06 - Catania, Italy
Palermo - Partenico - Palermo - Mondello - Monreale* - Agrigento - Catania - Siracusa*
* - day trip
Highlights, Observations, Rants, etc.
- Pilgrammage to Partenico - In my family (at least on my dad's side, the Italian one), the Relatives In Sicily are regarded with a sort of reverence that verges on sacredness, despite the fact that only my grandmother and uncle have ever met them, because they are the physical representation of a very strong sense of Italian heritage. Since I was in Sicily, it only made sense to try to look them up, although I did feel a little funny about just randomly appearing and effectively saying "hi, i'm your 3rd cousin...(I think...)". My sister also decided to fly to Palermo from England for a few days, so the evening before she arrived, I somewhat nervously called the telephone number my uncle had given me. The wife of the man whose number my uncle had given me answered the phone and after a few minutes of explaining who I was and why I was calling, she told me that of course we should come to visit and could do so whenever it suited us best, just to call first so she could know to expect us.
How I came to have the number in the first place is another, and better, story: 35 years ago, my grandmother and uncle went to Partinico (approximately 1 hour southwest of Palermo), knowing only that it was the town where my grandmother's mother had grown up. They arrived at the only hotel in town, and were greeted with surprise by the proprieter, who couldn't fathom why two Americans would come to Partinico. My grandmother responded (not in proper Italian, as I later found out, but rather in the Sicilian dialect her parents had spoken and she had therefore learned) that her mother was originally from Partinico, and she wanted to see if there were any members of the family still there. She also told him that her mother's maiden name was Randazzo, to which he responded that there were several Randazzos in Partenico, and immediately proceeded to call each of them over to the hotel. The first two were unrelated to my grandmother. So was the third, but as soon as he saw my grandmother, he told her that he knew another Randazzo she was almost certainly related to, because of their striking physical resemblance. He left, and quickly returned with Nino Randazzo in tow. After talking for a bit, my grandmother and Nino came to the conclusion that they were probably first cousins, but weren't 100% sure. Even so, Nino insisted that my grandmother and uncle stay with him rather than in the hotel. Only after they went to his house and saw a picture of my grandmother's parents hanging on the wall did they know for sure that they were in fact cousins. My grandmother and uncle stayed in touch with everyone they met on that first trip (of course every relative of Nino Randazzo was immediately rounded up to meet the "cousins from America") over the years, returning a few more times. The Randazzos are now scattered throughout Italy, having left Partenico to work mostly in the north, but the Galvanos, descendants of another, different cousin of my grandmother (and so with whom I have great-great-grandparents in common), have remained in Partenico, and it was Francesca Galvano, effectively the matriarch of the current family, with whom I spoke on the phone.
And so the next afternoon, after we had taken the train from the airport to Partenico and trekked uphill to the center of town, where according to a tourist information brochure I had picked up there was supposed to exist an information center (if it was there, we couldn't find it), I once again whipped out my cell phone and called up Francesca. It was probably a little less of an advanced warning than she had in mind when she told me to call before I came, but nonetheless I was instructed to come immediately, and given directions that basically amounted to "straight straight straight straight straight, then left when you see a church". Given the fact that in every Italian town there seems to be a church on just about every corner, my hopes of finding the street without having to sheepishly call again for new directions weren't high. But we made it. And after brief pleasantries and introductions, we were told to relax and make ourselves comfortable. Then the eating began, and didn't really stop for the rest of the time we were in Partenico. While we worked our way through a plate of pasta, then some breaded cutlets and salad and finally fresh fruit for dessert (any proper Italian meal being at least three courses), all accompanied by homemade wine made from homegrown grapes that was really halfway to being brandy but still very good, Francesca and her husband Giovanni's three grown children trickled in with some of their grandchildren as well. And each time, the introductions and explanations started again from scratch. This was a good boost for my confidence in Italian, since after the 3rd time or so I actually had the whole routine pretty much down pat (and the Galvanos who had already heard the whole spiel multiple times helped speed things along as well). After discussing the hotels/pensions in Partenico (or lack thereof - I hadn't reserved a room because I couldn't find any, which was one of the reasons we had attempted to find the nonexistant tourist information office), Francesca & Giovanni's daughter Maria offered to let us stay with her at their house just outside Partenico.
That evening, after Maria's two kids, both in college, had driven us to the beach and around a few towns near Partenico (including an entirely unnecessary stop for gelato), everyone came over for a marathon dinner: various antipasti, pizzas, salads, fruit, and finally the grand finale: an assortment of all the different sorts of dolci (literally sweets but more accurately pastries) for which Sicily is famous, especially within Italy. And the fame is completely justified - if you have a sweet tooth, the price of a round-trip ticket to Palermo is probably worth it just to be able to eat a cannolo here.
After dinner, we sat around and talked for a while, and while in general we were certainly able to communicate, one example is indicative of my struggles with Italian. Granted, trying to explain the rules of baseball probably wasn't the wisest of decisions on my part, but still: I was simply trying to say that when a batter hits the ball, the fielder has to throw the ball to first base before the batter gets there. And in the space of a minute or two, the Violas were howling. The Italian word for ball is la palla but first I used the masculine equivalent: il palo. This means pole. Then I failed to properly enunciate the double-l, effectively saying pala, or shovel. Finally I made it to palla (probably still technically wrong given that a large ball like a soccer ball is a pallone, and smaller ball like a tennis ball - and probably a baseball as well - is a pallina, but at least by this point I had successfully managed to convey a correct general meaning). Next screw-up, using buttare (to throw, but more in the sense of to throw away, as in garbage) rather than lanciare. But the one that really had the Violas in stiches was my use of battitore when I was trying to describe the batter. A battitore would be someone who executes the action described by the verb battere; I made the assumption that battere was to bat, since alot of times if you don't know a word in Italian, italianizing the English word gets you to a reasonable approximation of what you're trying to say. In this case I was at least somewhat right: battere can mean to thump or beat, but little did I know that it also means to walk the streets (as in a prostitute looking for tricks), so a battitore is effectively also a hooker. So the next time I try to explain baseball in Italian, I should be fine...
The next morning (of course after an extended breakfast, at least by Italian standards) Maria's brother Salvatore drove us around on a whirlwind tour of western Sicily: the salt pools of Mozia near Marsala, the city of Marsala itself, and then the 5th century BC temple at Segesta. Afterwards, back to Partinico for lunch (what else) before we headed back to Palermo, not wanting to overstay our exceedingly warm welcome. - General observations on traveling in Italy - In writing and thinking about Italy, I've found myself being caught up in the same snare I think many outsiders do. It's just so easy to endlessly sing the praises of Italy's treasures: the art, the food, the scenery, etc., etc. They are what most people come to Italy to see and experience, and it's only natural that they dominate the attention of someone just traveling through. But against these backdrops, the social fabric of modern Italy and the way 60 million Italians go about leading their daily lives seems to get lost. I started thinking about this a little bit, because interestingly it's not that it's difficult to notice everyone's lives unfolding around you; for that to be the case, you'd have to either be incredibly unaware of your surroundings or incredibly focused solely on "touring" Italy. Rather, there is such a pervasive vibrancy to life here that the immensely personal nature of everything actually starts to become very impersonal. Incredibly human actions and interactions either start to lose their individual nature in the midst of so many others, or they start to represent a generic parody of The Italian Way Of Life. You witness first hand the insane traffic, the laundry hanging seemingly from every balcony, and constant passionate public displays of every possible emotion, and yet paradoxically even in the flesh they seem to be almost more facelessly stereotypical than characteristic of the way individuals actually live. Maybe this is because I've started to grow accustomed to the very in-your-face style of things here, or maybe because to actually fully process every sight and sound and smell would result in an almost immediate sensory overload.
One side effect of this very social, very open way of life is that for someone not accustomed to it, it produces an almost voyeuristic sort of attraction to being in Italy. Many times I've found myself perfectly content to sit back and passively observe, fascinated,everyone's lives publicly unfold around me. It's been surprisingly easy to let myself fade into the background, because everyone seems so busy carrying out their own lives that they don't really notice someone on the periphery. And because you're simply watching rather than participating, Italy becomes in a way a giant sensory gallery you simply wander through.
Despite this, or maybe because of it, I'm not sure that I've really enjoyed travelling through Italy, and certainly not as much as I thought I would or even think I should have. This is at least partially due to both the onset of general travel fatigue and my frustrations with the language (I've felt like I've been stuck at the stage where I know just enough to get myself into trouble but not get myself out, to start a conversation but not really effectively continue it), but also because I've come to the surprising conclusion that of everywhere I've been so far, Italy is the most difficult country in which to travel alone.
There are two versions of travel in Italy (and I guess really in any country, they're just more exaggerated here): on a classic tourist itinerary, flitting around from one famous place to another, or trying to put a finger on the pulse of the"real" side of life. But in Italy, I've found both frustrating because I've been by myself, although for different reasons. For me at least, the major tourist attractions, while still undeniably beautiful/interesting/etc., start to lose something because there's no one there to share them with, and also because there's less to distract you from the hordes of other tourists gawking at and snapping photos of the same things. The simple - and often silly - joys of being a tourist cease, and watching other people gleefully pose for photos pushing over (or holding up) the leaning tower of Pisa, or trying mightily to order food from a waiter who speaks only Italian, becomes, if not sickening, at least unattractive. This in turn triggers a sense of guilt, since the people you're shaking your head at aren't necessarily behaving all that differently than you would in a slightly different situation. So my response was to eschew a lot of the biggest tourist attractions, and try to find things to do and places to go less common for tourists (not the easiest of tasks in it's own right). But then, as you find yourself more alone in "real" Italy, the sense of being an outsider looking in increases as well, and there are also less fellow outsiders to commiserate with. Without an "in" into Italian society, which is either incredibly chaotic or incredibly structured (I started out thinking the former but am starting to lean toward the latter), all you can really do is fall back into the spectator-ism I've tried to describe above. Of course things are different if you can effectively speak the language, but I feel like you have to be just about fluent to properly hold your own, because while the vast majority of people I've met here are friendly and happy to help, patience is not exactly the Italian strongpoint. I've often had the feeling that for some people, consciously dropping down a few notches from their normal lightning-fast way of talking is almost as frustrating for them as it is for me to strain to catch the general gist of what they're trying to say. And although people generally oblige when you ask them to repeat something, sometimes they seem to be restraining themselves from tapping their index finger to their forhead, a common gesture that basically translates as "wow, are you ever thick". Again, it's not unfriendliness; for me it's simply been a constant frustration.
Random Tidbits
- Another book recommendation: if you have any interest in modern Italy, pick up a copy of The Dark Heart of Italy by journalist Tobias Jones. It was written in 2001 (so it's a little out of date) and the point of reference is very much British, but it's still a really interesting (and not always flattering) introduction to post-war Italian history, politics and culture.
Next stops
- Malta, then back to Sicily, and on to Greece