Sicilian Seduction, Part 1: Luigi and Me

...and around the world.



Hello March!  I'm so glad you are here!  While I'm perfectly content here at home where the sun shines nearly every single day (yay!), I'm pee-my-pants excited to be going back to Italy for a while.  Of course, this week also begins packing drama at chez moi, which I'm sure you'll be reading more about later.  Oh joy.  Bet you can't wait.

I'm joining my new friend from down under, Red Nomad in Oz, for a travel-themed "Round the World Extravaganza!"

My contribution is a post from almost a year ago.  I had literally bolted from Tuscany where although I was happy to be living at the time, the weather was oppressively cold, damp, and if I didn't get sun I'd have tried to kill someone gloomy.  Being solar-powered and having been carrying on a very inappropriate relationship with a hot water bottle, I needed to get out from under the clouds and slop for just a little while.  I coined the term, "Tuscan sun my ass," waged an all-out war on "Spring" as a myth and looked for any place in Europe where the sun was shining.   

Hence...

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Sicilian Seduction, Part 1: Luigi and Me

There WAS! There WAS sun in Sicily!  Although it wasn't warm enough to get out the bikini (which made my search for a nude beach pointless) it was still a perfect place to spend Spring Break.  As for getting wild?  Yeah, I got crazy - with a fork, mostly.



Of course, I fell even more in love with Italy, traveling, trains (as in European), and Luigi.

I didn't know Luigi was Sicilian, but in my determination to spend the entire week not speaking or hearing English, Luigi was right there with me.  He literally enchanted me with stories of Sicilian life, the scenery, people, and events between gazes out the window and drifting off to sleep when it was dark.

NOTE:  As charming as Luigi was, however, he was no help on the damned Sudokus, especially the "Trita Cervelli" which translates to "minced brain."  Sounds about right, yes? 

Oh, it was sheer - yet uncanny - coincidence that we got acquainted on the long train ride through Rome, Naples, along the coast, crossing the tiny bit of the Ionian Sea by ship, the last 3 hours of the train trip taking us from Messina to Palermo.  I didn't get to visit his hometown of Agrigento, but everywhere I went in Sicily, he went with me, always looking for the charming spots - and there are many - where I could bask in the sun and his words.  I had to know more about him.

Of course I'm speaking of Luigi Pirandello, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934.  He wrote over 220 (known) short stories and plays, 11 of which I curled up with in my nifty Dual Language Book entitled "Undice Novelle." It was just some used book I snagged because it was written in Italian with English translations on facing pages.  I would cover the English with my train tickets, work my way through the stories, conjugate verbs along the way, and then check the English side to double check my translation.  OK, each page takes me like 30 minutes (depending on distractions) but there's something about his writing that makes me want to keep examining the lines, and not just get the mere meaning.

 
I knew nothing about Signor Pirandello until I opened the book Monday morning, or that Sicily had such a strong literary history - or that I would even care.  But I've always been a lover of reading and books, so I'm intrigued to have found a new venue to explore.  Next on deck, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo (The Leopard).  I picked up a copy for 5 Euro in a used book store in Palermo, thumbed through it and realized I still need the assistance of a little translation.  Yeah, I gave the book a little hug, set it back down, and promised to revisit it - and Sicily - after I've done a little more reading - in both languages.  If anyone knows of a dual-language version of Il Gattopardo in existence, or more Pirandello stories, please let me know!

As for my week of going "English Free?" Other than running into some friends late Tuesday in Palermo, brief translations with a gentleman in Taormina on Wednesday, giving an English backpacker directions to a B&B in the Kalsa on Thursday?  I did it!  Mr. "Bar Guy" at the hotel was the only one who had a hard time because most of the guests were English, but I just kept acting like I didn't know English, and however ungraceful my Italian may be, it worked.

Especially gracious:

The concierges at the hotel who all knew what crazy American girl was up to, and were more than happy to oblige, and politely!

All the waiters, wine bar proprietors, and especially the raggazzi at the cafe where I stood so long eating my brioche stuffed with the most creamy gelato. We chatted while I stuffed my face and my espresso, they decided, would be too cold to drink, so they took it away, made me another one, and chatted with me some more.

The ladies in the shop where I found my sunglasses (1- on sale; 2 - yay I actually NEEDED sunglasses!) were all about chatting, long after my purchase.  There was a darling older woman there, who kept asking my name.
"Valerie," I replied.
"Ti chiama?" she kept asking me.
"Si. Valerie. Il mio nome e Valerie. Vale. Val," I tried. No joy.

"No, no, come ti chiama .. tuo nome?" she asked again.
"Valeria."
Bingo.  You'd think I'd have learned by now.
We laughed when she tried to say Valerie again and gave up.  "Valeria e piu facile," and I understood it was easier for her; kind of how I feel trying to say, "Euro" Eh-ur-oh?  Yep, three syllables (three, not two, and NOT Eur-oh, hero) that kick my ass every time, often accompanied by some degree of drool.
 
And when I got tired of talking (hey, it happens sometimes), I'd find another sweet spot where Luigi would be waiting...

Ahhh - bella Sicilia ...