Elephants in Ortygia

We went to Ortygia with our cousins and us. We took a train down to Syracuse, then walked slowly over the bridge to Ortygia. When we got over to the entrance of Ortygia, which used to be the old Temple of Apollo.

We sat for awhile, and while we were sitting, we saw two elephants walking down the street. It was really really cool, because there weren't in a big van or anything, there were just a few policeman and they were about five feet away from us. We think that the elephants were walking on the street because they were going to the circus which we saw signs for.

After that, we kept walking down along the Lungomare to get to the Duomo. Lungomare literally means Long Sea, but they use it to mean the long road along the sea. We had a picnic along the way.

We got to the Fountain of Eratusa, which is the name of a driad, who was being mistreated by Neptune, so she dug underground and came up there. This was what allowed Ortygia to thrive when people were attacking them.

Then we walked a bit farther up, to get some Gelato. It was a really cool Duomo because it used to be the Temple of Athena, so you could see the original columns, on the outside and the inside. They had cleaned it recently, so it was really cool that could you see that it was used for about 2000 years. Instead of just drawing a new church design, they kept the old temple and just built on top of it. Then we walked back to train and went back to Catania.

Christmas in Sicily

Buon Natale!

For Christmas Eve, we had for dinner six fishes, although it was the tradition to have seven. We had five in a fish soup, and one eel that was baked in the oven. That day we hung out with our cousins, Nina and Giona who had come down from Milan, while the grownups were going to the market to get the fish for dinner. We slept at our Nonni and Poppi's because it was Christmas Eve.

In the morning, we were allowed to open one present before our parents and cousins came. We had an orange tree on the terrace, and when they came, all our cousins and me and Rogan picked an orange off of our tree. Here is a picture of me and my Nonni getting the orange tree ready for Christmas morning.




Then we had Christmas bread and ate the oranges on our terrace, because it was really warm.

Then we went to church. We came back and opened all the presents. There was a million of them, and everyone was just running around and picking them up. Then when we thought we had opened all of them, there were a lot more. We all had a lot of fun!

The next morning, December 26th, we all decided to go to the beach, because it was warm. We went swimming and made a big sand castle that looked like Mt. Etna, and had underground tunnels in it, to funnel the water from the Mediterrenean.

Rogan's Trumpet Concerts

I have been playing trumpet for two years in America. I started playing in Italy in November at a middle school that had a music institute with an orchestra. I played in the orchestra and there were a lot of guitars and flutes. I was the only trumpet player, the only American there, and the only brass horn in the orchestra. My mom and me went over to the school and asked where Professor Tringale was. He is my professor for trumpet, and he plays the saxaphone. we started playing twice a week for an hour each. When I started, it was weird, because I felt like I was only noticing the bad things about the music school, like the fact that I didn't know the songs as well as other people, or that I was the youngest player. But then the second day, I started noticing only the good things about it, like I was the only the trumpet player, and that that is a big responsibility, and that I really didn't have to know the whole song, right away, because if I messed up, the whole orchestra is playing, and you are only one person out of thirty people. And then, since I had joined the orchestra late, in November, I ended up having four lessons a week, plus the orchestra rehearsals, so I was playing four days a week for about two hours a day. I've never played so much trumpet in one month, I played so much more than I've ever played. My trumpet playing got a lot better, and I got to know the other people in the orchestra. I was excited because it was the first time playing in an orchestra. But my lips got worn out way faster, because it takes a lot of energy to use your lips all that time. At the end of the first week, I couldn't even practice the entire time, because my lips hurt so much. But that got better later, because my lips got stronger.



The songs we were practicing were for a December Christmas concert. At first I thought we were going to paly one concert. But no, it turned out to be a lot. It turned out to be about thirteen concerts. Three times at my school, nine of them were at these really small, pretty churches that were all around Catania, at then one was at the Teatro Edwin Piscatore. I played four songs, "White Christmas", "Si am Pastori e Pastorelle", which is a Sicilian song, "Adestes Fideles", which is "Oh Come All Ye Faithful", and "Jingle Bells". And for Jingle Bells, I had to introduce it to the whole audience in Italian, and my Professor put me up in the front of the orchestra behind me. I was really nervous because all these people were going to see me, and I might play a wrong note and it would get all messed up. And it turned out I played most of the notes right, and I had a lot of fun. I want to do more, and there actually are more concerts during the month of May.

via Michelangelo La Rosa Buccheri

We spent weeks finding this place to live. We call it La Rosa. This is our playhouse, as you might call it, because our other house, is our schoolhouse, via Malta. In via Malta, we sleep, eat breakfast, go to school, and get dressed. At La Rosa, we cook a big dinner with our Nonni and we eat our on the beautiful terrace. Here is one of the reasons why it is a beautiful terrace.

We do our homework there, which usually takes about two hours or more, even with our Dad's help! And we play games there, like Catan, Ping Pong, and card games. Here is a picture of me playing Catan.

It took us a long time to find furniture, like couches that could be used as beds, getting the big table for the inside to do our homework on, and a big glass table for the outside terrace, and some chairs. There are rope chairs for outside around the table, four red and two orange. For inside, we have four white and two black cane chairs. Thanks to Nonni, now we have lots of plants on the terrace and inside. She and Domenica went to a lot of nurseries to look for a citrus tree, lemon or orange. There weren't any. So, Nonni was going on the bus, when she found this nursery, which had really cool plants. No citrus, but tall vines, with really pretty white flowers. She got a couple of palms, and one pot of rosemary. She got hibiscus with orange flowers and streaks of red.

One day, we were looking for lamps. And we called Livio, our landlord, if he had any ideas for lamp places. And he said yes, he actually had two old lamps from his grandparents, that he might be able to hang from the ceiling. One had about ten oil lamps in a circle, and the other one had glass diamonds with a central bulb, so that all the light would sparkle off it like a fancy hotel light. It turns out we didn't get the ten oil lamps, but we got the other glass diamond one. It hangs in the room where Nonni sleeps, next to the terrace.

The place feel like our home, because we fixed it up ourselves, and put all the things in there, so it feels like it ours. Even though the place is 600 years old and there are water leaks in the ceiling.

Nero Di Seppie

(black squid ink and meat)

Today my mom was walking around and she came upon a nero di seppie stand. Nero di seppie is a type of pasta made from the black ink that the squid squirts out when it is frightened. My mom's favorite Sicilian books, by Andrea Camilleri, are about Inspector Montalbano, and he loves Nero di Seppie.

There were a few men seperating the ink sack from the meat. Here are some pictures. Our mom bought some and we are going to have it for dinner tonight.

First Day of School

Today was our first day of school!

We got up at about 7:00 and got dressed in our school uniforms.

Then we walked to our school and saw alot of kids wearing uniforms and parents along the way. There were two policemen stopping traffic so kids and parents could get across Viale Vittorio Veneto. We wandered into the school courtyard trying to find a teacher or find the right place to stand in line. Finally we found another American girl who was in Rogan's class, named Ellie. She had been to Mario Rapisardi School for three years, so she was fluent in Italian. She helped Rogan a little bit. Then we found the vice principal, also Rogan's mathematics teacher who took me and Rogan around to find our classrooms. After about ten minutes, we found a third grade classroom that had room for me. We had math first, and I had alot of fun. My math teacher left, and we had a snack. Then we had writing. Writing was not as fun as math but still okay.

Excursion to Tindari

On the way to Palermo, and the rest of our four day trip around Sicily, we took an excursion to Tindari. Tindari is a site in northern Sicily, that has very nice mosaics. We parked our rented car in the parking lot, and took a bus to where the site was. There were a lot of tourist souvenier shops and we walked through those to get to the site.

The site was really cool, there was a museum right when you walked in. In the musem there were some statues of people, and their togas looked like they were swishing in the wind, because they were really ripply, even though they were made out of marble.

There were a lot of mosaics and they were super nice. This is one of them. The mosaics were from a bath complex. One of them had the Sicily symbol, which is a three legged person, all with their knees down, making sort of a pinwheel shape. The legs stood for the main cultures of Sicily, the Phoenician, the Greek and the Roman. Then there was also a big mosaic floor that had a picture of two brothers wrestling, some dolphins, Dionysius and other things.