Where is your favorite place? Mine is probably Sicily.

Tweet

Driving into Ortigia, I was unimpressed. Fresh from the crush of Rome and Paris I was prepared to dislike the small town setting that I had favored before. I was convinced that I had chosen wrong. I ought to be somewhere that was bustling and crowded, somewhere where I was sure to find someone who spoke English. Someplace where I was not the talk of the town and the first thing everyone noticed. Tired and uncomfortable after an hour in a bus from the Catania airport, I saw only tiny alley style streets lined with yesterday’s trash and crumbling buildings, some held upright only by metal scaffolding. After two weeks of living out of a suitcase in rooms that weren’t my own I was hungry for a place to settle in and not pleased to have to lug my own bags around. I was simply hungry and without food. It would take walking around Ortigia, getting lost in its winding streets a dozen times, for me to fall in love. From the vantage of a bus window I could not factor in the atmosphere, the vibrancy of the people or the character of this ancient city. It was small and jammed together, but it was intimate. By some miraculous talent, these tiny alley streets were alive with activity. Nestled around the next corner I could find a tiny bar or an intimate restaurant. And somehow they transformed Ortigia into a center of life. I uncovered new treats with every step I took. I came to know the faces of the fruit and vegetable vendors in the market. I knew which one would always throw something extra in my bag if I talked to them for a few minutes. Italians always have time to talk for a few minutes, no matter where they are going. At once it makes them late for every appointment and the most welcoming people I have ever met. A five minute walk from my home on Via Mirabella, the owner of my market store and her son waited, knowing the type of cereal I was sure to get when I entered. An old woman made the best paninos on the Island a stone’s throw from my school. Yogoloso off of Via Cavour always had my favorite type of gelato. Ortigia held so many wonders for me. I felt safe there as a woman and as a foreigner. And in that safety I dared more. I braved apeaking Italian because no one laugh at me. I walked alone during the day and night, never having to look over my shoulder for the unknown. I went to my first bars and flirted casually with men. I knew everyone watched me as I walked down the streets and so I stopped thinking about it. I was new and I was interesting to the Sicilians and I enjoyed that thoroughly. They were curious about me and wanted to talk. So I relaxed and stopped focusing on outer elements. I became confident enough to be social with strangers, where otherwise I might have missed out on so much. I tried to jump into the culture. My School Like all of Ortigia, the Mediterranean Center for Arts and Sciences, Centro Mediterraneo as it was called by locals, was small. I must confess to a high degree of shock at the size of it. Coming from a large campus I was not prepared for the small building at the end of Via Roma. I should have been, given the dimensions of the island. There were 4 classrooms, a library room, a dark room, computer lab, teacher’s lounge, large open room for school meetings and gatherings and an office. The teacher’s offices were on the third floor. We were not alone in the building either. We shared the space and could often hear the tv from the apartment across the courtyard. Teachers I had five classes while in Sicily. I studied philosophy and mythology with Scott, underwater archaeology with Ariane, and photography and Italian with Maria Laura. I addressed them by their first names, I would stop and talk with them in the street. I saw them at the clubs we went to. I was weird and odd and wonderful. I was treated as an equal rather than a student.They treated us as adults because we were adults. That is one of the most liberating experiences of your life, that finite transition from child to adult. I became friends with some of the others at the school. We had them over for coffee and dinners, we danced with them at the clubs. The textiles teacher, Lalenia, gossiped with us about Italian men and cried when we left. Our housing director, Ramsey, got us memberships to private clubs and played Arabic music for us. He and I would dance together, dance to the floor and back up, dance all night and it was ok. There were no boundaries placed on our relationships and without them I made friends that were teachers in and out of the classroom. My roommates had traveled or tasted things I had never considered. They knew a hundred ways to prepare vegetables and pastas. I had never eaten peppers or eggplant or cooked rice outside of the “minute rice” bag. I didn’t drink coffee even! I was clueless about what to do in an Italian kitchen. I spent about a week trying to maintain my old diet. But asking for no onions in Sicily is an exercise in futility. So I surrendered. I tried everything. And in surrender I stopped repressing myself. And by some miracle I found I liked most of it. I learned everything I could from this new family as fast as I could. They fed me and laughed with me and traveled with me. We saw amazing things together. Lydia was a free spirit who showed me how to relax and experience. I don’t think I ever so her uncomfortable in any situation. We went dancing together, argued and confided. Laura was everything I wasn’t- tall and slim and naturally athletic. But she didn’t worry about how she looked or if she looked foolish doing things. She was fully concentrated on doing. And Katerina. Katerina is mother earth incarnate. She taught me new foods and shared with me her concern for her health and the value of things that had before seemed old fashioned. She introduced me to organic foods and showed me the amazing things you could craft by hand. They called me their mother. I worried about them and took care of them when they weren’t feeling well. I organized pilates session when the biscotti and gelato were worrying the waistlines of all the girls on the trip. I edited papers and explained any reading material they didn’t understand. I remembered to take pictures at every place we visited. I carried the water in my bag. I was the sweet one and the innocent one, the one so obsessed with organization that my books were arranged by height. And they all helped me to grow. Seeing Sicily We saw everything we could afford to see and then taxed our budgets and saw more. Other study abroad programs might offer organized trips to other countries or famous sights every weekend, but this program let us see what we wanted at our own pace. We had to book hostels and train tickets. We had to decipher bus schedules and costs. And no we did not succeed everytime but we learned. I traveled. I got on trains with only a guide book and the desire to see and I saw more than I ever could have hoped for. This was the beginning of my explorations, the sensitizing of my need for culture. And it will probably always be my favorite for that alone.