Sorry for Dropping the Ball

         Well it has been a while since i have last posted anything so I guess I will have to start at Halloween.
Halloween in Italia is the same and different in some ways. In one way the only people who go trick-or-treating are very very little, because everyone else think that the tradition is a bit ridiculous. For me I just watched horror movies with the host brothers. This was basically Halloween. The day after Halloween is called 'The day of the Dead' where you remember all those who have pasted in your family. There is a type of food that is special to Halloween and originated in Siracusa. It is called zippole. It is like dough that has fish or nutella or other such things inside. They are really good and I think you can find them in true Italian bakeries back in America. This is Halloween in a nut-shell.
         The next holiday of course would be Thanks-Giving. First, if you have asked yourself..." I wonder how they celebrate Thanksgiving where Austin is?".... you need to go back to school and educate yourself and realize that it is only an American holiday and that no one else celebrates it. With that said, I celebrated officially 3 Thankgivings. The first was at the girlfriend of the brother of my host fathers house. Her name is Karen and she had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner. I met a pair who were named Martin and Simon who brought something I never thought of before, but it was a whole cake/roast made out of nuts. It was amazing. I talked with them alot and they introduced me to the show Modern Family which I watch all the time now. The second dinner was at the house of my friend Jasmine Schatz who is another exchange student here in Italia. She lives in a town called Modica which is famous for its chocolate. That was good and I have to say the dish of the day was Jasmines stuffing. She then took us around her town which was really nice and we went inside a giant butter-fly house. The third Thanksgiving was at the house of another exchange student named Savannah Baker. This gets the award for most traditional Thanksgiving dinner and award for the nicest turkey. That was really nice and I ended up sleeping over there that night with the rest of the exchange students from the area.  The next day we all took a trip to Modica to see a nice flee-market type thing. After this we all headed back to our respective towns. This concludes the Thank giving season.
         The next holiday is something that is only in some parts of Sicily and Italia. This is the festival for Saint Lucia. She is the patron saint of Siracusa and in general the saint of light. I had all the girls from around Sicilia come to my town for the two days of the festival and we all had a good time. On the 12th of December I showed them all of the town and all the historical stuff. We went to the shopping district and I was stuck giving opinions on things, but I don't mind. After all this we headed back to the hotel room to relax for a while and do all the Christmas stuff such as the secret Santa and eggnog and such. We did that and my secret Santa was the girl from Corleone who got me a leather bracelet. It was very nice. After all of this I had made dinner reservations for a very nice restaurant outside of the Piazza Duomo di Siracusa. We all paid 20 euro a person for dinner and got course after course after course after course of food, and then they finally said that the appetizers were over. The next day was the festival, but before we all went to my host house-hold to decorate a Christmas tree and have a great lunch. Everyone had a good time, and then we made our way to the festival where the Rotary President of Siracusa has an apartment above the square where everything happens. What happens is that the fingers (literal fingers) of Saint Lucia come out first, then a giant silver statue of the saint that takes about 50 men to carry comes out and the cardinal of Siracusa then gives a speech while it passes by. They then walk it across the whole city to a church that is named church of Saint Lucia. It then rests there for 8 days until making it's return trip back to Piazzia Duomo. Me and the girls then just hung out again and had dinner hole in the wall place that had really good sandwiches. Valerio then picked me up and I headed home. The next day I had to go to school, but afterwards I went back to Ortigia and hung out with everyone until they all had to leave around 6 on their buses. That was the day of Saint Lucia in a nutshell.
         For Christmas there isn't really that much different. On the 24th we had a big dinner and did the opening of the presents on that night. I got for Valerio a Maroon 5 cd and the film 'Into the Wild', for Francesca a cd of Andrea Bocelli doing a Christmas concert, for Pierluigi greatest hits cd of Blink 182, and for Alle a cd that had alot of cinema music on it. I got a dvd concert of Adele with the cd to go along with it and a nice red scarf to match my p-coat. Also I got a few gift-cards to a local sports store. Christmas was good overall. On the 25th we just went out to lunch at Francesca's sisters house. This is Christmas in a nutshell.
         Other than that nothing else is really going on and I'm just sitting in my room typing this and listening to 'Modest Mouse'. Ciao

North Americans and a Raven

         Well my internet's been down for a week, go figure. In my absense I have done a few noteworthy things. Number1.... I have met all the lovely ladies from North America who are on this island with me. I thought there was going to be a wide range of different countries, but only North America. Let's see if I can remember the states... they are from Idaho, Washington State, California, Michigan, (can't remember the others in America), and there is one girl from Vancouver. Where is Vancouver you may ask... it is on the western shores of great Canada. Also this is where the 2010 Winter Olympic Games were held. Unfortunately she did not go to them, go figure. I'll describe the day I guess. The trip to Catania was normal as always. I had some time to get in a good fill of 'Alice's Restaurant'. Did you know you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant, accepting Alice of course. Anyway, the night before I read that I would need to give a speech at the meeting, so with grand tradition I went to the meeting and winged it, but I always turn out fine with these things and it went off without a hitch, just have to remember to breath. After wards I got some time to get to know everyone and we talked about how we are doing with the language, it turns out I am doing incredibly well. Say what you want, but Mr. Olivo is teaching Italian and lays a great foundation for future study of the language. Overall, everyone is good and we will be setting up hang-out weekends and stuff like that.
         Secondly.... I have read 'The Raven' to my class in school and to my family. Unfortunately student in Sicily don't have control of themselves and couldn't pay attention to me, so I feel it was a bust over-all. Now if I took an Italian student and brought him to America, everyone would pay attention and be quit out of respect. Afterwards I let one of them read it in Italian with the same result. I then gave them an explanation of E.A.P.'s life and why he was so good in depressing writing. Then tried to show them the crux of 'The Raven', but still no enthusiasm. I guess a guy can't read 19th century poetry like the old days. When I read the poem to the family though it great :) We talked about it and read it in Italian and English. We then went to the movies to see a film called 'Il Peggior Settimana della la mia Vita' (The Worst Week of my Life). It was hilarious but was so close to 'Meet the Parent' that I almost think it might be a bit plagarized.
         Again I am sorry about not posting for a while, but I would like to point out that I have 4 new countries to add to the list of countries that have viewed this blog. We now have Norway, Belgium, Mexico, and Brazil. Thank you for looking and don't be afraid to comment if you feel the urge. Tomorrow I'll write about Halloween in Italia, don't worry.

Response to the Death of Gadaffi

         It is difficult to explain the mixed feelings that this part of Italia and the country in general has for the Gadaffi Regime and their feelings about his ever so present demise. The country of Italy does not believe in death. This is a blunt statement, but through the next few sentences I will clarify. As shown threw the Amanda Knox Trial, the country of Italia does not have a death penalty. When I asked Valerio what he thought of her trial he wisely replied that he does not want to give verdict on matters he doesn't know the whole story to. Also he said that she should be glad this happened in Italia and not a county with death penalty for this very reason. This lack of belief in capital punishment comes from a belief that killing is in general bad. This is a belief that Americans say through their 'protection' of abused nations, but rarely follow at home in our ever-growing debate of the death penalty. (You know it's true Texas) I first heard of this after school on the way to ping pong practice. Valerio said that there were unconfirmed reports of Gadaffi's death, but he didn't believe them at the time. After returning to the house later we were still sketchy about these reports, but slowly saw through different news channels and that he was dead. Through this disbelief in capital punishment, the general feeling here is that he should of stood trial and gone to prison for the rest of his days. This will differ for every person you meet as do all issues in the world. Before WWII it may intrest you to know that the country of Lybia was an Italian colony. Many Sicilians moved there for economic prosperity. They did very well for themselves built a thriving Italian community. After WWII though they became independent of the motherland and became a separate country. Eventually Gadaffi came along, and with his rise to power he force all citizens of Italian descent to leave the country, those who resisted were jailed. This created a foundation for the ill-feelings towards the dictators regime. Sicily has also lived in constant awareness that they are the first to be invaded if Gadaffi did as he said and marched into Europe. In general, I would say that Italia is content with his death.

The Prince of Italy

Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute
Just Sit Right, Si
I'll tell you how I became the Prince of Great Italy

Near Philadelphia, born and raised
In the classroom there I spent most of my days
Chillin' out maxin' and relaxin' all cool
And studin' my Italian after highschool
When a couple of Rotarians who were up to no good
Asked me to go to Europe if I could
I went to one little meeting and got some flair
And said, "I'm movin' to Italia, I'll see you there"

My family whistled out and when they came near
They said," Your one of us now, don't have any fear".
If anything I can tell that this family's rare
But I thought, "Now forget it, Yo Italia, don't stare"

We pulled up to the house about 3 or 4
And I yelled to the family, "I can't ask for more"
I looked at my kingdom
Alla fine sono qui
To sit on my throne as the Prince of Italy

(To all Italians who read this, I am not your Prince or anything, but this is a joke Americans will find funny)

Me on Italian News

So I was in Italian news today, no big deal.