Catania: The days that follow

 After we unpacked we went to the restaurant in the hostel. The food was cheap and D E L I C I O U S.  I had a cous cous prepared with a mixture of braised meat and tomato.  The residual taste of the meat dominated, sweet fat completely integrated, rich, earthy and comforting.  I made lots of notes.  When I return home I will try to duplicate this and post the recipe here after I nail it down, (true for other recipes as well.)There was just enough tomato to lighten the rendered fat giving it a good pop like a beautiful scarf on a well made sweater. Each bite had a luscious thread of soft meat, pulled apart to fit perfectly on a spoon.   For dessert I ordered Panna Cotta finished with a creme caramel,  still a little warm, but not too warm.  This was indeed the best I had ever eaten.  Usually the texture of the gelatin is too pronounce.    Here the gelatin just added loft.  It seemed the cream was whipped and the gelatin folded in as if to hold the moment of cream perfection like photo can record a memory.  Honestly I had no desire to share but I politely asked thinking. "Please say no friends."  I wanted to watch how it was made.  The perfect texture was a little puzzling.  There was certainly a detail in technique that the maker had discovered after lots of practice.  I could feel the attention to the exact moment of combining ingredients on my tongue as the cream vanished with a gentle press of my tongue on the roof of my mouth.  Squoosh!  Sexy!  Yummy!

 After shelping, eating, drinking a shared bottle of Frappato, the need for sleep came on like a sudden strong hunger, consuming me and all of my focus. I felt like I was melting by the end of dinner. I could hardly stop myself from sliding off the edge of the chair.  I think it was earned exhaustion and release from the overall sense of relief for having arrived and for not being too old to stay in a hostel.   My concern about the volume of jovial drunkenness from the bar was no problem.  I was out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow.  My sleep was completely uninterrupted.  We all slept until almost lunch time.  My priority was catching up with all my lovely people back home:  Post pictures, write e mails.  I skipped laundry for the time.  I was not keen on hanging my clothing in the room in the company of such tiny people.  I was ashamed of the size.  I could only image someone measuring the difference between mine and theirs.  The thought was humiliating. Fortunately my city clothes had hardly been touched and in this case I was grateful to be over packed.  My need to do laundry here was not that bad. 

We arrived the evening on the 31 October.  I had a commitment to arrive in Noto November 2.  City and town time is the time to satisfy logistics.  My needs did not amount to much but the satisfaction of them is hampered still by my inability to speak Italian well.  The list:  hair conditioner.  ( My tresses were beginning to resemble in touch and appearance of  a pot scrubber).  I needed perhaps an internet key, toothpaste,  some cash. and to replenish my minutes on the cell phone.  I set off to do these things on my own.  My little notebook and pen in my back pocket.  I had written down the sentences for each of these needs along with the phonetics with the help of Zoe and the friendly staff at Agora Hostel.



First stop the tabacchi shop for the phone minutes.  I practice while I walk.  I rolled my r's in a purr for the ten minute journey in preparation.  Vorrei una ricorricchi per SIM per favore.  Lots of r's in this. I waited on the side walk outside until all the other customers left.  Me and the smoke lady.  "Salve.  Vorr rr r r rr r r r r ay . ."  saying the sentence as I had practiced.  She got it.  Did not even make a face.  "Quanto?"  Ha Ha She actually responded with a question back and I knew the answer.  "Venti Euro Per Favore." " Due per Dieci va bene? " Ha ha another question that I knew the answer to . "SI."  I sang back to her.    It was a bolstering experience. 

My next job toothpaste and hair conditioner.  I found a farmacia. "Salvi signora."  I was greeted. "Prego?  something something something"  Sounded beautiful and he looked friendly but
I replied with a polite shake of my head, "No Grazie" and continued to look on my own.  Timidity had taken hold.  He spoke so fast I could not decipher the start of one word from the end of the last.  I was too shy.  I left.  I saw the reflection of myself in the glass and could not believe that I would actually CHOOSE to go another day without hair products.  "Who am I here"  I pondered playfully. gazing at the mad frizz I tried to pat into place. 


Low grade deflation in my confidence but not beyond repair.  The next stop was the telephone store for a key for the computer so I could have internet access.  This is a two page entry in my book.  I pace a little and skip taking a number because I was to have a look first.  I arrived at the store just as they opened.  The store like those in America, is not short on business.  People are filing in and I am pretending to be looking.  I pretended  to read and consider  every package and looked in every display case until finally I said, "STOP IT. Go stand on line for your turn."   spoken like a mother frustrated because her child could not keep their hands off of everything. 

My turn came quickly.  I looked over my shoulder a little and leaned slightly over the counter as though I was going to tell the man a secret.  "Ahhhh"  He waited patiently, looking a little confused by my hesitancy.  Crap I just held up my notebook.  He reads and asks a question.  Wide eyed and flustered,  I don't have a clue what he is saying.  He starts using his fingers to draw a picture in the air.  The second try with the drawing he provides a sound track. C A  H Z A H.  Oh! a house.  He is asking about a house, felling like I had just won a little something.  Probably my house.   I tell him I am traveling and have no house.  It goes like this  "Ahh, Viaggiare No Casa."  (To travel, no house.) My hands gesture flat from the center of my body out to the sides like an umpire at a baseball game after a player slides onto base.  "He smiles and puts up his index finger, pulsing it in a forward and back direction, a slight twitch of the wrist.   This is a Italian for Wait a minute.  "Meye free-enda speek veary gud englesh."  Aspetta per lei." I bat my eyes like Bambi and thank him the best I can.  "Aspetta Qua." Indicating with a sweeping gesture of his arms and taking a huge step to the side,  that I am standing in the wrong place. "Ugh." I sigh, the heat rising in my cheeks.   When it is my turn.  I thank her first and apologize for not speaking Italian.  She smiles warmly, accepts and asks how she can help.

"I am traveling in Italy for some time and would like to have an internet key for my computer.  I would like to pay by the month for it because I go sometimes to places without internet."  It seems simple.

"Were you go next?"  she asks.  "Noto"   Apologetically, "This key no work in Noto.  No much work for outside Catania.  The key no good for you I think."  I leave feeling tired, but satisfied to have an answer.

I am free now. The current set of demands have been answered or satisfied.  I return to the company of my young travel companions.  For the remainder of our stay we wonder the city.  Roam into churches, people watch, photograph.  There are many advantages to traveling with the young.  My favorite for this stay was their facility with technology.  Zoe helped with my getting to know the mechanics of my camera and Chris helped me to learn how to organize my quickly mounting collection of images.  I would hardly get the entire struggle out of my mouth before they would come to my rescue.  I felt like a queen really.   They were just so sweet and easy to be with.  It eased the newness of everything.  

With all my photos organized I could not deny a pattern in my growing obsession for photographing old men in Catania.  I have caught the shutter bug from Eleanor and Zoe but I am finding impossible to deny the pattern.  I think maybe I am looking for my dad.  For faces that resemble him, I look for him in their gestures, in behaviors that appear habitual.  I am looking for the things that my dad did because he was raised by Italians.  I am comforted watching old men mop their plates with bread, use tooth picks and hold the door for a lady.  Maybe these things are Italian, maybe they are not, but looking for these things makes me feel like he is visiting me.