Christmas 2011 in Sicily

Ok, actually it was planned to spend this year's Christmas at home in Germany. However, in the end things came differently. There was a bit too much "trouble" (to put it mildly) around the organization of the Christmas celebrations and consequently I changed my flights last minute to spend the holidays entirely together with Marco. We were actually just supposed to spend New Year's together in Bologna, from 28/12 to 02/12, but this way I also joined him for the Christmas celebrations down at his home in Sicily :-)


Thursday, 22/12:

I left the office about 2 hours earlier to catch my flight at Gardermoen airport. As initially planned I used my flight ticket to Dusseldorf. This time I didn't get picked up, though, as usual. My mum and her husband had left - also as a consequence to the "trouble" around the Christmas planning - for some holidays out of home. So this night I planned to stay at my brother's place in Opladen, which is North of Cologne and thus on the way between Dusseldorf airport and home. Since he was still working that afternoon, I had to pick public transport from the airport to Leverkusen Mitte. Only there my brother Max came to pick me up.
Upon arrival at his apartment, I was welcomed by some great food which his girlfriend Anna had prepared for us in the meantime: typical German "Klöße" (potato dumplings) with red cabbage, sausages and a sauce :-)

The evening passed by quickly washing dishes, chatting and watching a bit of TV. We went to bed early as my brother had to get up early the next day.


Friday, 23/12:

While he was gone to work (by car), Anna and I took the train from Opladen to Bonn where we had a transit of a little bit more than an hour as I still wanted to stroll over the Bonn Christmas market and get some stuff to finalise some Christmas presents.
At around 12:30 p.m. we took the local train from Bonn home to Meckenheim where Anna's mother picked us up. Together we went to their place where I was invited to join them for a lovely lunch. That was very kind of them :-)
In the afternoon Anna accompanied me to my home as I still had to get some things prepared before heading the next morning down to Sicily. Actually I was waiting for my brother to finish work and to come to Meckenheim as well. As I couldn't be bothered to carry up my suitcase 3 floors to his apartment the evening before, I had left my luggage including all the presents in Max's car. So when he arrived at 5.30 p.m. I started finishing some presents that I would leave to the people at home and then we headed together to some friends of the family. It's actually an elderly couple which are like younger grand parents to my brother and me. They knew that our parents (i.e. my mum and her husband) were gone and so they had taken care of preparing us some food for that evening. So we stayed over for dinner at their place to enjoy some great "Zwiebelkuchen" (a kind of onion quiche - a one-crust pie made of steamed onions, diced bacon, cream and caraway seed on a yeast dough) - very yummy :-) Thanks, Hanna, for having taken care of us that evening :-)
Well, after that my brother left for a Christmas party somewhere in the area and I went back home to finish with all the stuff I still had to do before leaving again: wrapping more presents, writing Christmas cards, ironing, etc.


Saturday, 24/12:

All that actually took me that long that I was in bed at 1 a.m. only; 2 hours later my alarm rang again and I had to get up again. It was time to head back to Dusseldorf airport. My brother - who hadn't gone to bed yet, but came straight from that Christmas party - picked me up at home and he drove me to Dusseldorf. Thanks, Max! Your effort was highly appreciated :-)
My flight left Dusseldorf airport at 6 a.m. and by 8:40 a.m. I landed at Catania airport Fontanarossa. Happy that also my suitcase arrived I proceeded to the bus stop where a bus would bring me to Agrigento on Sicily's south coast where Marco's parents live. I'm kind of used to the way of living and to how things work down there and still I'm surprised and astonished over and over again when I see the chaos and disorganisation of the most simple services:

(You can skip this part if you don't need further details on the Sicilian chaos)
I was one of the first at the bus stop, waiting at the front of the bus parking for the bus to arrive. While waiting more and more people arrived and "kind of" queued behind/around me. At one point a bus arrived which was going to another destination. Right in the same moment "my" bus to Agrigento arrived and stopped behind the first bus. So all the people queueing behind me started rushing down to the second one. This way, me having been waiting at the beginning, the top of the parking, was suddenly behind. Ok, nothing unfair about this. That's the way it is.
Normally, when you're travelling in two, one person already gets on the bus to secure the seats while the other person puts the suitcase in the luggage compartments of the bus. Me travelling alone had to first place my own luggage and then had to try to get a place in the bus. Last year this was exactly the same situation and was the reason why my suitcase travelled in one bus and me in a second one as the moment I wanted to get on the bus where I had just put my suitcase was full!!!
Anyways, this year at least I managed to travel together with my suitcase. However, the bus was a double-decker which had only one high up luggage compartment in the back of the bus. I want to underline "high up". So I had to heave up my suitcase (= 20 kg!) above my head to place it in that compartment. Do you think someone would have helped me? No, not at all. Everyone was so busy and egositic throwing their stuff in there and rushing for getting a seat in the bus. One man even tried to jump the queue before me!
Well, once I was done with that excercise, I even managed to get a seat on that bus! Wow! Congratulations! Suitcase somehow in the bus and a seat!!! So far so good! We left.
However, on each of the stops on the way to Agrigento, I went off the bus. I was educated by Sicilians to never leave my luggage out of sight when the bus stops somewhere as otherwise someone might just steal it if you're not paying attention to it. Thus, standing outside the bus at each interim stop I saw the people climbing into this luggage compartment and throwing the suitcase around in there, sitting or stepping on them, regardless of eventually destroying them. It was exactly the same image as people digging into the far deep of a bargain counter of clothes to find the item they are looking for. The luggage compartment looked exactly the same! Welcome to South-Italy!


Well, after over 2 hours I eventually arrived in Agrigento and my only slightly destroyed suitcase with me :-) Marco was already waiting for me at the bus station! It was a really nice day and so we stopped at the house where Luigi Pirandello was born, an Italian dramatist, novelist and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. Unfortunately it was closed and so we went straight back to Marco's home.

Arrived at Marco's place I wrapped the presents brought for his family before having lunch. After lunch though, I just had to lay down for a nap. After only 2 hours of sleep the night I had by then been up for about 12 hours. I was simply too exhausted!

It was anyway only in the evening, at around 8:30 p.m., that we went for the Christmas dinner to the family of Marco's mother's side.

(me and Marco's cousin Elisa, and Marco's father in the background)

I think it was at around 1 a.m. that we were back at home at Marco's place. Filled with a lot of good food I fell to bed and slept immediately.

*~*~*~*~*~*
M E R R Y   C H R I S T M A S  E V E R Y O N E
 *~*~*~*~*~*

Sunday 25/12:

Sleeping in!!! Sooooo good!
However, only shortly after getting up and having had a shower, we left the house again. This time to Zia Mela, Marco's aunt on his father's side to continue celebrating now with a part of the family there.
Not all his relatives from that side could join, but some. On today's programme: again a lot of food!

(f.l.t.r.: Marco's cousin Ivana and his mother)

(Marco's cousin's daughter Chiara - a little shy but cute)

Not missing: the typical "Cassata Siciliana", a round sponge cake layered with ricotta cheese and some filling similar to the cream used in Sicilan cannoli. It is covered with a shell of marzipan, pastel or simply white colored icing and a decoration of candied fruits characteristic of Sicily. Though super sweet not really my favourite.

Also very typical, though, the finger food sweets like the Sicilian cannoli or ricotta or whipped cream filled pastries.

The mandarin tree in Zia Mela's garden.

(Marco's cousin Carmelo with girlfriend Giovanna)

After the filling lunch, Marco, his brother Dario and I went for a stroll and a café to the beach in San Leone, the sea village of Agrigento. The light was fantastic and I could only try to catch it with my camera.

And as it is typical for Christmas in Italy (or at least as I got to know it in the south) we played games in between the meals: poker or other card games or very common also "tombola" (=bingo).

So after having been to church with Marco's mother and his cousin Ivana, we opted for some "tombola". I wasn't really successful, though, with the plates I played... :-(

After the game session it was time for more food. Dinner time! We survived also that load of food and went home before midnight.

Monday 26/12 & Tuesday 27/12:

The next two days passed quickly. We've met up with friends of Marco during the days and also in the evening of 26/12. That evening his best friend Eugenio and his wife Valentina invited to their place for a playing evening. We were a group of approx. 12 people playing "minimo, massimo" and this time I had more luck and won about 5 €, not much, but at least something :-)

The evening of 27/12 Marco's parents had invited some really good friends of them for dinner and playing. It was three couples which I had met before. However, apart from the game part of the evening, there was not much fun, as I really don't know what to talk with these people. We played baccarat and that night I made even more money: plus 15€ :-)

Wednesday 28/12:

This day nothing special was going on. Of course we slept in and basically started the day at and with lunch. After that we packed our suitcases, squeezing everything plus the new presents in it. In the afternoon, Marco and I went to Agrigento to take the bus to Palermo and from there another one further on to the airport. At 22:30 we had our flight to Bologna where we landed at midnight. Another hour had passed until we were home in Marco's apartment and in bed. Unfortunately Marco had to get up early the next morning as he had to be back at work the last two days of the year.

We spent the next couple of days over New Year's Eve in Bologna. Also my friend Sarah from Germany joined us for three days. But about all this together with many pictures, I will post in a next, separate post :-)