Visiting the church in Catania
Since it's been a while since I've written, I'm going to split up what's happened the past two weeks into two blogs.
The first week of May started out slowly. Actually, April 30th was what they call Notte Bianca (White Night). Most of the major cities have a celebration with bands, events, music shows, dances, and other entertainment. Also all the stores and museums are opened till around 1am. So Florence is just crammed pack with people. Most people and most of my students told me that they stayed out till 2/3am. Robby Shackleford used this event to help raise some money for Help the Children Florence Foundation. Lindsey and I helped him set up Tuesday morning and the others helped him with the event during the White Night. This foundation donates money to the research of a local doctor here who has found a cheap way to do diagnostic tests on infants to detect genetic immunodeficiency diseases. You can read more about it at this website if you would like: http://www.helpthechildrenflorence.org
My favorite part about helping Robby set up was when he parked the van directly outside the Duomo (after driving on several streets that he said he wasn't really supposed to be driving on), asked if either Lindsey or I could drive a stick (only I can), and said, "Oh good. Well, if someone comes, just move the van somewhere while I go find where we're supposed to set up." Thank goodness nobody came because I was not looking forward to figuring out where to move that van in downtown Florence when I haven't driven at all here yet!
May 1st was a holiday here in Italy. It's sorta like labor day, and everyone has the day off. Many students cancelled that week.
Friday evening, Alan and I flew to Catania, Sicily to visit the church there! We got there late Friday night and came back Monday evening! We had a blast! The church there was very friendly and welcoming. They made us feel at home and like we were part of their family. We stayed with the sweetest family. Alan and I are so grateful to Haydy and Igor for their hospitality, and Alan and I just fell in love their two little girls! These girls (3 and 5 years old if I remember correctly) called me the other feminine all weekend. I don't know if they were to shy to say my name or if it was too difficult for them to say (for some reason Rachel is really hard for many people here to pronounce so they usually just say it the Italian way).
Friday night Igor and his family took us to their bed and breakfast up on Mt Etna....yeah, that volcano that you've heard of? That's right. In fact, it's been active these past couple of months and erupting about once a week. We didn't get to see it erupt though!
Saturday they took us to San Giovanni Li Cuti - a place by the sea with large black magma rocks on the beach. It was breathtaking as you can see from the pictures in this blog! Then we met some other people from church for lunch. We got to meet Melissa's (who we live with) family, which was really neat! They were super sweet like everyone else down there. Saturday afternoon we spent the day seeing Aci Castello and the Ciclopi rocks with Andrea (an American girl who did Avanti Italia already) and Dario. These rocks are supposedly the rocks that the Cyclops threw at Odysseus. Then we met with some of the elders and leaders of the church for a meeting about their wants/ideas/needs and our desires/passions for helping.
For dinner we went back to the bed and breakfast and had these amazing calzone type sandwiches that are typical of Catania.
Speaking of food, in Catania they eat a lot later than the rest of ITaly. They typically have lunch around 1:30-2:30ish and dinner around 10pm to even midnight. So, on Friday night, Alan and I were really tired so we took a nap ( I don't remember the exact time but I think it was around 8 or 9pm) and then we woke up for dinner around 10pm or maybe it was even later than that.
Sunday morning we had granita (which is like shaved ice or our Italian ice in the states) and brioche (bread) for breakfast. I forgot to mention this in the food post, but typically Italians eat sweets for breakfast. They'll have cookies with coffee or a sweet bread or a cake, or granita.
Church was such an amazing experience for me and Alan. There were several people there, and there were a ton of little children running around (probably around 15 or so). Everyone was friendly and welcoming and we enjoyed it so much. After church several of us walked to a park near the center of downtown and looked at this really old tree. Then we had a potluck around 2pm. We ate so much good food! They dished up my pasta for me, and not seeing any other food, I thought that was all we were having. So needless to say, I filled up on the pasta (couldn't even finish my plate), and then they brought out the second course with all the meats and vegetables. We were so stuffed, but it was delicious. We sat around and talked with everyone for quite a while before we headed back to the B&B at 5ish. We napped for a little while, and then late in the evening they took us to a Mexican restaurant for a late dinner.
Monday, Alan and I spent the day with Haydy and Andrea touring downtown Catania. Much of catania is built out of lava rock. Their city symbol is the elephant. There is an elephant statue in the center of the main square (piazza), and if you look on google earth, you can see that the main streets in downtown Catania form the outline of an elephant's head! No joke!
After having lunch with Dario's family, Alan and I headed off to the airport and came back to Florence. While we were waiting for our luggage we ran into Emily Woodruff (David and Debbie's daughter who is coming to be the new assistant to the director at Harding's program here in Florence). Then we ran into Kyle and Elizabeth who were waiting for Emily. Florence really is such a small city!
Alan and I had a wonderful visit with the church down in Catania! Thank you to everyone there who hosted us, who made food for us, and who took us around to show us your beautiful city!
PS. Our brains hurt so bad from speaking in Italian all weekend, but it was fun!
The first week of May started out slowly. Actually, April 30th was what they call Notte Bianca (White Night). Most of the major cities have a celebration with bands, events, music shows, dances, and other entertainment. Also all the stores and museums are opened till around 1am. So Florence is just crammed pack with people. Most people and most of my students told me that they stayed out till 2/3am. Robby Shackleford used this event to help raise some money for Help the Children Florence Foundation. Lindsey and I helped him set up Tuesday morning and the others helped him with the event during the White Night. This foundation donates money to the research of a local doctor here who has found a cheap way to do diagnostic tests on infants to detect genetic immunodeficiency diseases. You can read more about it at this website if you would like: http://www.helpthechildrenflorence.org
My favorite part about helping Robby set up was when he parked the van directly outside the Duomo (after driving on several streets that he said he wasn't really supposed to be driving on), asked if either Lindsey or I could drive a stick (only I can), and said, "Oh good. Well, if someone comes, just move the van somewhere while I go find where we're supposed to set up." Thank goodness nobody came because I was not looking forward to figuring out where to move that van in downtown Florence when I haven't driven at all here yet!
May 1st was a holiday here in Italy. It's sorta like labor day, and everyone has the day off. Many students cancelled that week.
Friday evening, Alan and I flew to Catania, Sicily to visit the church there! We got there late Friday night and came back Monday evening! We had a blast! The church there was very friendly and welcoming. They made us feel at home and like we were part of their family. We stayed with the sweetest family. Alan and I are so grateful to Haydy and Igor for their hospitality, and Alan and I just fell in love their two little girls! These girls (3 and 5 years old if I remember correctly) called me the other feminine all weekend. I don't know if they were to shy to say my name or if it was too difficult for them to say (for some reason Rachel is really hard for many people here to pronounce so they usually just say it the Italian way).
Friday night Igor and his family took us to their bed and breakfast up on Mt Etna....yeah, that volcano that you've heard of? That's right. In fact, it's been active these past couple of months and erupting about once a week. We didn't get to see it erupt though!
Saturday they took us to San Giovanni Li Cuti - a place by the sea with large black magma rocks on the beach. It was breathtaking as you can see from the pictures in this blog! Then we met some other people from church for lunch. We got to meet Melissa's (who we live with) family, which was really neat! They were super sweet like everyone else down there. Saturday afternoon we spent the day seeing Aci Castello and the Ciclopi rocks with Andrea (an American girl who did Avanti Italia already) and Dario. These rocks are supposedly the rocks that the Cyclops threw at Odysseus. Then we met with some of the elders and leaders of the church for a meeting about their wants/ideas/needs and our desires/passions for helping. |
| Aci Castello |
For dinner we went back to the bed and breakfast and had these amazing calzone type sandwiches that are typical of Catania.
Speaking of food, in Catania they eat a lot later than the rest of ITaly. They typically have lunch around 1:30-2:30ish and dinner around 10pm to even midnight. So, on Friday night, Alan and I were really tired so we took a nap ( I don't remember the exact time but I think it was around 8 or 9pm) and then we woke up for dinner around 10pm or maybe it was even later than that.
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| granita for breakfast! |
Sunday morning we had granita (which is like shaved ice or our Italian ice in the states) and brioche (bread) for breakfast. I forgot to mention this in the food post, but typically Italians eat sweets for breakfast. They'll have cookies with coffee or a sweet bread or a cake, or granita.
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| Agape at the Church |
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| Haydy, Andrea, and I in front of the Duomo |
After having lunch with Dario's family, Alan and I headed off to the airport and came back to Florence. While we were waiting for our luggage we ran into Emily Woodruff (David and Debbie's daughter who is coming to be the new assistant to the director at Harding's program here in Florence). Then we ran into Kyle and Elizabeth who were waiting for Emily. Florence really is such a small city!
Alan and I had a wonderful visit with the church down in Catania! Thank you to everyone there who hosted us, who made food for us, and who took us around to show us your beautiful city!
PS. Our brains hurt so bad from speaking in Italian all weekend, but it was fun!
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| Just a cute street |
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