bonglonglong

Bon giorno from beautiful Sicily! (Actually, we're back in Dallas now, but I didn't have Internet access while we were there, so I’m sending this belatedly.)

Christian and I came to Sicily to visit his sister, Angela, who has lived here for the past five years. She recently moved into a gorgeous 3 bedroom apartment overlooking the sea in Santa Flavia, about 15kms east of Palermo, the capitol and largest city. Christian’s mom, Vitoria (I just call her “Ma”) had planned a trip to help her get settled into her new place, and since the trip coincided with Christian’s fall vacation, we decided to go, too.

Because of heavy flight loads, Ma and Christian arrived in Sicily on Friday, and I arrived on Saturday. I was hungry from a long coach flight, so I grabbed an “arancini” at the airport. This is the official light meal or snack in Sicily and consists of a ball of cheesy rice stuffed with meat and veggies, breaded and fried. TERRIBLE for you, but it was utterly delicious. They cost about 1 euro at most places (around $1.25), are about the size of a softball, and are filling enough for a small meal. You can’t come to Sicily and not eat an arancini.



On Saturday, as I recovered from jet lag, we ran some errands for Angela’s apartment. She was looking for some furniture, including some chairs for her big balcony with its sweeping view of lemon and olive orchards leading about a half mile down the hill to the Tyrrhenian Sea. (Sicily is triangular shaped, 175 miles wide, and 110 miles from north to south, and is washed by the Tyrrhenian Sea on the north coast between it and Italy, the Mediterranean Sea on the southwest coast between it and Tunisia, and Ionian on the southeast coast between it and Greece. Sicily is the football at the tip of Italy’s boot, and there are less than 2 miles of water between Sicily and the Italian mainland.)



A view of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the bay of Santa Flavia from Angela’s balcony.

Well, since I’m already talking about Sicily, I’ll break from our rather mundane Saturday afternoon to tell you a little more about it. Sicily is the largest of Italy’s provinces by geographic size, and the third largest by population. It has the mildest climate in Europe (it’s also the southernmost European point), which accounts for its historical role as Europe’s breadbasket. It’s a very rugged island, with the highest point at Mt. Etna, 10,991 ft high, which is snowcapped several months out of the year. Etna is Europe’s most active volcano, and has been erupting almost continuously throughout recorded history. Despite its constant belching of lava, ash, and boulder bombs, more people have been killed by lightning strikes on its slope than have been killed throughout almost 3,000 years of recorded history by lava, earthquakes, or pyroclastic flows.

Those 3,000 years of history are among the most varied and violent in all of Europe. The Greeks began colonizing eastern Sicily in the 8th century BC (though it was inhabited by earlier civilizations for many centuries before) and the Phoenicians took over the western side. This began a series of conflicts that was successively joined by the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Arabs, the Normans, the French, the Spanish, and the Italians, and all have left very strong cultural and architectural imprints on the island.

Back to furniture shopping…

This led us into Bagheria, one of Palermo’s largest suburbs, and the location of the language school where Angela teaches. While we discovered that Angela’s rent is remarkably cheap (around $400 for her gorgeous, modern, 3 bedroom apartment with glorious ocean views), stylish furniture to fill such a deserving space is priced quite similarly to the stuff we find here in the states. Similarly, food in Sicily is VERY cheap by our standards (restaurants you and I would consider quite nice charge between $6 and $12 for a main course with a very inexpensive wine list populated mostly by fantastic Sicilian wines) but gas is pricey, around $5.50 per gallon when we were there.



(A view of an olive grove from Angela’s balcony.)

We went grocery shopping afterwards. I found that veggies (almost all grown locally, so they’re very fresh) were really cheap, as was pasta and wine. Eggs and milk were really expensive. The big shocker was that olive oil, Sicily’s largest export, was priced about the same that it is here, around $6-$8 for a liter. Sicily grows the widest variety of olives anywhere in the world, and they literally have hundreds of types of olive oils, from pale yellow to fluorescent green. Angela’s best friend, Rosie, has an olive grove and her parents make their own extra-virgin olive oil from it, so I happily forked over $30 to bring back 6 liters of the stuff. Ask me for a taste next time you come over. It’s unreal.

I was also amazed by the different varieties of eggplant. Called “melanzana” there, the Sicilians can’t get enough of it, and there must have been at least six different varieties at both the grocery store and the fruit stand where we stopped. They also sell these bizarre zucchinis that are about 4 feet long, squiggly, and as big around as two of your fingers. I can’t imagine what a whole field of those would look like.



(A view of a small castle from Angela's balcony.)

After an evening nap, we drove to Palermo to have dinner at one of Angela’s favorite places. It’s in a back alley in a centuries-old building that looks like a cave. Dinner was late, the European way, around 10pm. We ordered caponata for an appetizer, a traditional Sicilian dish of fried eggplant in a sauce with tomatoes, capers, olives, and pine nuts. This restaurant threw in a twist with big chunks of swordfish. Bon appetito! I was desperate to order a vat of the fresh steamed mussels that many people around us were eating, but Angela forced me to get the porcini mushroom ravioli with the ricotta mushroom sauce. After that I let her order for me the rest of the trip. That pasta was literally the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. I know I exaggerate a lot. But this was no exaggeration. Everything about it was perfect. This set the trend for what was to be the most memorable aspect of the entire trip…the food.

That may sound a little disappointing or mundane for most of you (especially compared with my typical, high-adventure trip reports), but it’s certainly something to expect from a society which centers itself around food. Nothing business or social is done in Sicily without food. And it’s quite normal for Sicilians to utterly reject any type of cuisine but their own. Even Angela’s young, open-minded, well-educated friends would consider my Italian cooking completely inedible because it’s not done “how Mama makes it.” Seven days a week they have pastries and coffee for breakfast, arancini or paninis or pizza for lunch, and a dinner consisting of an appetizer, a pasta course, a meat course, and dessert. Wine is drunk with lunch and dinner by virtually everyone old enough to drink out of a cup, and Sicilians seem to prefer sweet white wines to anything else. Coffee is taken after every single meal, but it’s not coffee like you or I drink. It’s thick, capped with a light-colored foam called “crema” but which has no milk or cream content…it comes only from the way the coffee is extracted from the beans. And it’s served filling only about a third of the capacity of a tiny cup that would look at home in a doll house. Barely a mouthful of coffee the way we drink it. But so potent that you have to take it in tiny little sips. It’s also consumed regularly throughout the day from the coffee bars that dot almost every block in Sicily. You order it, drink it standing up at the bar where it’s prepared, and then pay about 60 cents on your way out.

These coffee bars are also the same place you get lunch (the aforementioned arancinis, paninis, and pizza) as well as sweet snacks throughout the day. Every coffee bar has a gelato case out front and the Sicilians eat gelato (a very rich type of ice cream) inside a brioche rather than a cup or a cone. They take small buns of the sweet bread, hollow out the center, and fill it with gelato. It sounds strange, I know, but Christian and his ever-present sweet tooth, wouldn’t stop raving.

That meal crowned off the day and we went back to Angela’s apartment for an early bed time. The next day was a long excursion to the southwest coast to see Greek temples.



Sunrise from Angela's balcony.

I promise that future emails about this trip won’t be so long, or so food-oriented! It wasn’t my intention to make you scowl at the hamburger you’re about to eat for lunch. But if you do, take comfort in the fact that I’ve scowled at every bit of food I’ve had to force into my mouth since we returned from this culinary heaven.

I have just returned from seeing the film V for Vendetta.

(Fear not, those of you who worry that I might spoil the film for you. I promise not to.)

I had in my mind that it was going to be an action film. When the credits began to roll and "DC Comics" spun across the screen, I figured I was in for two hours of torture.

I left utterly blown away in ways that films do not normally blow me.

V for Vendetta is a masterpiece. It is, quite likely, one of the finest-crafted films I've ever seen. I do enjoy the action genre simply because I like being on the edge of my seat for two hours. But there is never substance to blockbuster action films. There is never artistry behind the script, the soundtrack, the directing. Acting is never its most memorable quality. These things are reserved for the independent/art film genre, or the occasional Hollywood blossom like American Beauty or K-Pax. (Trust me, I had no intention of mentioning two Kevin Spacey films as examples of Hollywood blossoms, and I didn't realize I had done it until after the titles were typed.)

V for Vendetta is a superior film in every aspect. The script, as a piece of literature, is astounding. Upon first appearance of the masked character "V," he delivers the longest alliterative speech I've ever heard. I didn't know it was humanly possible for the letter "v" to be used so many times in 90 seconds (in a coheret speech). Some of Shakespeare's most brilliant and ironic quotations are used liberally throughout the film.

The script, as a work of substance, is both timeless, and timely. You will shudder at how real the world of the film seems, and how possible it is that our future might lie along the same path. But it hearkens back to the timeless themes of revolution and revolutionaries (Guy Fawkes, most notably) that have existed ever since man decided to govern himself.

The characters are brilliant. "V" brings to mind the great, doomed heroes of Hugo's Phoebus and Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo (who, coincidentally, is a hero of "V"). The greatest heroes are those you're not entirely sure you should love, and the greatest villains are those you're not entirely sure you should hate, and this film performs flawlessly on both ends.

These things, amazingly enough, do not get in the way of the film's strength as an action flick. The frat boys behind us enjoyed the explosions and knife fights, completely oblivious to the themes of oppression, revolution, separation (or marriage) of church and state, abuse of executive power... No doubt had they realized such themes were playing in the background, they would not have enjoyed the movie nearly as much. It is a testament to the film that it can be thoroughly enjoyed by separate groups who each scorn the others' taste in films.

The soundtrack is a blend of great classical masterpieces and original scoring...and, as a perfect soundtrack should be...never makes itself noticeable unless it is MEANT to be noticed.

I always criticize directors for casting famous actors in their films, because we're immediately drawn away from a character out of recognition of the actor who is playing the character. Only a handful of actors with superlative talent seem to be able to transcend this boundary. This is my biggest criticism of actors. But shoot me dead if I didn't realize until after the movie was over that Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving were the lead characters. There is not a single weak performance in this film. Not a single one.

The director's unique use of masks is very unconventional in this film genre. True, "Superheroes" always wear masks, and much is made of that metaphor. But V for Vendetta takes the imagery to a different level. Here I cannot expound without giving away some of the film's most powerful moments, so you'll just have to see it to understand.

I can go on, but I shouldn't. Suffice it to say that this is one of the finest films I have ever seen. It spans so many genres so effortlessly. Do yourself a favor and go see it.

Wow. So much has happened today that if I had started to write it all down in my journal, I would have been writing nonstop and nothing else would have happened. The unfortunate side to this is that I have lost many little details to oblivion. The wonderful side of this is that if I had been in journalist mode the entire time, I wouldn't have experienced it all the way I did.

I expected this trip to Egypt to be rather sterile... It's J-P's first time here. We only had 48 hours. We were basically going to see the pyramids and go shopping, and meet Debbie's friends. Touristy, sterile trip.

Boy, was I wrong.

At the dinner party last night (which was FANTASTIC...Debbie's friends are a very international bunch, lots of Brits, Canadians, Aussies, Scots, Germans, and all have lived in many countries all over the world) I was helping clean up and I asked if Cairo had a recylcling program.

"DO WE?" Debbie responded. "Cairo, in theory, recycles 100% of its waste. In reality, it's more like 80%."

"Great! Then where do I put these cans?"

"You just put EVERYTHING in the trash, and every bit of it is sifted through manually and sorted."

In a city of 16 million people? Every bit of trash is sifted through manually?

It's true. Up on a desert hilltop is a group of people, the Coptic Christians, who were "exiled" there by the Cairenese governor in the early 1970s. Their birthright is the garbage of Cairo. They can have it, free of charge, to do with as they will. Their only obligation is to pick it up from people's homes, carry it discreetly away, and remain in the Moqattam district.

Sounds like a terrible deal. And it is. But not unprofitable. The Coptics ask for 5 pounds per year from each resident (just less than a dollar) but they do interesting things with the garbage. With the organic waste, they raise pigs...more than 60,000 of them. The Muslims don't eat pork, but the Coptics certainly do, and so does the expat population. So they can feed themselves, and make a bit of profit on the side. With the cloth and paper waste, they make fabric products and paper, which they sell in shops across the city and export to specialty stores around the world. With the plastic, aluminum, tin, and glass waste, they resell them for various uses (recycling and secondary products). And they are so efficient that the UN believes that Cairo recycles at least 80% of its waste...a good thing in a city with 16 million residents (probably more) that's considerably smaller in land size than the DFW metroplex.

There are many downsides. The garbage is gathered and carried on donkey-pulled carts through the insanity of Cairo traffic, up very steep hills to Moqattam. You can bet that the thousands of donkeys employeed by some 30,000 Coptic garbage collectors are not treated well.

Also, all the garbage is sifted through manually. The Coptics live and work in the midst of impossible filth and stench, and therefore have a life expectancy of 40. In general, they are the poorest of the poor, and do not benefit from the tithing of the Muslim community.

(Coptics, by the way, are the original Christians, descended from those who sheltered the holy family when they fled the wrath of Herod the king, who killed all first-born children in the holy land. The Coptics predate both the Catholic church and Islam.)

So after Deb's friends had informed us of the intrigue and horror of Moqattam and the Coptics, there was nothing left to do but go.

And go we did, bright and early this morning.

At this point, the words run out. Because there's just no way to describe the smell. The piles of garbage, each with a woman and child in the middle, sifting through. The massive bags of sorted garbage stacked 10 feet high lining roadways and alleys. Rotting carcasses being gnawed by dogs, with children eating things that didn't look much fresher only a few feet away. We saw two men riffling through a massive bag of used hypodermic needles, goodness knows what viruses and bacteria might be breeding on their sharp tips. And the flies...

Gut wrenching, to be sure. I was profoundly...horrified? Disgusted? Depressed? I still don't really know how I feel about it.

One thing is for sure...a city of this size and density in a country this desperately poor has no better way to clean and reuse its waste. If all that trash were simply cast into the canals and alleys, as it is in the poorest parts of the city, Cairo would be one big pit of disease and decay. Instead, it incinerates or disposes of the amount of garbage of a city a fraction of its size, and while the Coptics suffer miserably for it, they find a way to profit from it.

After that, J-P and I were dropped off in front of Cairo's most important mosque, the Mosque al Hussein, where Friday afternoon prayers were taking place.

"Don't be visible when afternoon prayers let out," said Anne, one of the teachers who had taken us to Moqattam. "This is the most dangerous part of town, and you're here at the most dangerous time to be here."

Not because of the risk of theft or assault...these things are unheard of in Cairo. But because this particular mosque is where the most devout (and in some cases, most extreme) Muslims come to pray, and Friday afternoon prayers are the most heavily attended of the week.

How exciting! We ducked into a tea shop and enjoyed some of that incomparably good Egyptian tea while we waited for Debbie to join us.

We didn't have any trouble, and everyone around was very nice.

Then it was off to the Khan el Kalili, the massive bazaar, for some shopping. This place is cavernous...blocks and blocks and blocks, alleys upon alleys, many stories high. Debbie is a first rate shopper, and she's been coming to the Khan frequently for five years now, and she even admits she has yet to scrape the surface. Some estimates are that there are 3,000 shops, but there are probably more.

We honed our bagaining skills, but Debbie's presence helped greatly, because she took us to shops where she knew the owners and they gave us incredible prices we'd never have gotten as regular American tourists.

Tonight we went back to Giza and sat on the rooftop of a building a stone's throw from the Sphinx. We had an incredible Egyptian dinner, puffed on apply sheesha, drank Turkish coffee so thick it crawled down our throats on its own legs, and watched the Pyramids glow...these incredible monuments that remained the highest buildings on the planet from 2560BC until the Eiffel Tower was built in Paris in 1889AD. For more than 4000 years they were the greatest achievement of man, and they're no less impressive today, from the rooftop of a modern cafe.

We are exhausted. Tomorrow we fly to London, and I'm not sure if we'll have internet access at the friend's home where we are staying, so you may not hear from me until we return to Dallas on Sunday or Monday.

Be happy you live in a city with garbage collection!

We are back at Deb's after an exhausting day in Cairo. Heck, Cairo is so chaotic and impossibly inefficient that just spending the day doing NOTHING is an exhausting day.

You know you're in the Middle East when, at 6am just as the sun is rising, prayer call startles you awake. From the minaret of the nearby mosque each morning at sunrise (and again four times throughout the day) a chanting voice blares over a loudpseaker, calling the devout to prayer. And in Cairo, you can never be more than a few blocks from a mosque. Prayer call this morning was so loud it sounded like the guy was chanting from the balcony right next to ours!