A Visit to Noto Antica

Yesterday, finally, I took the time for a walk to the ruins of the ancient city of Noto, now a sort of archaeological park - sort of because the place is left to itself, crisscrossed with motocross trails, church ruins used to shelter sheep during bad weather and who knows what more that I didn't notice.
It took me one hour, all uphill, to reach the eastern city limits with a nice view of the Ionian sea. And then... piles of rocks. I like piles of rocks. I mean real piles, not neatly ordered like in the China wall or the pyramids or some huge fucking cathedral. You know, the spots where hordes of so called humans start to go "oh" and "ah" and "superb" and "magnificent"... usually there I can just think how many had to die and how many died of starvation just that some jerk is now "oh-ed" and "ah-ed" by idiots. The piles I like make me smile, thinking something nasty. Like they built something like twenty churches and monasteries to the glory of some supreme being, who in return, took a few seconds of his precious time and shook a bit the ground. And turned everything into piles of rocks. And shed some more blood, but that's the usual way that supreme beings are well known for.

It was quite a huge place for the time. I climbed the tower of the Palazzo Reale near the main - west - gate and took this picture, the arrow is pointing at the monastery on the cliff on the eastern side. All this bush was the Noto Antica.

Part of the building stones was moved 7 kilometers away, to where the current Noto is, to build some more cathedrals and churches. Some more was looted in the past decades to build country houses and villas in the surrounding areas. And yet so many interesting stuff still lies there around.

Fragments

Same place, nothing going on... well, nothing spectacular, at least. Just to make a post I started collecting short thoughts...

Weather Report

I was told here that wearing only a shirt on the New Year's Eve is not unusual, but are more common the years when you have to put a light jacket on, too. Unless I'm here. Read it on the newspaper, it was the coldest (and wettest) winter in the last 25 years. Snow all over Sicily, here luckily just for a few hours. And temperatures below zero only for 3 or 4 days. In mid February... 20 C with noon peaks over 25. But during night even today, mid March, we have one digit temperatures. To make it worse the sunshine hits the front of this house around 10AM - great for summer, but at the moment is driving me crazy. When I wake up I have to put on winter clothes and start the fire in the stove.and then I take an hour or more for my morning coffees before I venture out. Around 9AM the air is breathable and I can chop some wood for warming up. Then the peeling starts until before lunch I'm only in my Tshirt. Soon after lunch the process is reversed and it ends with the fire for a cozy evening. This was just theory - most of the days I'm too lazy or too busy to follow the proper "dress code" and I'm catching a cold every third day. Luckily Giancarlo provides me with ginger as I wish so I can heal me in a single night.

The Evangelion Messiah

That would be me, of course.In the last four months I spent here I wasn't really all alone all the time and I'm not talking about the drinking excesses with Giancarlo and his friends. There were two couples of returning wwoofers who came back for a short visit. Both couples were curious as to what do I do in the evenings here, all alone. "Well, mostly I drink and when I don't I watch my animated Japanese series." Luckily in Italy the otaku culture is still quite popular and I'm not looked at as some brainless freak. And then comes, always, The Question: Which is my favorite anime? And The Answer, always, is: " It is, was and will be Evangelion!" And then we watched it together. Twice in 4 months to add to al least 7 times before... well, I'm buying a beer to everyone who watched EVA more times than I did!

Rue

Rue is growing wild on the property. When I found some bushes I asked Giancarlo why he's not putting in the grappa. He looked at me as if something was wrong with my brain. But his friend Enzo was more interested in such a "crazy experiment". So I did it and hid the bottle for a month. Now Giancarlo is a grappa drinker (he was never keen on it before) and Enzo regards me as his best buddy. Thinking of it, I'll have soon to go to pick some fresh rue, the old is washed white with all the refills done...

Lemons

Giancarlo gave me an amazing gift when I told him that I'm flat broke. He gave me all his lemons - they were anyway fated to rot. I had to pick them and he took them to a local dealer. A bit more then 500 kilos at 30 cents per kilo. I'm not rich, but I sure am grateful.

Booze

Not a single beer since the beginning of November.

Smoking

I have to save money so I smoke mostly joints. Tobacco costs. I got a bag full of weed for free.

Language

It's not that difficult to understand Sicilian unless they swallow half of the word. A strong Spanish influence, like muliera for moglie or travaglio for lavoro. As for joke I found some similarities with Istrian because here they've never heard of red wine - they only make black wine. And white, too, similar to malvasia, 14%, great to mix with water. The folks I met all speak proper Italian with me, but between them they easily slip into dialect and mostly I can follow them. Once they asked me if I could understand what were they talking of. Yes, almost 80% of the words and basically all of the meaning of the conversation. "You're amazing," was Enzo quick on the comment, "I don't understand half of what I'm saying..."

Snow And Happy B-Day

Still in the same place - more than 2 months now. A good thing about EU, I don't have to check the calendar when my tourist visa expires, so I'm taking my time.
Believe it or not, this winter is snowing even in Sicily. Could that be just because I came here to pass a cozy winter? It wouldn't surprise me. Still, luck is on my side. Here I saw snow just for a few seconds, it was melting the second it touched the ground. And it was a sunny day. Weird weather.

But in other parts of the island is much much worse, I see in old newspapers that the snow is coming down properly, caused by some cold winds coming from Russia. Another plot by Putin, I guess. Not that I care.

More important was my B-day. Since Giancarlo had to have a reunion with his two best mates, he decided to have it on my birthday.

I set everything in the morning and then slowly drank my wine, till Giancarlo, his son and his friends came.

Giancarlo's son Corrado enjoying the sun.

Some of the goodies that came with them.



Enzo is making an oranges - onions salad....

... and he also made the artichokes....

... and he brought some botarga (tuna eggs) - but I made the spaghetti with botarga!
Then it was time for the cake. It reminded me of an out-of-season birthday I had in Japan, when together with my son we had a cake made especially for otakus, with a beautiful picture of EVA 01 on it. As the Japanese cake was a feast for the eyes, the Sicilian was for my tastebuds (with all respect for the Japanese bakers!). It was a classic cassata made with ricotta. Mind me, noit cottage cheese. Ricotta. I don't give a shit what dictionaries or guugle translators say. It just isn't the same.

In the late afternoon it started to get chilly (= fucking cold), so we moved inside even the barbecue and opened some grappa, which helped us to breathe all the smoke.



Over and out. Hope you all had a nice Xmass and NY. Have no clue when I'm online again.

Noto, Part 2

Nothing new under the sun... or, under the clouds, I should say. There were no news from me since we had few weeks of bad weather and every time I wanted to take the bike to Noto for some free wifi it started raining. Same yesterday, but this morning I woke up to a beautiful sunny day, so here I am. Nothing much going on, just trying to learn Sicilian dialect - I already mastered the Sicilian cuisine. Not a big deal, you just have to know the correct prayers.... yes, prayers. It was here that I first heard that you "add one Ave Maria of olive oil"... which means you continue to pour oil as long as it takes to say the complete Ave Maria...
Nothing more to say. I'm staying here till Xmass or NY or my birthday, will see. And a few pics from when the weather is nice.