Pían Di Sco

 

Pían Di Sco

14 July

14 July

Today I leave Naples.  According to the proverb I can now die.  Although I can not help but think the proverb has been slightly misinterpreted: see Naples and die to me is more likely to refer to the fact that you might get mugged and killed in the back streets rather than a view that life is not complete until you have seen the city...

I had decided that today was the day I would do the tourist bus trip and learn a little more of the city.  But first I would see the cathedral.  Yesterday evening, while walking back to the hotel from the train station, I was accosted by two old ladies who asked me in good but accented Italian, where the cathedral was.  I took them to be German and in my not so good and accented Italian said I did not know but I had a 'thing' that would help.  I pulled out my ipad and while loading the map of Naples explained I had studied Italian in Sicily for two weeks.  After a few more words it dawned on the three of us that we were in fact all English...

The cathedral was as most cathedrals: large and lavish.  Afterwards I cut through the back streets towards the streets where I thought I might catch the tourist bus.   I have to say that despite the dark and dingy, narrow streets, the graffiti and all the political posters these streets do have a buzz to them from the market stalls and the people and, of course, the Vespas coming the wrong way up the one way streets....  As I walked through these streets I saw a sign for ‘Underground Naples’ which was something my host family had mentioned to me as a site worth seeing.  So I went up the narrow alley that led to the door and checked put the opening times.  Although it was shut, according to the sign I had about half an hour to wait until an English guided tour so I thought I would just sit in the sun and relax. 

The English tour was to start at 10.00 so I had assumed that the place would open in good time before that but at five past the hour somebody wandered up nonchalantly with a small dog and unlocked the place.  There then followed another twenty minutes or so of sorting out tickets and cash registers and whatever else had to be done before any tours could be started so it was nearly 10.30 by the time the assembled masses had been let in, bought their tickets and the tour started.  But, I am of course in  

Herculaneum

13 July

I woke early and had already decided that today was the day I would go to Herculaneum.  I had been told that it was better and more interesting than Pompeii and less crowded.  So I skipped out of the hotel before breakfast with a view to get down to the train station, to get to Herculaneum early and to beat any crowds.  

Having got my ticket to Ercolano, the local station for Herculaneum, I then could not find the platform for the train service.  The reason? It turned out, once I had found somebody to ask, that there were no trains and I was on a bus.  So off to the bus terminal to face the next challenge; with one massive long bus shelter, no bays at all and no boards giving information, how to know which bus to get on?  By chance the first person I asked happened to be the driver for the bus I needed so I hopped on board and awaited the departure.

Herculano, the nearby town where the ruins of Herculaneum were first discovered in the mid 1700s before Pompeii but once Pompeii was discovered attention was diverted there as it was far easier to excavate.  It is only a twenty minute bus ride from Naples. I was dropped off at the local station, but as it turned out a different station from the one I expected and had read about.  So courtesy of Google maps (I am so pleased I bought that 3G card...) I set about trying to find the ruins.  

Now you might think that something as famous and fundamental to the tourist trade of the local town (which was like Naples in its run down appearance and general scruffiness) would be well signposted. Well, you would be wrong.  I headed off along the street that headed up the hill that is the side of Vesuvius and the state of the town only seemed to get worse.  Roads dug up, people sitting around on the streets and lots of small market traders set up and plying their rather tatty goods to, well, nobody.  I popped into a shop to buy some water and ask the way and ended up having a chat with the shopkeeper about why I was in Italy and the best places to go to in Naples and around and also to be told that I had passed the back entrance to the archaeological site a few hundred yards back (no signs though and it turned out to have been locked anyway).  But I was also advised that I should visit the Herculaneum virtual museum just around the corner before visiting the site. This fairly lengthy chat was not only informative but it impressed upon me just how much Italian I must have learned in the previous couple of weeks as I found it straightforward.  I took the shopkeeper’s advice on the virtual museum and it turned out to be a great little place (although I had to ask the way a couple of times and the only signpost I saw for this was right by the entrance...).  An interesting computer generated virtual tour of some of the buildings in the geological site.  

Next stop Herculaneum which was interesting and kept me occupied for two or three hours.  The trouble with being able to see everything on the internet or on the television nowadays is that the impact of something truly impressive is diminished.  As I walked around the streets of Herculaneum, looking at the remnants of painting on the walls and the remains of personal items left behind, I kept having to remind myself that the whole place had been uncovered from under 40 feet of volcanic 'tuft' and to recall some of the more impressive paintings that had been found here but were now in the Naples Archaeological museum.  It was otherwise too easy to simply wander round the remains of the streets and houses and think...'yeh, and?'

I left Herculaneum and walked back down to the town centre where I had been dropped off.  My next problem was to find out how and where to get a bus ticket but, upon asking in a bar, I found that they could not only sell me a ticket but - while I was waiting for the bus - a couple of beers and a Panini too.

I got home in the late afternoon and determined that I would tonight go and see Naples in the evening.  But again, after a shower and finishing off the cheese and bread I had because I was a bit peckish I ended up once again lazing the night away with the strains of British radio over the Internet.....

To Naples

12 July

I will have to stop forming my life views from what I have seen in old films....overnight travel is not quite as exotic as those old dramas would have us believe: no wooden lined cabins with individual bathroom; no smooth and silent trip; and certainly no manic, world-dominating criminal mastermind breaking in to kill you.  Last night the train arrived late (as Enrico had advised me it would!) and I got in and found my nominated cabin; three snoring guys were already occupying the other three beds in the small room and I climbed into my bed and settled in for the night.  It was a somewhat disturbed evening; the steady clunking of the rail tracks, the swaying of the train and the occasional screeching of the brakes all prevented you sleeping too long or too deeply.

We arrived at Naples at about 7.30am and I decided to walk to the hotel to get a feel for the city; it was less than a mile away and looked a quite straightforward route.  My first impressions of Naples were that it is still under construction: a large area directly in front of the station was surrounded by construction boards and traffic diversions and the main road towards the hotel seemed to be one long road works.  In fact, during the course of the day it appeared that most of the main routes I walked down had work going on along their length.

I arrived in the old town and at the small hotel (it's quite funky) too early to check in so, after a coffee there, I left my bags and took my rather reesty body off to explore the city until the afternoon when I would be able to get into my room and freshen up.  I managed to cover a few of the sites including the castle, the plebescito square, the archaeological museum (very good with artefacts rescued from Pompeii and Herculaneum and Rome), galleria umberto and my personal favourite, Sanservo Chapel to see the amazing 'veiled Christ' carving.  

I also checked out the theatre but decided that an Italian opera I had never heard of was possibly just a tad too heavy for the evening.  After that it was time to wander back to the hotel to check in and to freshen up with the intention to go and catch the tourist bus around town in the late afternoon.  

Walking around leaves you with an interesting impression of the city. There certainly wasn't the traffic that I expected from the reports I'd previously heard although the main streets more than made up for the lack of traffic with the amount of  roadworks.  The back routes are brooding and tatty and covered in graffiti or political posters or both.  There's the reek of piss and poverty in those narrow and dirty streets and yet there is a certain character there too if you can see past those things.  Nevertheless, it's not a place I would choose to come to for a romantic break.....

Once I got back to the hotel I made for the room and the shower; I definitely needed to refresh myself.  But after that I lay on the bed, relaxed and clean, and fell asleep; last night's trip on the train was not too bad but I had not slept that well.  The trouble with being clean and relaxed is that you find it difficult to motivate yourself to other things and so it was that when I awoke in the late afternoon I realised it was too late to go and get the tourist bus and I was quite happy to lie on the bed catching up on Radio 4 dramas and eating the fruit and cheese I had in my bag rather than go out for dinner.

Last Day at School!

11 July

It is my last day! It is hard to believe I have been here two weeks already and I know I will miss this place.  The school is really friendly and small, and the town - sat between the two sides of the peninsula - is surrounded by sea on two sides and has an easy feel about it without being too quiet or having too much bustle.  It has a buzz at night with a few bars and restaurants that do good trade but it is not manic.

After school it was back to the house to finish packing prior to my midnight train to Naples. I spent the afternoon quite leisurely, listening to English radio over the Internet and then went back into the centre for a very quick beer with Anastasia and Joel before rushing back to a farewell dinner at Enrico's and Melissa's.  Now I am replete with pasta and Sicilian sausage, red wine and beer and, after heartfelt farewells, sitting at the railway station awaiting the (delayed) train to Naples....

More Milazzo

10 July

Well last night's dinner was very nice: swordfish and aubergine with pasta.  This is apparently a Sicilian classic and is what I will now be cooking when I am in Tuscany with Hazel and Neil.  We polished off a bottle of wine and shared a rambling conversation in Italian with a bit of English and Spanish thrown in for good measure.  I'm not always convinced that Enrico and Melisa understand everything I say but we seem to make progress...

School was the usual three hours or so of nothing but Italian and grammar, but not in a bad way.  Since we seem to be able to spend nearly all that time speaking in Italian we must have learned something.  The mid-morning break is always a pleasure as we go to the cafe up the road for our coffee or ice cream or grenita (or sometimes all three...) and that is a time to speak English and let the brain wind down a bit.  Today though Elvira joined us and as she speaks little English we remained speaking Italian.  

I decided that as I am approaching the end of my time here it was about time I tried to visit one of the small museums.  The trouble, as ever, is the siesta that limits the time you can get to see such things.  Elvira, the teacher, volunteered to have a word with the people that run them about opening times and accompany me on the trip as she is into archaeology and local history.  So after class I did some work at school, sorted some emails and other such things, and then went back to the house before coming back to meet Elvira at the school.  As it turned out we visited both museums, the first an archaeological museum with finds from Milazzo's past that ranged from Neolithic through to Greek and then Roman.  I was given an hour's tour in Italian explaining these things and to my amazement I understood most of it.  The second museum was even smaller and was an old jail that now stored things from the industrial past of Milazzo.  It was a like an organised version of my dad's garage with small displays covering the ship building, tuna fishing, wine making and jasmine growing that have all been part of Milazzo's local industry.  Again, I understood the majority of what I was told but I was also aware of the concentration it required from me.

Afterwards we wandered down to the beach for a prearranged meet with Joel and one of the new guys (a German policeman) who has joined the school this week.  The plan was to go for a swim prior to eating but I got there late and the wind was really up with massive waves of over 12 feet rolling in.  It looked great fun but the guys were just getting out so I didn't get to have my dip and we all ended up in a small pasta restaurant a couple of blocks from the sea.  After a nice meal, some rough old wine and a limoncello I wandered back to the house and to bed in readiness for the forthcoming hangover.....

Sicilian Dinner

9 July 

I never made it to the bar to watch the football and learned on the morning news that the score was 7-1 to Germany. I reckon I definitely missed out!

Another day of intense grammar, another day when I feel at one moment that I can follow everything that is being said and then a moment later wonder whether I'm suddenly in a Greek lesson as I have no idea of what is being said. The Italians have a habit of joining short words together to create new ones and these were what we covered today. Afterwards I wandered home and spent a quiet afternoon listening to English radio and looking at what I might do in Naples.  So nothing too taxing.  Tonight I will be given a 'lesson' in Sicilian cooking in readiness for a meal I will be cooking for friends in Tuscany.  I have just found out it is some pasta dish which includes swordfish and aubergines...yum yum.

English Dinner

Tuesday 8 July

Another day at school, another set of verb conjugations...  

Actually, today was not too bad and a lot of the stuff we covered was stuff I had studied at home before coming over here. The problem I am having is not so much actually speaking Italian but not speaking Spanish.  I continue to throw in Spanish words without realising it and then don't understand the blank look of the teacher when I think I have just spouted a great piece of well structured Italian grammar. The mornings do go quickly and there are more students here this week although I have yet to really meet them other than Anastasia, the young Russian who joined Joel and me this week...

After school I agreed that, other plans permitting, I would meet Joel in the regular haunt to watch the Germany/Brazil match with a beer or two.  I then toddled off to go shopping for that night's main extravaganza for tonight was the night I cooked my hosts here an English meal, a delight I promised them last week.  The challenge was not so much finding the usual ingredients (I couldn't), or getting used to a new kitchen (I didn't) but trying to decide what a typical English dish might actually be... In a hot a sultry July deep in southern Italy the thought of stews and casseroles is not that enticing....  I plumped for Shepherds' Pie but with beef instead of lamb (couldn't get it), or English mustard (couldn't get it) or some of the usual herbs (couldn't find them). The problem is twofold, firstly they don't have a lot of the stuff here and even if they do by the time I get out of the school everything is shut for siesta other than one or two small places which I am then obliged to shop at.  Anyway, despite everything it went well and despite my concerns of the discerning Italian palette they seemed to enjoy it.  I think the story about how my mother used to make it for me when I was young touched their Italian family sentiments and I reckon after that I could have baked a pile of cow poo and still got a good reception....!

Back to School

Monday 7 July

So, the beginning of another week.  I follow my usual morning routine of getting up early, banging my head on low ceilings, doing my homework and then walking to the school, about a mile away, through the residential areas of Milazzo.  About two hundred yards from the school is a great little cafe where I stop for my morning cappuccino and maybe a cake and then get to school for the 9am lesson.  

This week we have a new teacher who we both agreed might be a bit of taskmaster.  Elvera is the teacher that leads a lot of the optional external visits and insists that everything spoken is in Italian. This is great except, when you don't understand and you try and explain in Italian what your problem is, there are times when it becomes clear from the answer you get that you really did not say what you thought you had said about the thing you didn't understand.  Or alternatively you end up saying that you did not understand the explanation of the thing you did not understand previously and the chances are you won't understand the explanation of the explanation of the thing you did not understand, and so it goes on until your head explodes......

After our mid morning break, where Joel and I wander to the local coffee bar - where we are now considered regulars - and have a proper coffee (but not a cappuccino as by the laws of Italian coffee drinking it is forbidden by this time).   We might even have a grenita if we feel a bit peckish.  

On Monday we came back after our break to be introduced to a new class mate.  After a week of just the two of us it was bad news that we now had another student joining us.  The good news though is that Anastasia is a young and very attractive Russian from Moscow.  I reckon that maybe our Italian will not improve so much this week owing to the new distraction.....

That aside, things require a lot of concentration but I reckon I am learning a lot.  I seem to understand more of what is being said, although that does not necessarily extend to what you hear from people in the street; that remains a mystery at times with only the occasional word being recognised, although we were told last week that the Sicilian accent is hard to understand at times and they also use of lot of different words and phrases to the rest of Italy. 

I managed to book myself a hotel in Naples for the coming weekend, somewhere in the old part of town.  One of the teachers here waved his hand generally over the map of Naples I presented to him when I asked where the good and bad parts to stay were as I don't know the city.  So with that clear advice I went ahead and booked something at random.

I wandered home and spent a short time with Enrico and Melissa before heading out again as tonight, being a Monday, is the regular night for those that want to go and have a pizza as a sort of 'meet and greet' between old and new students. Of course everything has to be in Italian and last week was a bit painful; it was my first day and of the four students there, most had done four weeks or so of Italian and so were relatively good.  However, with a week under my belt and some new students I reckoned that the level of Italian might be lower and more in keeping with my abilities.

I was surprised just how many students there were, a total of about 10 of us of which all were new other than Joel and myself.  I only managed to speak to a German woman and Anastasia opposite me and two polish girls next to me as well as Joel and our new teacher, who seems to be the person earmarked for these evenings.  I have to say though that if these ladies are representative of Eastern Europeans and the Berlin Wall were still up I would probably be trying to get over it.....

After the group dispersed we were left with our class group - Joel, me, Anastasia and our teacher.  We toddled off to grab a late night gelato and I asked Elvera if she wanted a drink and she suggested that we should try some dodgy local liquor, or at least that's what I thought.  So off I went to get the drinks and we went outside and took a table. In the Italian way, before we left I went to pay, as you tend not to pay when you order, and when I came back was told in no uncertain terms that Elvira had already paid.  It seems that she had offered to buy me a drink rather than I buy her one.  So we were forced to have another round, given that I had just parted with good money for one.  Such are the dangers when learning a foreign language......

A Day at Ena

6 July 

Again Joel picked me up at the little square just down the road from the flat and this time we sat in the car for ten minutes deciding what we were to do. We agreed that we would head to Ena, in the centre of the island and billed as Sicily's highest town.   Again we would take the back route which although slower, gave us a far better feel for the countryside.  Yesterday Joel had got me to record the trip on his iphone video - every few minutes I had to film the road and the surrounding scenery - and he wanted me to do the same again today.  It seemed that once more I would be seeing a lot of the scenery we passed through the lens of a camera....

After paralleling the coast for a while we headed south and the landscape changed quite dramatically.  It was still fairly rugged but was now more rolling hills than jagged mountain and was mostly golden cereal crops; in some ways very much like home.... We stopped for a coffee and gelato in a quiet café in a tiny village to celebrate Joel's birthday (actually today rather than yesterday) and then headed on through what seemed familiar countryside.  After a couple of hours we saw Ena a mile or two off, sitting on a jutting and rocky outcrop, and we eventually worked our way up and into the town. 

First impressions were very favourable: nice market squares and clean tidy streets with a castle at one end of the town.  We decided that it would be silly not to have a beer prior to exploring.....  We chose an open air restaurant by the edge of the city with the most amazing panoramic view of the whole plain set out before us and settled in.  Halfway through our second beer a discussion broke out on the table behind us: 

three Italians arguing with their French friends who wanted to contribute to their meal before they departed while the Italians were refusing to let them.  It was all very amicable so I leaned back and suggested, in my finest Italian, that maybe they would like to pay for our beers too as it was Joel's birthday.  In short time we were on the table with them sharing friendly banter in Italian and a bit of French.  The French couple left soon after while we on the other hand were still there five hours later.... We learned that our new Italian friends were a lawyer, the head of the local Green Party in the Sicilian and European political scene plus his male secretary.  We drank more beer and shared a meal and some grappa, chatting away mostly in Italian but with a smattering of English, on the state of Sicily and the world in general.  Of course lots of stuff had to be repeated and we still didn't understand everything although I think we agreed somewhere along the line that ownership is theft, the landowners are criminal and that the revolution around the corner will be fully justified..... Seriously though, it was an education to realise the pride the Sicilians have in their land, how they view themselves as Sicilian rather than Italian, and the poverty that generally exists in the island.  When it came to our turn to leave we ended up in the same position as the French; we were not going to be allowed to pay for anything we had had from the moment we had set foot in the restaurant.  After some debate we finally accepted the situation after the Head of the Green Party told us 'I do not need your money but the people of Sicily do.  Go and spend it where it will do the most good'.  Quite touching words after the afternoon's conversation..... 

Needless to say that by this time there was no chance of sightseeing as we had to get back to Milazzo and despite opting for the quicker toll roads it was dark and late by the time we got back.  No partying tonight- school tomorrow....

Mount Etna

5 July 

On the Saturday I left the flat at 8.30 and wandered down to the local supermarket to buy a few supplies for our day away.  Joel collected me at 9.00 and we headed off towards the south and the coastal town of Tomarrima.  Taking the back road allowed us to see some of the countryside although it was a lot slower.  But our route took us over the mountains that surround the area and after a long and winding route up into the hills we crossed to the opposite side and the ground opened out before us with Etna dominating everything. You can see the volcano from most of the east of the island if you have a clear line of sight although it's not easily seen from most of Milazzo.  From the top of the mountain you could clearly see a clear cloud of steam or smoke blowing away from us.

We headed down towards Torimana with Etna now ever in our view across the fields and trees.  As it turned out it seems we missed the main town - which is billed as retaining an air of exclusiveness - and ended up in a smaller place along the coast; this would explain why the area we ended up in was more lines of umbrellas and cheap hats - although no kiss me quick hats.  

We found a spot on the beach and settled in for a couple of hours; it was hot!  In fact it was so hot that my mobile alerted me to the fact that it has overheated and would not work again until it had cooled down...true!  After a couple of dips in the sea and getting hot enough to know that I would burn we headed off the beach and grabbed a meal and beer in a nearby restaurant before we headed back to Milazzo.

We had decided that we would taken a route back that would allow us to circumnavigate Etna on minor roads so it was slow going and we followed a road that ascended the side of the volcano.  It was interesting to note how the fauna varied - along with the accompanying scents- and at times there were just dark black lava flows with only a few wild flowers.  At the highest point we parked up (strangely there was a large car park and hotel there...) but the landscape was dark and wild and the slope of Etna ascended behind.  After the obligatory photos we made a slow descent down and a relatively late arrival at Milazzo.  

It was another night at the bar, watching the Holland and Costa Rica match on the telly with beer and chips before a late night gelato to celebrate Joel's birthday.  So it was another late night home and even later as I worked on the translation again until 3am...

Tindari and the Coast

4 July 

It's been a week!  Who would have thought it?  I am not sure what I have learned in the last few days but it has certainly been fun.  But I am sure I am now better able to converse in Italian even if we all spend half the time wondering what we are talking about. 

The weekend was spent with my new best friend, Joel, who is the American in my class and who owns a car.  We had agreed that we would make few most of the weekend and travel into the interior of Sicily, staying over, and exploring the parts that we would not normally be able to get to from where we are.  As it turned out one of the girls on the course wanted to come along with us but did not want to spend the night away so we agreed to do day trips instead.  She pulled out at the last minute but Joel and I stuck to plan B and the idea of day trips away.  So after school on Friday we jumped in the car and after grabbing a slice of pizza in a cafe headed of about 20 miles west of here to a place called Tindari, on the coast, which has a set of Roman and Greek ruins sitting on a cliff top.  It was, as ever, hot and sunny with clear blue skies and we made good time getting there.   The ruins were interesting to see and you could see the peninsula with Milazzo some miles away across the sea.  But the heat was tiring and after an hour we 

headed out of the ruins and past the various cafes that lined the road back to the car.  Stopping in one for a 'grenita' (a typical dish from Sicily: slushy ice cream and cream in a glass with brioche. Not bad, even for somebody like me without a sweet tooth).  We then headed back to Milazzo via another small town, Patti Marinero slightly further along the coast where there are meant to be some impressive roman ruins.  We wandered around what was a tiny two street and 'two horse' town that had clearly seen better days before ensconcing ourselves in a big open air beachside cafe to watch the Germany/France football match on the ipad with a beer or two.  We would have watched it on the massive screen at the end of bar but the locals were unable to get it going until literally ten minutes before the end of the match.  I assume that was why we had waiters hovering around us and eager to serve because in every other aspect the place lived down to our expectations..... We decided during the course of the match that we had seen enough ruins and decided to kiss them off, particularly as we had we had not been able to find them earlier.  So it was back to the car and an early evening after the last couple of days of late nights.  Nevertheless it was still about Midnight when I got home and I worked on some translation work as a favour for my Spanish teacher back home until 1am.

Messina

3/4 July 

I think I realise now why my head hurts. Each day, without fail, I pull back the little curtain into my little bathroom and each day, without fail, I bang my head on the low cross beam just inside the door. Have I mentioned that the roof is low?

Another early start to get homework done for teacher after another late night out last night.  After yesterday's (Thursday's) lesson in which, among other thing, we learned some common Italian colloquial phrases - largely based on racial stereotypes it has to be said (to ’do a North American Indian' is to slope off without paying for example) - I rushed back and did a quick turn round in the house and then was off to the school for a trip to Messina, the port town 20 miles down the road and the main route into Sicily 

from the mainland.  I thought about five people from the school would be going (and apart from Joel and me the rest of the students are women) but as it turned out it was just Joel and I. On the one hand I'm glad to have seen another part of the island but on the other, Messina is a port town that has been flattened by earthquakes in the 1700s and early 1900s and so there is little of the original there.  We saw an old Christian church come mosque come church again (this island has been overrun by many people over the years; part of it was even English at one stage although we pulled out in the 1700s - and it seems the reason why is a mystery).  We saw the duomo, or cathedral, which has been rebuilt but is quite impressive,

 

and we saw one of the only original buildings that is still standing.  In general though, we just tried to imagine what the place might have been like before it was flattened.  The day was rounded off with a swim in a part of the town to the north that, if it were not for all the cars parked in the narrow streets, would have been the typical dusty, paint peeling, but nevertheless character laden, Mediterranean seaside village. 

I agreed to meet Joel for a pizza in the town after we got back and then we met up with the girls we had had a drink with last night.  But I think the combination of late nights and the loud music in the open air bar (so different from last night) took its toll and I decided to leave just after midnight and toddled off home to sneak in like a dirty stop out yet again.......

Around Milazzo

2/3 July Thursday 

School starts at 9 which is not bad but it takes me about 20 minutes to walk in from where I am staying and of course I have to stop off for a coffee on the way. So my day starts about 6.30 when I drag myself out of my bed in my small and rather airless room. I dry myself off in the little bathroom I have while standing under the alcove for the skylight; that way I can actually stand up.  I get dressed standing under the skylight in the bedroom for the same reason.... I leave the house at about 8.15 after some breakfast and a chat with my hosts.  So far every morning has been bright and clear and hot.  

The classes follow the same format with no English spoken and three hours or so of teaching from Daniella.  It's been the joys of irregular verbs, definite articles and prepositions and other such stuff but while it sounds all a bit reminiscent of stale grammar lessons in stuffy old schools it is more entertaining than that with Joel and I being made to talk a lot. We still manage to throw in Spanish words and Spanish grammatical constructions between us and in general slaughter the Italian language and I suppose it is testament to Daniella's experience that she actually understands us at times. 

Yesterday (Wednesday) after school I had lunch with Joel in the flat he is staying in above the school and which he shares with other students.  I then came back to the house, did a quick turn round and then headed back for a tour of the old town and castle.  Milazzo is built on a peninsula in the north east of Sicily and the old town is at the northern end of that.  The school is only a short distance away.  We were taken along by one of the teachers at the school who is clearly enthusiastic about the history of her town.  It was three hours of continual Italian and while I understood more than I expected there was lots I did not.  The others on the trip from the school had been studying for three weeks or so and were pretty competent so I got the occasional translation from them but the teacher was determined that Italian was going to be the language of the day.... You know what it's like when you're on a guided tour that goes on, and on, and on.......well this was like that and then some. My head felt like it was going to explode if I heard any more Italian, and that included someone saying my name....

There was definitely a need for relaxation after that trip so the four of us who went ended up in a pizza place and bar sorting the world out (in English!) until the wee small hours.  At 2.30 when I snuck back home to the house, feeling like a naughty teenager, I realised I hadn't done my homework so it was up at 6 this morning and trying to avoid detention.....As they say here: sonno multo stanco.