Nancy and Peter in Sicily

Nancy Bellantoni & Peter Galipault

a beautiful symmetry

We arrived in Catania late in the afternoon of January 31 and were met at the airport by Enrico, our friend from Pozzallo, and Renée, our cousin who came in from Lisbon. It was a beautiful symmetry as we were dropped off at the airport in Boston by our friends Ken and Karen.

By the time we got our luggage and our rental car sorted, it was dark and raining lightly. We caravanned in two cars an hour and a half down the autostrada to Pozzallo and unloaded our many suitcases, bags and guitars into the apartment. Renée stayed with us for a few days, helping us unpack and provision, it was wonderful to have her here!

Business First

Enrico’s father Franco, who is our landlord, came over last Monday to bring the contratto d’affito (the lease) for us to sign. He also brought us a bottle of prosecco and some almond cookies. We had business to do first, going over and signing the lease before we could have the prosecco.

We dropped Renée off at the airport Tuesday, February 3rd. Then we went to visit Mimmo and Fanni at their beautiful and very large apartment in Catania. We walked through the nearby park and down to Via Etnea, the main boulevard of the city center. There the procession for the feast of St Agatha was gathering. A very large crowd of people were in the street and the bands were braying a cacophony of musical notes.

A Bushel Full

Back to the apartment for a lunch of cauliflower frittata and other savory items from their garden. After that we drove up to the ‘country’ villa in San Gregorio, where Mimmo has what you might call either a small farm or a very large garden. He picked a variety of oranges, lemons, grapefruit and cauliflower and collected a few eggs which we loaded up into a small crate. Mimmo and Fanni stayed but gave us all the food plus a bottle of their olive oil (from their olive trees) and we left to go back to Pozzallo. We already had a basket full of grapefruits, oranges and avocados left for us by Franco at the apartment when we arrived. Now we had literally a bushel full of fruit on our dining room table.

Beach Cottage in the Sky

Our apartment in Pozzallo really suits us and we love the neighborhood. We’re on the 8th floor and there’s a small elevator that takes us up to the 7th floor. Then it’s one flight of stairs from there. It's a short walk to the main street and piazza where there are shops and restaurants. There’s a café practically downstairs from us and the beach goes on and on across the street. At night we hear the waves roar even with the windows closed. We call it our beach cottage in the sky.

The weather here lately is a bit unsettled; very windy, a little rain but definitely warmer than it has been in Boston! In the high 50’s to mid 60’s during the day, down into the 40’s at night. Last night there was a massive thunder and lightning storm over the sea which was mighty impressive to watch from our cozy nest.

welcome to sicily!

We got SIM cards for our phones from the TIM store on Wednesday. Now we have Italian phone numbers as well as our US numbers (US numbers which we can only use on WiFi). You can call or text us on any of our numbers, but probably best is to use WhatsApp with our US numbers.

Thursday afternoon we went to a car dealership in Modica, about 20 minutes away, to see about buying a car. Currently we’re still driving the rental car that we picked up at the airport Saturday. Turns out we have a difference of opinion about what kind of car we would like. Peter prefers a smallish SUV but Nancy says that’s too big. She can’t see over the hood and is uncomfortable driving on the narrow country and city roads.

Friday we went to the bank, the local branch of Intesa Sanpaolo, late in the morning to get an ATM card for Nancy. Peter had picked up his on Monday. It’s kind of like going to the butcher in the North End. You have to wait your turn before you can go to the window, which is called a sportello. You're never really sure who is next but there’s seating. We were maybe four people from getting our chance. It took about a half hour and we were finally up. However, our banker was, after about an hour, unable to help us because the internet connection was unstable. He wasn’t able to upload our documents. It was the bad weather. It was Catania’s fault… welcome to Sicily.

Saturday, Franco came over with Abdullah, his handyman. He brought labels with our names on them to put on our door, the mailbox and the buzzer to the door outside (we are official!) as well as some other minor fixes.

Oh, and did we mention the food? As expected, every bite scrumptious!