PALERMO!

The title of this post is in all caps because I felt like the city of Palermo was shouting at me.  We had one day in Palermo, so we set our alarm for 8 am in order to make the most of it.  But when it rang, I smacked it and rolled right over.  The kids did not wake us up, and we slept another hour and a half.  My throat had started to feel a little scratchy, and I felt like I needed the rest.  I hate that feeling of coming home exhausted from a vacation anyway. 

Nicolo had left a package of fresh cornetti on a little table outside our door.  A quick comparison of a croissant and a cornetti tells you a lot about the difference between the French and the Italians.  The croissant is refined elegance—even those filled with chocolate or ham are restrained, the pastry a bit crispy on the outside.  There is nothing subtle about cornetti. To eat a cornetto filled with ricotta or chocolate is to give yourself over to it.  The pastry is soft and yielding, the filling oozes from the center; you can’t help but get some on your hands and mouth.  It doesn’t matter.  If the croissant is a woman with a perfectly fitted skirt just short enough to show her legs to best advantage, the analogous cornetto woman can pull off unbuttoning one too many buttons on her blouse, wearing redder lipstick than most of us can manage.  Both work somehow.

We dressed, packed up the car, and set out for the Ballaro market.  Loud Arabic music played, vendors hawked their wares at the top of their lungs—many varieties of squid, octopus, olives, sheep heads, every kind of citrus, cheap plastic toys, socks.  It was chaotic and beautiful and assaulting, kind of like Palermo itself. I bought some bracelets made from hand-painted glass beads, which almost definitely came from Africa and not Sicily.  Alec replaced some of his lost socks, and Milo got silly bands.  C.C. got to touch a shark.

When we got to the door of the Palazzo dei Normanni, we learned that January 6 is the Epiphanny, a holiday in Italy.  The palazzo closed at 1:00 pm, and it was just past.  The kids ran around in the garden for awhile and I lay on a bench in the warm sun.  We grabbed lunch in a tiny trattoria—only okay but very cheap, and then caught a taxi to the stadium.  We didn’t tell the kids where we were going until we pulled up in front.  We arrived a little late, and the old stadium practically rocked from the roar of the fans.  We picked up a knock off Pastore jersey for Milo—Palermo’s colors are Pepto Bismol pink and black—popped it on him and showed our tickets.  Security at these games is incredible—our tickets had our names printed on them, and we had to show our passports to get in.  We arrived a little late, but just in time to see Palermo score the first goal; the crowd went wild.  The home team won, 3-0, and everyone seemed happy.

We picked up the car back at the palazzo, then drove an hour to Erice, where we would spend our last two nights.  We met Sergio, who owns the apartment we rented, below in Valderice, and followed him way up the mountain to the old city.  It must have been 10 degrees colder up on top, with a chilly wind.  Sergio directed us to the best trattoria in town, Monte San Giuliano, and we had to hurry to get there before they closed.  There is not much business in Erice in January.  I got more busiati, which had almonds, tomatoes, and pecorino in the sauce, and Alec had a pasta with chestnuts, cheese, and, well, I can’t seem to remember the rest.  It was good.  We headed back in the dark to our little nook, cranked up the heat, and fell into a sound sleep, the wind whistling outside.