Dreams from Biancavilla

It seemed as if the three strikes were up, but no; Nikos had another snag trying to leave Italy. He really does fit in here. The Motherland is trying to tell him to stay. After the potential Agrigento stall, the delay in Catania, and his flight cancellation in Rome yesterday, Nikos set off to the airport and arrived 3 hours before his rescheduled flight. Luckily, he had this narrow cushion, since Delta messed up a couple of times. First, he went to the terminal for his flight; Delta said oops wrong terminal, and sent him to a different one. Delta was wrong. Indeed Nikos was to be at the original terminal, from where he had just left. Great—he had time, although, what a pain in the butt. With the flight cancellations yesterday, there was a long check-in line. Nikos finally got to the front of it, and learned that Delta’s promise that his Covid test for the canceled flight would still be ok, was indeed a lie. He had to leave the long line, and get to the back of another very long line fo

I woke up remembering Ettore’s hugs last night, and him whispering, “You came back!” I had also received a video call from my son John, who is taking care of so much for us back at the house. I’m lucky. Today is hot, and the apartment is covered in Etnaean dust, because I have all of the many windows open. So, after Ettore left with Andrea for lunch, I scrubbed the place top to bottom. Andrea washed and delivered my laundry, although I never saw or heard her. “It was the fairies,” Elena said, when I asked who did me this favor. I received a text from Nikos. He was on the plane for four hours this morning; they finally canceled the flight. He’s in Rome until tomorrow. We heard that a lot of flights (from all over) to JFK were canceled today. It makes me wonder if something other than “mechanical problems” is going on. Or, it’s Italy conspiring to keep Nikos here. First, the Agrigento key incident, where we might’ve turned around and then missed his flight (wouldn’t have missed it, since

Nikos flies from Catania to Fiumicino tonight, before heading out of the Rome airport in the morning—my preferred way to prep before flying to the US. Lucky thing he didn’t book a connecting flight today, as his trip out of Catania was delayed quite a bit. This is not uncommon, so travelers beware. The last three flights (mine, Joe’s, Nikos’s) one direction or the other, have had 45 to 90-minute delays. We left some wiggle room in case of road construction, but had to cut across the whole center of Italy from Agrigento to get to Catania. Time could still be tight. After another lovely repast on Francesco’s breakfast terrace, we organized our things, and I went to settle the bill. Francesco and I talked for a bit, and he offered a generous discount (along with half-off parking garage tickets!). I asked for his picture, and he said, let’s all do it; I’ll grab one of the cats. I adore this man. Soft spoken. Elegant. Not in a rush. He loves the finer things, he appreciates history, art, cu

Today, I got to show Nikos one of my favorite places on earth, the Scala dei Turchi, located  on the coast of southern Sicily between Realmonte and Porto Empedocle,  and its rock is made of a soft, limestone and blinding white marl. Nature, as a great artist, has worked this material over time, making it soft and sinuous, with the help of the sea and the salty breeze, creating terraces and smoothing every corner. Sunset terrace My terrace off the sitting room View from the breakfast terrace Mari mud  Turquoise horizon Nikos Clouds change the sea color  The breakfast terrace Shades of aqua and turquoise With one of my boys The origin of the name comes from the many invasions of Arab/Turkish pirates and the “stairs” are formed by eroded Marl, clay and silt similar to calcite and limestone. Rumor has it that the people you see covered in wet Marl are hoping to glow from the benefits it supposedly contains for the skin. Beach-goers used to jump off of the cliffs and rocks, and into the dee