American-size Me

Before leaving America, we were told that Italians eat in small portions and multiple courses.  Fast forward to our first restaurant dinner here in Sicily, at the Spaghetti House.  (Perhaps the English name should have given us a clue.)  The menu had multiple pages: antipasto, “menu 1” (pasta), “menu 2” (meat), and salads.  We each ordered something off of each menu.  We got enough food for three days – it literally covered the four-person table that Dinosaur and I were sharing.  Where did we go wrong??

Fortunately we also got a super friendly server who spoke English (despite our desperate attempts at broken Italian), and some tips for next time: ask for “a dinner for two” – all the same courses, but smaller servings.  Who knew? 

While we were dinning, we saw our server and his friends take some sort of “bomb” shot at the bar, and, hoping to learn some secret Italian drink, asked our server what it was.  “Jager bomb!” he says, “You like??”  Neither dinosaur or I are particular fans of Jager, so we declined, but I guess our server gleaned that we were eager drinkers.  He soon called us over to the bar for his specialty shot: a layered mystery in the shot glass (clear on the bottom, red on top), a slice of lemon resting on the shot glass, a little pile of raw sugar on the lemon, liquor poured on the sugar, sugar lit on fire.  We exchanged nervous laughs with our server’s non-English speaking friends as we waited for the fire-y sugar to caramelize, then it was shot! & sugared lemon.  Yu-u-u-um!  Dinosaur and I returned to our table to attempt to eat some more of our massively oversized meal, but before long our server was calling, “Friends, you like tequila??”  Ah, a man after my own heart.  So it was “salut!” salt + tequila shot + lemon.  Hey, when in Rome…

My favorite part of dining in Europe is the not-to-be-expected-but-often-found complimentary items.  Bread and butter before the meal.  Multiple shots with our jolly server and his friends during the meal (this was a small restaurant and after a few Italian families cleared out, we were the only diners, let alone the only Americans).  Homemade cake after the meal (the white frosting had a delicious essence of powdered sugar – yum!)

Of course then, the silly Americans, loaded with bags of leftover food from our over-ordering, try to pay with a credit card.  Nope, credit card machine is broken.  We have a little cash, but come up 10 Euros short.  Earlier, looking through our phrase book during dinner, I had come across the phrase, “What if we wash the dishes?” (who would actually say that??) and thought about breaking it out, but before I could, our sweet server was assuring us, “No worries, no worries.  Next time.  You bring it next time.”  We insist that we’ll bring the money  the next day.  “No, no,” he says, “You bring it next time you come to eat.”

And we will.

View of Motta (small village where we're staying) from our balcony.  You can see the castle in the top left (it almost looks like another chimney in this picture).  We'll explore the castle soon and get more pics for you.

Sheep grazing down the hill from the Inn's parking lot.

I never saw anyone else in the US with this Target shirt, but come half-way across the globe, and suddenly Amy (another Navy wife) and I are both wearing green skull shirts and lace-less Chucks.

Fat Cat always drank from our toilets in the US, but European toilets just have a liiiiittle bit of water in the very bottom that he can't reach.  Solution?  Fill up the bidet!