Before There is Wine, There are Grapes

Dinosaur and Boston and I got to partake in the coolest experience the other weekend: Grape Harvesting!  A co-worker of Dinosaur's told us about a friend of his, WineMan, who knows a small-scale vintner.  This vintner produces commercially sold wine, but on such a small scale, that he does not hire “professional” pickers.  He instead invites over a bunch of friends to pick (and munch on) grapes, and then everyone enjoys a homemade feast and plenty of vino.  We were more than happy to help out!

The day began early, with Boston and I sipping cappuccinos on the drive up to the East side of Etna.  We met up with WineMan at a café in one of the quaint little towns on Etna.  I enjoyed an additional espresso, Dinosaur, Boston, and I munched on mouth-watering pastries, and WineMan…was that a shot of grappa that he just ordered?  It’s not yet 8:00am.  Oh well, no judgment here!  After chatting to some folks in the café that WineMan knew, the four of us made our way out to our vehicles and our party of three followed WineMan’s car to the vineyard, a bit further up Mt. Etna.

Upon arriving at the vineyard, we were merrily welcomed by Pepe, the owner.  We briefly ducked inside the farmhouse, where WineMan asked us if we’d like to sample some of Pepe’s homemade grappa.  Uh, say what..?  Yes, grappa.  8:30am grappa.  Well, when in Rome!  Pepe offered us all generous Dixie cups of the golden liquid, and it was bottoms up, throats on fire, here we go!  I don’t know if it was the multiple doses of espresso coursing through my veins, or the early morning fire water, but I was ready to pick some grapes – wooo!

The barrel of homemade grappa.  You see the corrosion down the wall underneath the spout, right??

The process was pretty simple.  We were each given a pair of clippers, told to pick any and all grapes (“Even the bunches that have withered, dried grapes at the bottom?”  “Si, si, tutte le uve!”), and given buckets to fill with the purple and gold orbs.  When our buckets were full, we emptied them into crates at the end of the rows.  When we found especially plump grapes, we were invited to stop and munch on as many as we wanted.

This particular vineyard boasted some very old vines – some were 60, 70, even 80 years old!  I had no idea grape vines could live that long.  The age of the vines hints that the resulting wine will have its own unique flavor:  first, because these grape vines are so old, the vineyard might contain strands of grapes that have become rare and possibly exclusive to this vineyard; second, because the planting theory was different eight decades ago, the vineyard contains mixed species of grapes – reds and whites all mixed in next to each other.  When harvesting, we threw all the grapes into the crates indiscriminately, and they will all go into the same wine.  Many newer and larger commercial vineyards will plant exclusively one type of grape, to help ensure a uniform wine from one season to the next.

The harvesting of the grapes didn’t take too long, and it was relatively easy work.  We were moving at a leisurely pace, of course.  I’ve heard from a friend who has worked as a day laborer picking grapes that the speed at which you’re expected to pick when you’re getting paid is exponentially increased.

After all the vines were picked clean, we made our way up to the shed where the grapes were crushed and the wine would sit while fermenting.

Pepe tends to the grape-squishing machine.  The grapes are poured in the top, and then the stems are separated and spit out in a pile (in the foreground).

Grapes are poured into the squishing machine (no, sadly I did not get to stomp on the grapes with bare feet).

 After that – feast time!  We enjoyed an amazing Italian spread of salamis, cheeses, bread, chickpea soup, grilled vegetables, grilled meats, sausages, cakes and cookies, and wine, wine, wine!

It was a wonderful, and dreamily authentic Sicilian, way to spend a Sunday.  If you ever come across a 2011 bottle of Feudo Arcuria, snatch it up!  You’ll be sipping the fruits of my labor.

I'M a cat??

With regular studying, my Italian is coming along swimmingly.  Swimmingly enough to order food like a pro and purchase vegetables and even meat at the markets, but not enough to really communicate well with the neighbors.  Therefore, I have wizened up enough to tuck the iPad (equipped with its translator app) under my arm each time I head out to interact with the neighbors.  Jessica, our young neighbor girl, loves the iPad.  She has readily accepted this tool as our way of communicating, and therefore there are now no holds barred when she wants to talk to me. 

The other day, she saw me outside on the patio shaking out a rug and hollered over to me.   (Our villa is up on a hill, our front yard shoots steeply downhill, the road is at the bottom, and on the other side of the road, Jessica’s third floor balcony is at the same height as our porch, albeit 200 yards away.  The girl can yell loudly.)  Since I was already outside, I trekked on down our long driveway empty handed.  Once through our gate, Jessica began rattling to me in Italian, and the only word I could pick out was “gatto” (cat).  Jessica had seen Fat Cat the day before, when I’d borrowed her mother’s iron and she came over to help me set it up.  So I assumed that she was referring to Fat Cat.  Concentrating as hard as I could, and trying not to be distracted by Jessica’s adorable habit of talking progressively louder and more animatedly the longer I fail to understand, I thought I picked up that she was saying she saw a cat.  Which worried me because Fat Cat is an old, pudgy, slow, docile cat that spends his days inside and would not cut it in an interaction with a scrappy Italian alley cat.  Did he wander outside while I was cleaning, and is Jessica saying she saw him?

I asked her in Italian, “You see a cat?” 
“Si!” 
“My cat??”

At this, she squealed with laughter while shaking her head, and I realized I had just said, “I’m a cat??”  So I figure, ah hell, I’d better run all the way back up the hill to the house and grab the iPad.  I did this, and in the house, I was relieved to see Fat Cat lounging in his usual spot on the couch, so then I was especially curious about what Jessica wanted to tell me.  

That, however, will remain a mystery to us all.  I returned to Jessica with the iPad open to the translator app, but the thing about the translator app is that it cannot guess at what you’re trying to translate.  If the spelling and grammar are not spot on, both parties attempting communication are still left in the dark.  And a young school-age girl who most likely speaks the Sicilian dialect at home with her family cannot be expected to flawlessly type out her thoughts in Italian onto a magic iPad machine precariously balanced in one hand while she is standing in the middle of a street.  

So.  It was time to forget the iPad and instead play the game of “put myself in her shoes.”  Why would Jessica call me over and talk about seeing a cat if my cat was inside the whole time?  Maybe she wants to come over and pet my cat!  I typed “would you like to come see my cat?” into the iPad, and while it seemed that this was a new idea to her (and not originally what she had in mind), she enthusiastically agreed.  Together we hiked up the steep driveway, into the villa, where Fat Cat eyed us curiously.  Jessica exclaimed, as most people do, how incredibly large Fat Cat is.  I laughed and agreed; Fat Cat is at least double the size of any Italian street cat Jessica’s probably ever seen.  I walked right up to Fat Cat and petted him, inviting Jessica closer, but Jessica stayed back, looking wary.  Uh-oh, I thought.  I typed in the iPad, asking if she’s allergic to cats.  She typed back, no, but she’s scared that the cat will scratch her.  (Fat Cat, during all this, hasn’t so much as lifted his head.)  Well, I thought to myself, if Jessica is afraid of cats, then coming up to see him certainly isn’t what she originally wanted.  So now what?  This poor young girl and I stood awkwardly in my dining room for a few seconds, and I started to feel like the creepy neighbor who coerces children into her home.  Must.fix.the.situation!  I decided that in the least, the best thing to do was go back outside.  Once there, I realized that our vast yard, lush with vegetation, is probably pretty cool to a kid, so I invited Jessica to come with me to see our orange trees.  I mentally congratulated myself on my quick thinking in defusing the awkward moment, and we began to chatter to each other, somewhat conversing, as she complimented me on our large, beautiful yard, and I attempted to let her know that she can come over and pick oranges when they’re ripe.

As we walked back toward the front yard, she said that she’d go now, and I bid her goodbye, still somewhat curious about her original intentions, but feeling confident about her visit and our strengthened neighborly bond.  

I got back to my cleaning, but about thirty minutes later, our bell rang, and I headed down to the gate.  Jessica and her older brother, who is probably 14 or 15, were standing there.  Jessica said something, and the only words I caught were “brother” and “cat.”  Maybe I have an insecurity complex about my grotesque cat, but I immediately assumed that Jessica had gone home and told her brother that our cat is the biggest, fattest cat that she’s ever seen ever, and that he absolutely has to see it.  Which is fine with me.  I guess there are worse things the neighbor kids could associate us with than a circus-freak humungous cat.  So, chuckling to myself, I warmly invited them up to the house.  

When we were all inside, I gestured toward Fat Cat (who had not moved from his original location), and Jessica’s brother reacted with the usual shocked response of raised eyebrows and exclamations of Fat Cat’s size.  But then he gestured toward the iPad, and after he typed, I read that he came over to apologize for Jessica bothering me earlier.  Oh no!  I type, she wasn’t bothering me at all!  You guys can come over and visit me any time.  He thanked me, and they left.  I’m left scratching my head, thinking back on the events of the afternoon and how they must have seemed to the other parties involved:

Jessica sees me outside and calls me down to talk to her. 
I don’t understand her, but I invite her up to my house.
Rather than offer her something to eat or drink, I immediately invite her to pet my cat.
She is afraid of cats, and probably regrets coming up to my house.
I show her my yard, and maybe her visit is redeemed.
Upon return to her house, her brother probably scolded her for bothering the American woman, and made her come with him to apologize to me.
This American woman greets them with a big, clueless smile and invites them up to her house.
Once again, as soon as the two are through the door, the American woman rushes over to her cat and enthusiastically invites them to do the same.
The brother acknowledges the cat, and apologizes to the American woman for his sister – mission accomplished, time to go home.

Oh my.  We’re the crazy American cat-obsessed neighbors.  I’m not sure any amount of orange-picking parties can fully erase that memorable first impression.  I can hear it now – for the next three years, any time a neighbor comes up to our house for any reason, Jessica and her brother will laugh and ask them, “I bet she showed you her cat, didn’t she??”

If a Fist Bump is Good Enough for the Obamas...

Aaa - Italian manners fail. I came home a few minutes ago to find a maintenance guy doing some work at our house. When I went to say hello and shake his hand, he extended the back of his wrist to my extended hand because he was wearing greasy work gloves. I felt that brief freak-out flash of "there's something I've learned I'm supposed to do in this situation!!" but the freak-out part of my brain froze all thinking. My reflex was to bump the back of my wrist against his, like an awkward fist bump. Naturally, as soon as the moment passed, it hit me: I learned in indoc class that an Italian will always want to be polite and shake your hand, but if his hand is dirty, he will extend the back of his wrist instead; I was supposed to grasp and shake his wrist as if it was his hand. (Would you have thought of that?? You would have wrist-bumped too, right??)

The crazy annoying thing is that in Indoc, I was the student to whom the instructor extended his wrist to teach the proper response. I know better! The guy is still working outside, and I'm inside unable to let go of my faux pas. I want to run out there and have a do-over; show him that I'm not a gauche American, I'm a cool, Italian-knowledgable American!

But since it's also dawning on me that when I thought I was asking him if he'd like some water, I actually said, "I want water?" (no wonder he looked at me so oddly before declining), I think I'll just stay inside and begin patching and reinforcing my dignity in preparation for my next awkward Italian encounter.  There will always be a next awkward encounter.  And that's ok, because nestled between the painfully awkward moments are moments of blissful break-through and gratifying communication.  Some very smart people have taught me that you only get better by finding the very end of your comfort zone and then taking another step.

My Pet Volcano

I love Mt. Etna.  Not in an intellectual, geological way, like the fascination my younger brother would hold for Mt. Etna.  Not in a cult-ish "I-worship-the-volcano-god" kind of way.  It's just that the huge, looming natural structure is so...cool.  I love to drive around the area and, on a clear day, see the intricacies of the mountain standing stoically in the distance.  The feeling that I get is that the mountain is somehow comforting to me.  I can't really describe why.  I regard it in a loving sense, like it's my big, lazy pet.  Wait...I think we found the connection.  Is it that Mt. Etna - large, brooding, sedentary - reminds me in a bizarre way of my pet cat??  Perhaps.

I can view just the very tip of Etna from my house.  A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to wake up early and see lava spewing from the summit.  How cool is that?!  (Luckily the pet volcano/pet cat parallel didn't follow suit, and there were no violent, messy eruptions from Fat Cat that day.)

Dinosaur and I decided to venture up on Mt. Etna, one recent weekend.  Visitors to the mountain are able to drive up to a certain altitude where dormant craters can be viewed and climbed.  From there, if you'd like to go higher, you must ride a ski lift (yes, there is skiing on Mt. Etna during the winter), and then take a van ride closer (but not too close) to the active craters.

View of a lower, dormant crater and the parking lot from the top of another dormant crater.

Venturing up to and along the rims of the lower craters was no easy task.  The only ground cover is a homogenous mixture of small lava rocks, lava pebbles, lava sand, and course ash.  Climbing up the steep crater walls was a thigh-burning effort of one foot gained, 6 inches lost, with frequent stops to empty the lava scree from our shoes.

The vans trails are marked with poles, since ash fall is an everyday occurrence and the roads disappear daily.

Tourists gather round a steaming crater.

View of the vans, and beyond them, the active craters of Etna that Dinosaur and I view from our villa (which are inaccessible to tourists).

It was nice to get to know my pet volcano better. He's not particularly cuddly, but he's nice to look at and good for a bit of visual entertainment. I think I'll keep him around.