Wow, guys. Sorry it has taken me so long to get this last post up. The last week in Italy, getting back home, and getting readjusted have all kind of been a bit of a blur for me. But anyway, I wrote this last post while I was still in Italy, in Sicily, so enjoy it, and there will be more to come as soon as I can get it written down!

I’m in Sicily! Cefalu, Sicily, specifically. This place is like something out of a storybook, out of a dream. I feel as though I am living in the early 1900s instead of in 2009. It’s not that there is an absence of modern things; certainly there are cars, motorcycles, computers (though rare), stores with modern clothing and modern conveniences. But the environment, the way people act and react, the lifestyle reminds me of a more simple, distant time, much slower than the age in which we live.
I came here absolutely alone, and so far I am the only American that I have seen. I am staying in an apartment alone in a residential area of mostly Sicilians. When one of them is looking out of their windows or standing outside their doors and I pass by, they look at me as though I were from another planet. I always smile politely and say “Buon giorno” or “Buona sera.” Sometimes they respond, sometimes they just keep staring. It’s like being in a film, it doesn’t feel like real life here. In some sense, I feel like I’ve begun to play along a little; what else can you do? I hum out loud and smile at everyone as I walk down the street, I sing in my house with my windows open, I take my sunglasses everywhere, I dress how I please, which is like I would dress at the beach in America. Cefalu is a beach town, though coming from America, you would never be able to tell it. I almost didn’t believe it until I saw the beach.
Right now I can barely hear myself think because the local produce vendor is outside the window of my apartment yelling to all the people in the neighborhood as he carts his goods around, “Onions! Cherries! Good Price!” I just returned from a local ‘bar’ (where they sell sandwiches and pizza by the slice) where the owner already knows me and smiles when I enter. “Una pizza margherita riscaldata per portare via” she says, because I always get a piece of cheese pizza reheated to go. There are hardly any ‘touristy’ stores or places; I have found one shop for souvenirs here right by the beach, and that’s it. The small town feeling is everywhere here. My apartment has “internet,” but that means that at any random point in time I may or may not be able to access the internet, which has added significantly to my feelings of being in another place and time separate from the 21st century.
Here it’s not like in Florence. In Florence, if they see you struggling a bit with your Italian, they immediately jump in with English. Here in Cefalu, if you speak even a word of Italian, immediately they begin speaking to you (very rapidly) in Italian and expect that you know exactly what they are saying. Not in a bad way, like they think you should be able to understand, but in an excited way, like they are so pleased that you have something in common with them and they can communicate with you. It feels so strange to be typing in English now, or to talk to my parents on the phone in English. This place is truly an immersion in the Italian language. After only 2 days here, I have already begun thinking in Italian, even when I’m by myself. All the American friends I made while in Florence have gone home already, and now it is only Italy and me.
Dialect has not really been an issue. I am told that it is because the dialect is dying out slowly but surely. Now it is only the older generations in smaller towns that speak in dialect. Most young people, merchants, and people that live in cities like Palermo speak Italian proper. I understand most of what I hear spoken on the large streets, but when I climb the hill to my apartment, there are more strange words and phrases. I have gotten so used to going into stores or calling people and immediately speaking Italian that it will be a bit of an adjustment, a bit of a shock to go back to the US and hear English everywhere again.
Basta, enough for now. I am going to the beach for a while.