I’m currently in Catania, a seaside city in Sicily, with my friend Rebecca. And this is one of the strangest places I’ve ever been.
We stepped off the plane in Trapani to the sight of a man herding sheep down the side of the road. We waited for the bus for two hours, and it never showed up (because, really, why would it?). Finally a guy about our age offered to give us a ride to Marsala, where we could get the bus to Palermo. He drove a brand-new black BMW, pointed out his various homes, and took us for coffee at his yacht club (it’s worth pointing out here that Sicily isn’t exactly a wealthy region). When we were driving down the streets of Marsala, he seemed to know someone on every block, and spent the whole drive smiling and waving at people. He seemed… well-connected. So, interpret that as you will.
We made it to Palermo, where we walked around for two hours in the 104-degree heat wearing our 50-pound backpacks because we needed to look up the location of our hostel in our email. Which necessitated an internet cafe. Which are apparently not open anywhere in Palermo for the entire month of August. We finally located one, and by the time we arrived I think I was the sweatiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. It was too hot to move, so we passed out for a few hours and then went hunting for some dinner.
We ended up at a bar, because no restaurants in our area were open. While we were eating, we were treated to the sight of a grown man riding a very small pony down the middle of the street — in the center of Sicily’s biggest city. No one else seemed to be confused.
Now we’re in Catania, which is pretty, but also pretty run-down. We’ve been going to the beach every day since it’s too hot to stay in the city, but trying to get anything done in Sicily is a chore. I read somewhere that they have a 40 percent unemployment rate, and it seems to me that that should take into account the fact that most people with jobs aren’t particularly interested in doing them. The beach is a 20-minute bus ride away, and it has taken us between two and three hours to get there every day. The bus just doesn’t come when it’s supposed to. When it does come, the driver will park and then walk away and not come back. Today, while waiting for the bus, a young man about my age was standing in front of Rebe and I with his hand in his pocket, jiggling it around. My first thought was that he was jerking off, but I put that aside and decided he was just playing with change or keys or something. Until he pulled out his penis and showed it to me. I yelled, and he walked away laughing. If my wits were more about me, I would have kicked his exposed little friend, but by the time I recovered from the shock he was a block away.
We spent the day at the beach, where we befriend the 19-year-old kid in charge of renting out beach chairs. He thought it was hilarious to pour water on us while we were laying out, which is fine, because it’s hot — until he started using frizzante water, which doesn’t feel so good. Then he came over and whispered in my ear, “You know the monster of Loch Ness? It is here,” and gestured to his crotch.
On our way back home, a gang of adolescent Sicilian hooligans accosted us on the bus, pulling our hair and sticking their fingers in our ears and saying nasty things in Italian because they assumed we couldn’t understand (all of the nasty things, incidentally, had to do with the size of their penises). Finally, one of them pulled Rebecca’s hair for the tenth time, so she turned around and slapped him across the face. That halted their brattiness pretty quickly.
So that’s Sicily. It is beautiful, but it’s so corrupt that nothing functions properly. And apparently it’s chock-full of young men who are obsessed with their own reproductive organs. We also have a running tally of how many exposed male bellies we see, as it’s quite popular here for men to randomly pull their shirts up, I assume to cool off their backs, stomachs and lower pectorals. You’d think they would have discovered the half-shirt by now, but no such luck. Either way, we’re up to 14 in two days.
Despite my stories, most of the people we’ve met have been quite nice — Sicilian hospitality puts our Southern version to shame. And the 25th is my unluckiest day of the month, so maybe it’s just today and not Sicily at all. Either way, it’s been an interesting trip. Tomorrow we’re going to Taormina for the day, and then it’s back to the mainland, where I hope I will see and hear about far fewer penises.