CARNAVALONE

The carnival fever is done. Yesterday we decided that we had enough. Angelo from Istanbul was sick; Marco had some black work (under the table), so they did not come from Palermo for the last night, the burning of Peppe ‘Nappa. Giusy and Claudio are still in England. Amy and Sara did not come from Florence this year. So we had no enthusiastic, party loving young folks to force our sorry selves out after midnight to watch a bunch of out-of-town drunks burn a float. We did watch parts of the final theatrical performance on TV in between gasping over the deadly dinosaur antics of Jurassic Park III, the network TV special. It did not matter that it was dubbed in awful Italian when you see William Macy and Tea Leoni constantly running away from deadly raptors. Schlock at its best!
Anyway, the final show on the huge stage at Piazza Scandaliato was a long story and dance about Peppe ‘Nappa and the origins of Carnavale in Sciacca. It was in old Sicilian, the sound of which Italians find hysterical, sort of like a country hick in the states. That those dancers can still dance after going non-stop for almost a week is a mystery to me. But today everyone in Sciacca has a day off and they gather with family for a post-Carnavale party. Hey, it’s Lent (Quaresima), but one more party first. Last year we were at the snail farm with Claudio and Giusy for a cook out.
We leave for Rome tomorrow, where we plan to return to the Forum area and really see the historic center this time. Reading Angels and Demons and DaVinci Code has made us anxious to re-visit some of the places we saw before, and to seek out some of Bernini’s masterpieces, like the painting “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.” On the 29th we fly to Madrid and then Miami, then Cancun. Mexico, here we come!!! So “ciao” for 2 weeks.