circle dog

ciao! still no charger, so no photos, so no evidence that im actually here in sicily, and not writing this from the basement of say, weber house in wooster, ohio, where i thought it would be funny to hide and pretend im actually going abroad, and then pop out at various theme parties to surprise people. of course, we all know that if that were the case, i would have taken distinct advantage of the jersey shore party, so i guess that is all the evidence we need.
augusten borroughs has this story about the worst date he went on, where the guy brought him back to his apartment and all the sudden puts on this dress-type thing and starts spinning around in circles, and claims he is training to be a whirling dervish. all augusten can think of to say is, "you remind me of Circle Dog" (FOUND THE QUOTATION MARKS!), who is this dog he used to own who would only run in circles. the reason i am relating this to you is so that you have some idea of what i looked like romping around catania today. circle dog.
at ten i went out and ended up walking around the city for two hours, which was awesome. catania is beautiful and shabby, a duality that can only exist when the city sits at the base of an active volcano, as catania does, rendering most things covered in a thin layer of ash. its cool to see how they built up the city after the two instances a long time ago in which mt. etna erupted and covered everything with molten lava. joking, sort of. but lots of buildings have parts that are sort of peeling away, and you can see all the different bricks underneath, which i assume is an archeologists dream, although my archeology friends can correct me as necessary.
i walked up this massive hill of a street, via antonio, and from the top caught my first glimpse of the mediterrenean (lord, i am going to have to learn to spell that word soon enough...) which was amazing. i then walked all the way back down to the wharf, checked out some boats, some churches, and statues. i ended up looping around a rather lot, not realizing that i was doing so until i ended up in the same place multiple times, but it was cool, because i just could not believe where i was.
so while i was playing circle dog, i wondered if maybe i was running into the same people, and not realizing it. because i was wearing a bright red cardigan over black and white plaid, and according to my careful observances of the outfits around me, italians dont wear plaid (stereotype #1,002). but then i thought, no, thats ridiculous, these people have their own stuff to do, why would they be looking at me? and then, tonight, lo and behold, i ran into a nice older gentlemen who asked me if i was from the states. startled, because it was the first english ive heard yet outside the hostel, i said i was, and he responded that he had seen me walking around yesterday (i was wearing the red last night, too). we talked about syracuse a bit, and i said goodbye and we parted ways, and in normal circumstances i think this might be a little creepy, that this guy knew i existed. but it wasnt, not at all, because he was not creepy at all, and i was hungry for english, however broken, and i thought it was nice that he cared. and so my circle dog game seemed to pay off.
after the two hours of adventure, i returned to my hostel and found the two owners, this really nice, young, couple, in the middle of a huge fight. which was awkward. once i got to my room, i wasnt sure when it was appropiate to leave again, because in order to leave the hostel i would have had to walk right through their altercation, which would have been embarassing for all of us. so i chilled in my room for a bit, watching scrubs dubbed in italian, and every so often clearing my throat to make it clear that i was in fact in the room, so that when i eventually did leave it wasnt a surprise that i had been in my room this whole time. later i trotted around the city again, feeling better about it in the dark than last night, and going to some stores, where all the graphic t-shirts were in english. which was a letdown. how else can i prove im in italy without italian scribbled across the chest? duh. (im joking. sort of.)
tomorrow morning im leaving to go back to the airport where i meet my group (ah) and drive to syracuse. i found out the island were staying off of, still part of syracuse but off the mainland, is only 1km long and .5km wide, which is sweet. and tiny. but cool, because i am the only one from my program living in this particular apartment, and i dont want to be isolated. which works.
i should also mention that today i saw a headless statue, a stray dalmatian, and an abundance of yankee caps. mafia what? jokin!
love you all
ciao