Our First Adventures

When any new military personnel arrive to Sigonella, they are signed up to attend an INDOC class.  It's two weeks and it's for the person that is active duty military and their spouse.  The first week is spent in a classroom learning different things about the country and the base we are stationed at.  One day was spent just learning about the culture and some of the language.  We also got our Italian drivers licenses during another day.  

During the second week, we go on a couple trips to get more acquainted with the area.  It was great!  Our first trip was to the city of Catania.  This is the big city about 15-20 minutes from Sigonella.  When people come visit (hint, hint) this is the city you will fly in to.  

The have childcare set-up for everyone's kiddos, but Benny did NOT like it.  He cried and cried every day that we left him and when we'd come to pick him up, he'd still be crying.  Way too sad for me.  So, I didn't attend all of the classes.  Jason filled me in on what I missed.  But, we were told we could just bring him on the trips.  It was perfect!  

We rode a bus into Catania and saw a few sights on the way.  They dropped us off in the center of town.  All of the cities and villages here have a "city center".  There is usually a plaza (Piazza) to walk in and the cities festivals are centered there, too.  This is a picture from Catania's city center, Piazza Duomo.  I'm pretty sure that's a church behind us.  There are a lot of churches here.  

We strolled up to a public park that we saw on the map.  It was beautiful, but the "park" part left much to be desired.  I should have gotten a picture.  It was just a dirt field with a couple swings and a metal slide.  We met a nice woman who was there with her two grandchildren.  She spoke some english and we enjoyed chatting a little bit with her.  

We did a little shopping as we walked around downtown.  There is a daily outdoor market there that we walked through.  There's produce, clothes, shoes, jewelry.....tons of stuff, but very crowded.  We avoided the fish market because of the smells.  Benny got tired, so we found a little alleyway/street with a little restaurant that had benches outside to rest on.  A few minutes after this picture was taken, Jason was sprawled out on that bench taking a little rest, too.  I leaned back and tried to rest, when a woman sat down next to me.  She watched us for a bit and then started trying to tell me something.  Finally she motioned for me to uncross my legs.  Apparently, by crossing my legs, I'm not allowing blood flow to my baby.  I got most of that from the body language she was using as she spoke quickly.  

The next day we went to Motta.  I love Motta.  It's a small village up on the hill right near where we live.  About 10 minutes away.  Many of the streets remind me of what Italy is "supposed" to look like.  I loved this one that we walked down that day.  We went to an olive oil factory and saw how it was made.  Pretty cool.  

We walked up to Motta Sant'Anastasia Castle.  It was a little bit of a trek, but it allowed us to see more of the town.  We watched a little video about the history of Motta and the castle and then got to go upstairs and have a little tour.  Benny loved the weapons that were on display.  

Lastly, we went to the town of Zefferana.  Zefferana is famous for it's honey.  Supposedly, it produces 30% of the honey that is made in Italy.  We went into one of the many places where they make the honey and learned a little more about all of that.  Interesting.  The city had a lovely little Piazza and we looked over the edge of a balcony on the Piazza and saw this pretty fountain.  We got gelato (we always get gelato) and then hopped back on the bus to go back to base.