la bella sicilia (part three)

i vendicari

i went to texas and left everyone hanging with the sicily pics! sorry about that. i'm back, and ready to continue the display, especially because i have pics from texas i now need to put up...so many images, so little time.

this part is the town of noto and my rental car adventures from syracuse to agrigento. noto is quite lovely and i wish i had more than a day to explore it--the entire town was destroyed by an earthquake in the late 17th century then completely rebuilt by the end of the same century. all the buildings are the same color and are high baroque, meaning there are crazy waves in the façades. the second set of pictures are from the drive, which was an adventure in and of itself. learning to drive in houston and being generally aggressive helped me tremendously to drive *well* in sicily, which is such a loaded phrase it defies clarification. no one drives well in sicily. you just hang on and pray a lot, faithful or no. enjoy!

noto with a cornerful of hoodlums

pretty stairs--surprisingly regular

noto is built on a steep hill, and this is one of the more gentle examples

crazy baroque fountain

beautiful concave façade area near noto's duomo

from the front of noto's duomo--the tilt-shift isn't working as well as i'd like here, but it still gives an idea of the feel of the space

driving to agrigento in my bitchin' ford escort! the almond trees were blooming everywhere you looked

some very tall mountain passes, senza guardrails, to be had in sicily

adorable little cinquecento--i wish my life allowed me a toy like this

you never know what you're going to see from the road in sicily: elephants...

...or further proof sicilians hate their children...

...but i think this is my favorite--via charles darwin in gela

also there are tons of bikers on the road who must have the biggest huevos in the entire nation because those roads were dangerous for those of us encased in metal

and, of course, massively impressive greek (yes, greek) ruins

next time: the ruins of agrigento and other sites in NW sicily!

la bella sicilia (part two)

the vendicari

days five, six and seven were spent in syracuse/ortygia, at the vendicari nature preserve, and briefly in noto (pictures for noto will be in part three). syracuse really has two primary areas to see, syracuse itself (which has greek ruins) and a tiny island off its coast called ortygia (which has pretty much everything else). syracuse has a tremendous history--it has been "occupied" by phoenecians, carthaginians, greeks, romans, arabs/moors/saracens, normans, and now italians. actually, that's the whole history of sicily, too--it's just more apparent in syracuse. homer wrote about it in "the iliad," which reminds me that i need to do some remedial reading soon...

la fontana di arethusa--an odd little freshwater ("acqua dolce" in italian, which i love) spring right next to the ionian sea

il duomo of syracuse...on ortygia

the piazza in front of the duomo--lovely baroque space

interior, il duomo--you can see the 5th c BC temple integrated into the structure

coast off of ortygia

massive temple structure on ortygia--i think it is the temple of apollo

back onto mainland syracuse: this is the greek theatre, still in use today

the vendicari! it is an incredibly beautiful place, and amazing because it exists--it is one of the only unspoiled, protected patches of pure coastline left in sicily

vendicari beach with old tuna cannery in the background--i have absolutely no idea what those plant-like, ball-shaped things are all over the beach, but unfortunately they were interspersed with a disturbing number of syringes. not sure if they washed up from north africa or another part of sicily.

the vendicari is a nature preserve that a large number of migratory birds pass through on their way back to africa--these are cormorants and egrets on the ruined house

ruin and clover at the vendicari

parts of the vendicari reminded me of new mexico--i think it's the prickly pear, which is an invasive species there

tilt-shift rock and prickly pear! i'm loving this effect.

the old tunnery, which i think is a word

la bella sicilia (part one)

the view from my hotel window in atlanta (elwood blues was right: the planes flew by so often that after a while you really don't hear them)

for the past three christmases, rich has given me the tremendous gift of letting me go anywhere i want to go for one week in february while he stays home with the kids, and this year i picked sicily. i had never been there before and the journey didn't disappoint--it took 60 hours to get there because of snow in rome (!) and it kind of continued in that vein for the rest of the trip. it wasn't relaxing but it was quite an adventure.

and, as mentioned earlier, i've got a new camera so i'm abusing the tilt-shift feature something terrible. apologies in advance...

day three (days one and two were in hotlanta then on planes): rome (12 hour layover), then catania late at night

clivo dei publicii, 2. this is the top of the aventino hill in rome and a side-view of the convent i lived in with 39 other lovely people in the fall of 1988

romans playing in a snowy circus maximus

the colosseum in snow

largo argentina and rome's cat sanctuary in snow

day four: catania to syracuse/siracusa

amazingly, i was awake at 4:00 in the morning when these fireworks went off in catania (for the feast of st. agatha)

view from the hotel window

another view--seriously, i'm way into the tilt-shift

it is tough to see, but if you look closely at the top center of this photo you can see the tip of mt. etna, which was smoking beautifully this morning--it erupted just a few hours later (and closed the airport for the day). and how brave am i for staying across the street from the palazzo di giustizia, which has a tendency to get blown up during mafia trials?

catania centrale train station, which, odd for the second largest city in sicily, had a bit of an end-of-the-world vibe going on but was needed to get to...

...syracuse!

look for part two soon...

happy belated year of the dragon!

and the crazy busy year continues--i don't see the dragon giving me much of a break. this week i have a sick sophie bunny, two classes about native plants and one on embroidery to teach, gus' first step towards braces (palate expander/spacers)...and a flight to sicily. i'm a bit overwhelmed! i've managed to return a bunch of PANDAS-related emails as well, which is always difficult. i'm so glad gus is better today, knock on wood, but revisiting five years ago is stressful. thank god we've moved on.

and speaking of stressful, gus and i had a god-awful flight back from houston last week. i'm still cursing continental. fuckers. we bought DIRECT tickets from the crapids to houston--something i've longed to have access to for 15 years--and flew on a tiny plane to intergalactic in htown. we had a time, went to a camp longhorn shindig, got some good shopping done, then boarded the same tiny plane to head back home. it was a bumpy flight, made all the bumpier by the littleness of the plane, so the weather wasn't good. but, the plane made its way to cedar rapids...got within 2-3000 feet of the runway...we could see it!...wheels engaged...and at the very last moment the plane pulled up hard and flew us to kansas city. period. we were pissed; everyone on the plane was pissed. the plane sat for about an hour at a gate in kansas city before they opened the doors and let us off; gus and i demanded our bags and went and rented a platinum rental car so i could drive our freaked-out asses home. i hope gus gets back on a plane ever again; i'm usually chemically-enhanced myself. anyway, the drive was as god-awful as the flight, as the fog was dense and it was very hard to see. i'm glad to be home.

on that note, i'm a bit stressed about flying to sicily. to distract myself i've been out playing with my new toy while sophie and paco played outside--i'd love to know what you think! is this effect working?

2012, year of the crazy busy

mini bunny a-sledding

i don't know if it's having one or two kids scheduled for one or two activities a day, or the 103 travel days i've already penciled into my nifty new calendar, but i'm a bit overwhelmed already. on the plus side, i did get a new camera for christmas with which to document said 103 travel days! i think i love it--it has a 1:1 aspect shooting ratio, which equates to what i shoot with my beloved hasselblad, and a miniature/tilt shift filter that i expect to abuse greatly. but for now i'm off to plan the three classes that i'm teaching at the kiddo's school over the next month (the same classes i'm trying not to regret volunteering to teach...i loved it last year...i loved it last year...i loved it last year). tally ho, y'all!

i missed my calling.

in another life, i'd be joining these lovely ladies in the giant margarita for a massive new year's eve bash

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

the bizcochitos and minted nuts are made, the kids are out of school, our anniversary has passed...so here is wishing you all a very merry christmas and, in case i don't post again before the new year, a happy 2012. go out and enjoy winter!

image fail

pop, 1978

my dad had a massive equipment failure the day this was taken and i'd so love to know how to use photoshop well enough to fix this image. any ideas?

UPDATE! a new friend in london, mike s., very kindly worked on this image...and his results are astounding:

honestly, i'm completely blown away by the results. my mom is going to freak. out. thank you, mike!