Kelptomaniac Americans

 We’ve made our way from western Sicily to its middle.  It was hard to say goodbye to Gabriella’s olive estate.  Great food (eaten by both kids!), pool, fish pond, surrounded by lemon and olive trees.  We felt very pampered there.  We explored Mazara del Vallo, taking in small town life, including an amazing statue of a dancing satyr that was found offshore and then installed into its own little museum.  Another gourmet evening at our olive grove, then we spent the last day on a glorious beach, part of a nature preserve.

But now, oh now, we’ve encountered an entirely different scenario.  Winding our way thru the beautiful hills of central Sicily and a couple of rainstorms that one would call gully washers, we found our next lodging at an old converted farmhouse. They call it “agritourism” here – and it’s, well, a little creepy.  They’ve done a beautiful job restoring the place, but it feels very spare.  Hard.  Barren.  Monastic.  There are only a few people here.  And each room has just a little bit of light.  So when the sun sets, it’s just possible that the Children of the Corn might emerge from the fields…or those two little girls from The Shining might appear in your hallway. And our hostess does not speak a lick of English. Not a lick. How do you say, “I’m being stabbed in the back with a pitchfork!”, in Italian?

On top of it all, the water here is not potable.  But it’s so remote that you can’t drive into town to get some Evian for the evening.  So here is the story of how Blake obtained water for last night.

Scene: Italian Farmhouse basement

Time: 7:30 (How we figured out when dinner started is another story)

Players:  Blake, Connan, Declan and Cal who are famished having only eaten bread, yoghurt and pistachios since breakfast.  (Ace – Cal has become a huge fan of pistachios!  You’d be so proud.  Plus Dec has become an expert cold water swimmer – Gram would be so proud)

It’s dinner time.  Only four tables.  We ingest our food, which seems to be particularly salty or farmlike.  Cal sniffs at it and says, “This tastes like hay!” He’s right, it does taste a little like hay – but we can’t let him know that! Maybe it’s the Sicilan cuisine?  Maybe not.  Everything is OK with the kiddies when the cannoli arrive.

So the dining room empties, except for us.  Everyone is off to do what they do in the middle of the pitch black Italian countryside at 9 PM. One can only imagine.  But we are still at our table, pondering the long parched evening ahead of us.  Blake spies a nearly full bottle of mineral water on someone else’s table.  Score!  Problem solved!  But the little Sicilian lady is clearing tables fast.  So he sneaks over, and just as he’s lifting the bottle, he sees that the inhabitants of said table are not, in fact, done with their meal.  They were just outside having a smoke.  But he lifts it anyway and runs to the TV room to hide it.  Diners return…something is wrong…their table does not look the same.  Family scoots away stealthily.  Imagined conversation:

Italian couple:  Where did our water go?

Waitress lady:  The Americans took it.