Mary - Italy's Lady Gaga

Happy New Year from Sicilia!
Bill and I took today to explore...even more!!  If we haven't convinced you yet, Sicily is BEAUTIFUL.
We ordered our first gelato (in Italian!) today.  Success!  We also went shopping in the beautiful city center that was set as my screen saver for months as inspiration to get through the semester...I didn't expect to really see it in person.  Super cool!  It was decorated with Christmas lights and hopping with people. 

To explain the title of this blog- as we were walking through the shopping center, we saw a place that looked like a store with a HUGE statue of Mary with lights all around.  A little strange, I would say, but I guess I don't blame them.  Mary is pretty cool.  Anyway, Bill commented that Mary seems to be to Italy what Lady Gaga is to America.  I thought it was funny.  Thus, our name for our entry this evening.
We made our first meal in our apartment last night and it was yummy- pasta (bowtie OR butterfly...however you want to call it) with pesto and mushrooms.  However, we seem to have trouble not sleeping in past 12...heheh.  I mean, we don't have an alarm clock, so...
Nonetheless, the city comes alive during the late afternoon/evening, so we don't miss much!
Now we are on our way to find some dinner (our first time really trying to order any in Italian...wish us luck) and then we're going out to explore the night life on New Years Eve!  Don't worry, mom and dad..we haen't run into anybody super creepy yet.  ;)

Stupid Americans...

WE ARE FINALLY HERE!
Everything here in Sicily is beautiful...everything.  We are right by the ocean and took a walk over there this morning!

We are really jet-lagged, but are enjoying our time here nonetheless.  However, wherever we go, we cannot help but feel like stupid Americans because of our lack of communication skills.  BUT that is what this trip is for...right?  That is what we keep telling ourselves...
Right now we are at an internet cafe by our apartment since we do not have wifi where we are staying.  We have to use one of their computers and even then, we could not figure out how to type in the at sign, so we just copied and pasted the sign from google...we will learn eventually (we also cannot use contractions...eehhh).
We have gotten in contact with Alberto and we are SO excited because we have been invited to his house for a true Sicilian dinner!  I am super interested to see what it is like compared to the dinners that my mom makes.  More on that later.
Now comes the challenge of finding dinner....wish us luck!

FIRE IN THE HOLE!!! .....or the cabin....

Well...we're still in Cleveland.  And let me preface this post with- we're okay...alive and well :)
Our plane, after being delayed over three hours, boarded at 4pm today.  After de-icing and making sure all passengers were secure (for now, at least), our plane took off at 4:40ish!  Finally!
Just after dozing off, Bill was awakened by the back of the cabin screaming, "SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE......THERE'S SMMOOOOKKKEE!!!!"  Bill instantly woke up and sure enough, when we glanced back, there was smoke.  The cabin was on fire!
We heard nothing from the stewardess or the pilot, which completely set us into panic mode.  Bill and I looked at each other and knew exactly what was going through one another's mind..."this is it."  For a few minutes, I was absolutely terrified of death...and of hell...but anyway.  I was saying my Our Fathers and Hail Marys like it was nobody's business (and Bill was praying too...).
We started descending and, well, we had no idea WHY because our pilot and stewardess didn't have the common sense to tell us, so I automatically thought the worst but was hoping for the best.  We couldn't see because of the snow and when the plane got low enough for us to see, all we could see was suburbia that was seemingly 50 feet below us.  I was just hoping that this wasn't going to end like the plane crash in Buffalo, NY that happened awhile ago.  To our relief, the decent did ultimately lead us back to the Cleveland Airport (thank God!) and as our plane landed, everybody applauded (a first that I've heard in the US).  We were SAFE!
Despite the smokey, chemical smelling plane, I was never happier to be on the ground.  Now we just wanted to get OUT.  But as you could probably guess by now, what did we hear from our pilot and stewardess?  That's right- NOTHING.
After a good 15 minutes of waiting, we were finally able to exit.  Insert sigh of relief and tears of joy.
Our next step was to demand a rebooking and hotel voucher, which we got with almost no problem.  All that was left for us to do was get our luggage in baggage claim and calm our nerves at the hotel.  Or so we thought..........
Our baggage claim "adventure" lasted a whopping four hours.  However, we met a lot of great and interesting people from our flight during this time, so it wasn't all bad!  One by one, our new friends started to leave as they collected their luggage....and there we were....still waiting.  At 8:40pm, we finally received our luggage and were on our way to our hotel!  Finally!
Since we didn't have dinner, we went to a small place in our hotel and ate dinner with our new-found friend Ann!  Ann was on our flight and was one of the passengers that we grew close to quickly while bonding over our lost luggage.  Lucky for us, she had the same idea for dinner as we did :)
Ann is from Brooklyn, NY and is a character to say the least!  We had a great dinner with her and are still laughing at her incredibly dry sense of humor.
All in all, today was...terrifically stressful.  I feel so blessed to be alive, to not have been another horror story in the news, to have met some incredible people, and to be sleeping in a warm bed with my own luggage tonight.

Goodnight, all- fingers crossed that the next update will be from Rome!

50lbs or less...heh. We'll see about that one.

One more day until Bill and I take our day-long flight to Sicilia!  I can't believe it's here already after months and months of preparation.
I am particularly excited for this trip because Sicily (Palermo) is where my mother's family comes from and I have never been there before.  I cannot WAIT to explore my family's homeland!
You may be wondering about the title of this blog, "Sabbia-Fegato."  I found this title in my Aunt Mary Iacono's book that tells the story of our family's voyage from Sicily to America.  Based upon this story, my Aunt Mary decided that our family motto should be "Sabbia-Fegato," loosely translated to "Grits and Guts."  Not exactly the most poetic or beautiful family motto, but if you are familiar with the story of how our family came to America, you'll know that it fits quite well.  ;)
On another note, Fr. Charlie (our priest, mentor, family-friend) spent Christmas day here at the Hagadorn household and showed us a nifty website that will track every minute of every flight that Bill and I take to get to our destination.  Although this website is new and exciting for us, I'm sure everybody else in the world has known about it and we're just behind.  I mean, we are the family that still doesn't have texting on our phones... Anyway, while Fr. Charlie was showing us the tracker, he proceeded joke with my mom, telling her that she'll "see if something happens to our plane at the exact moment when/if it happens." --Insert mom moving into panic mode--
Regardless of him sending mom into a few seconds of panic, Fr. Charlie has been a tremendous help with Sicily preparations- from setting up and putting the perfect finishing touches on our benefit concert at his parish, to reminding me that I should pack an umbrella in case it rains, Fr. Charlie has been a life-saver throughout this whole process!

Speaking of packing, I think I'm almost done!  I've made a list of everything (yes, everything!) that I have put in my suitcase.  As of right now, that list is about 2.5 pages long.  Here's to hoping my suitcase weighs less than 50lbs...I'll let you know when I update next from...ROMA!