~Easter Sunday in Catania~
Before I go into all that is the beauty of Italy/Sicily, a bit of background if I may.
When planning our wedding, I automatically pictured my new husband and I on a beach somewhere. Where we can sleep in, lounge around, bask in the sun with an ice cold tropical drink. As I was researching online where we should go, Matt walks in and asks, "How would you feel about going to Italy for our honeymoon?" I jumped on that like white on rice and exclaimed, "UMMM...YES PLEASE!" He reels me in a little and says, "You should think about it though. A honeymoon is supposed to be just the two of us, not the two of us and ALL of my family members! Think about it?" A pause and a second later, I said, "Ok! Thought about it... let's do it! If your family in Italy is anything like your parents, then I'd love to spend it with them! And HELLO!?!? It's freakin' Italy!" So... done and done and that's where we went.....
The Easter Sunday photo was at Zia Maria's house in Catania, Sicily. Can I tell you how happily overwhelmed I was on Easter Sunday. I was drawn to his other aunt, Zia Tina more and she was doting on Matt like you would NOT believe. Everytime she would pass him at the table, she would grab his face and planted a big fat kiss on his cheek. Right at that moment I started to tear and I gave Matt the look like "Don't you dare say anything!!!" Aaaaaaaand then he did. I told him I was crying just because I was happy, and I was. I was happy that he was happy just being with his family again.
~This is Matt w/ Zia Tina & Zio Nino~
Before the honeymoon, Matt had not been to Italy since high school. He was as happy as a pig in shit to see his family. The level of hospitality that each of his family members showed went above and beyond what I had envisioned in my mind. I fell in love with everything that is Italy and Sicily and I miss it so much.
My FIL's family is from Catania, Sicily. My MIL's family is from Bari, Italy. I often wonder how an Italian hooked up with a HOT headed Sicilian, cuz let me tell you... my FIL... IS both!! And yes, there's a huge difference between the two. It's like Korean and Japanese. Same thing, but not really. Different dialects, different foods, just different.
~This is what you see looking out of your window on their "expressway"~
The food in Italy is TO. DIE. FOR! I don't even want to talk about that. I'll get mad. Take my word for it though. It's fantabulous. I workout religiously and on this trip all bets were off. I was on a "SEE-FOOD" diet. I saw it and I ate it, and it was well worth the weight gain! My mouth is watering right now at the thought of the food......
This is Matt and his cousin Fabio, YES, his name is Fabio....
Fabio took 10 days off from work to be with us, to drive us around, to show me around, to be our chauffuer. Meeting Fabio, I could see where Matt gets his sense of humor and use of sarcasm...from his fathers' side of the family. He had me pissing in my pants from laughing SO hard. Do I speak Italian? Nope, BUT there were some words that were very similar to Spanish to at times I could pick up what they were talking about. Other times I needed Matt's help. Anyways, by the end of the trip I showed him how to "Flip the bird" which became our little inside joke. The day we had to leave, I hugged him, I cried as we went down the escalator and then flipped him the bird. I can still hear his laughter from atop the escalators.....
~This is me on Mt. Etna, it's an active volcano in Sicily~
You don't need to adjust your eyes. That's snow alright, in Sicily, in April. It was AWESOME. If you know me, you know I LOOOOOOVE the cold weather! Mt. Etna is an active volcano, but hadn't erupted in YEARS, lots of years. Days after we left it had erupted and my FIL called the house and yelled, "What the hell did you do over there?! Mt. Etna erupted!! You pissed her off!!" I said, "Noooooo, I didn't do anything--she's only pissed off that we left and she wants me back there!" :) On the trail driving up to Mt. Etna were green grassy knolls, trees and wildflowers. The closer we got to the top is when I saw snow and it was just breathtaking. In all honesty, I was NOT prepared to take a hike to the top, but I HAD TO! I'm in Italy, I may never get a chance to climb up a freaking volcano!! I think on the hike up I burned all the calories from all the food I had eaten on the trip cuz DAMN it was STEEEEEP!!
Another view....
Matt and his cousin, Marianna...
I will tell you the one thing I was very worried about with this trip, two things actually.....
1. Will they like me?
2. How in the heck will I be able to communicate with them?
Seeing as how I don't speak or understand Italian, they talked TO me anyways. I connected with Marianna instantely as well. She's was funny and just an amazing host as well.
My MIL said to me one day, "I feel so bad for my husband Ang, he's got no one here that's his family. Sure he has you kids and Dominic, but everyone is in Italy and I know that makes him sad." He's been keeping in touch with everyone there via phone calls, but we all know that that's not the same.
~This is the view from Zia Tina's house!! I know.....~
When all is said and done with chemotherapy, we will be taking that family trip to Italy. It'll be our "celebration" from all of this stress and bullshit that is cancer. All the man wants out of life is to show his grandson off to his family...you have NO idea how bad I want a magic wand of some fairy dust to make all of this shit disappear for him.....
Here are some more photos for your viewing pleasure. I'll end this by saying that this was THE greatest honeymoon/trip EVER. I'm sure we'll be having more family trips to Disney World w/ Dominic or to the Dells.... but THIS is THE trip for me and I will NEVER ever forget any part of it.....
~Matt and I at the Vatican~
~The Collosseum in Rome~
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