{"id":950,"date":"2017-01-07T17:28:53","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T21:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=950"},"modified":"2017-01-07T17:28:53","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T21:28:53","slug":"sicily-day-3-november-19-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=950","title":{"rendered":"Sicily, Day 3 – November 19, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several years ago at \u00a0nursery school, I lifted a child who was attempting to escape, and pop! went a muscle in my lower \u00a0back.\u00a0The same muscle has acted up many tines through the years since then. The problem is, I never know when it’s going to act up. While I was in the shower on Day 3,\u00a0I reached down to get the shampoo, when I felt that familiar \u00a0pop! Oh, no! I have a routine that \u00a0works for me at home that includes \u00a0several days of medication and heat. Unfortunately, though, I didn’t have a few days. In fact, my cousin Francesco and his wife Anna were coming to pick us up.<\/p>\n

As I said earlier, I wanted to hire a genealogist. One of the reasons is that Giuseppe Nucatola and his family do not know Francesco Nucatola and his. There are so few people named Nucatola in the world that I think\u00a0it’s reasonable to assume that we are all related, and I’d love to find out how. Add Signore Nucatola the florist to the mix; how does his family fit in? I’d love to solve these mysteries!<\/p>\n

It was delightful to see Francesco and Anna again after eleven years. They took us out for a “quick” lunch at a cafeteria, explaining that we’d be going to their house the following day to get together with their extended family.\"\" There were many, many lunch choices, but I focused on a pasta dish that I had seen this past\u00a0summer at our Family Picnic. One of our family members brought along a friend, Fina, who is from\u00a0Sicily. \u00a0Fina’s\u00a0dish won the\u00a0pasta contest at the
\npicnic. Anna told me not to order it, though, because she was preparing it for part of tomorrow’s meal. Instead we chose lasagna. If you are of Italian ancestry, I’ll bet someone
\nn your family makes or made the\u00a0best lasagna in the USA. I learned that Sicilian lasagna was slightly different from our American version. Where we Americans would use ricotta, Sicilians use bechamella. It was different from my mom’s lasagna, but it was definitely delicious!<\/p>\n

The lasagna was the first course. We had to have a main course, too. Nick chose chicken involtini and veggies, and I chose veal scallopini. Anna and Francesco were very happy to see this. They said that I looked the same as I did eleven years ago, but Nick had become\u00a0much too thin.\u00a0I, too, was happy to see the he had his appetite back.<\/p>\n

We talked about their family. I was hesitant to ask about Francesco’s mother, who was in her eighties eleven years ago. With great joy, they told me that she was still going strong at 99 years of age! Eleven years ago Francesco and Anna\u00a0were in the process of building a house. Francesco and Anna \u00a0would live on the ground floor. Each of their two sons and their families would live on the next\u00a0two floors, and their daughter and her family would have\u00a0the top floor. \u00a0That is exactly what happened, and Anna was very happy. Then \u00a0last year their daughter’s husband got a job in Frankfurt, Germany, so away went their daughter, her husband, and their three children! Anna \u00a0was devastated. However, she was excited because she and Francesco would be leaving for an extended\u00a0visit with them them there in a few days.<\/p>\n

Francesco brought a platter of cannoli to the table. Is there such a thing as too much cannoli? I don’t think so!<\/p>\n

By this time, I couldn’t hide that fact that I was in agony because of my back. They told me of the festa that they were preparing for us \u00a0tomorrow. On the way back to our hotel, Francesco drove through Mondello, a \u00a0seaside resort town \u00a0that is packed in the summer but was empty today. \"\"<\/a>It was similar to parts of Florida, with hotels and palm trees. We stopped to take a photo, and I think it shows that I was in pain. On the way to our hotel,\u00a0\u00a0Francesco drove us through Il Borgo, the part of Palermo in which my ancestors and his originated. Eleven years ago Il Borgo\u00a0reminded me of \u00a0pictures of the Lower East Side in the early 1900s, filled with chatting residents as well as \u00a0vendors with\u00a0their pushcarts. Today, however, it \u00a0was raining, and only a few elderly men were outdoors. Francesco\u00a0also drove past the location of the Church of Santa Lucia al Borgo, where\u00a0 my\u00a0ancestors and his were baptized and married. Unfortunately, much of \u00a0area of the docks was destroyed by allied bombs in WW II, including the church.\u00a0A\u00a0new church was built on the same spot, but what became of the church’s records its uncertain.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Francesco and Anna dropped us off \u00a0our hotel, telling us they would pick\u00a0us up tomorrow. I went directly to bed and Nick went out in search of heat packs for my back.<\/p>\n

We walked 3,000 steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several years ago at \u00a0nursery school, I lifted a child who was attempting to escape, and pop! went a muscle in my lower \u00a0back.\u00a0The same muscle has acted up many tines through the years since then. The problem is, I never know when it’s going to act up. While I was in the shower on … Continue reading Sicily, Day 3 – November 19, 2016<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sicily-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}