This is a silly feeling. I am aware of that. In some ways, I ceased being a child a long time ago… And in other ways, I will eternally remain that oh-so-curious, oh-so-awkward barefoot-girl that still resides just under my young adult skin.

But in 13 days, a tiny part of me will pass on to make room for something different. So I am teeter-tawtering on the quake-prone precipice of “the real world.” 

I’ve always hated that term “the real world.” As if adulthood is some all-encompassing doldrum that attacks everybody at the same time, in the same way. Everybody experiences a different reality. Everybody subscribes to a separate world. 

So I think I’m going to look at the real world as an adventure. While I’m currently dying for something stable to clasp onto, I know that far too soon I will be dreaming of my youthful days when the whole-wide-world was at my eager, barefoot feet. 

So I’ll cherish the storms. Roar at the beating tsunamis. Offer myself up to the chaos…

That being said, my presence on a bar stool with horror-laden curiosity was entirely accidental. Quite seriously, it was.

Archie and I had spent the last hour walking the streets of Patong. Patong is a particularly seedy part of the characteristically seedy province of Phuket on the peninsula of Thailand. Imagine, if you will, a terribly trashy bar filled with blow and needles and prostitutes and blaring subs… Now imagine thirty such bars lined up on a quarter mile street.

Welcome to Patong.

As we walked, persistent men tried to sell us suits and “gucci” watches and taxi rides and hookers and happy-ending-massages and cigarettes and roses and tattoos and incense and hotel rooms and tickets… tickets to EVERYTHING imaginable.

My particularly favorite vendor tried to throw lizards and snakes on the shoulders of unsuspecting clients and then charge them for a picture with his slithery friends. Entrepreneurship at its pinnacle, I tell you.

Archie slid comfortably into this riotous scene–having worked in a rather dodgy nightclub, he wasn’t easily thrown off his guard. I, on the other hand, was horrified. Middle-aged American men prancing through the streets with pre-pubescent Thai hookers, frolicking with no sense of shame. I wanted to take pictures of these men and send them to their midwestern wives, who were no doubt home with the kids and the family dog while their doting husbands exhausted themselves on “business trips.”

I wanted to go back to our over-sanitized hotel. I wanted to crawl under the covers and turn on the air-con and watch BBC and pretend like I was, well, nowhere near Patong. But Archie was clearly intrigued and I’m usually not one to skip out on cultural immersion–no matter how questionable the cultural integrity. So I surged on. Hoping to find something mildly entertaining–preferably far, far away from the snake-wielding photographer.

Suddenly, as if by the will of God, a man calmly appeared wielding a crisp brochure. Without going into detail, I could ascertain that this brochure boasted (among other things):

Ping-pong.

Pool.

Darts.

Goldfish.

Perhaps “goldfish” should have thrown me, but I chalked it up to mistranslation and eagerly pulled on glazey-eyed Archie. “Let’s do this, ok? This looks like fun, doesn’t it?” I showed him the brochure.

“Yeah, sure babe, whatever you wanna do.”

Success.

We followed the man down a questionable alley. Placed some Baht in the hands of what appeared to be a bouncer, and disappeared behind flimsy doors.

I believe it is fair to say that when I would later exit through those doors, my life would, in some small way, never be the same.

The brochure did not lie, as one might assume from my shattering dramatics. No, no. The brochure was all too accurate. There was, in fact:

Ping pong, pool, darts AND goldfish. Though not in the fun-loving context that any well-minded human might assume.

I probably should have been tipped off when I was ushered to have a seat in front of a make-shift stage. Or when an old Thai woman walked out naked… But no, it took over-stimulated-Carina quite some time to realize the nature of her newest experience. It wasn’t until said-naked-woman shoved a dart up her most intimate lady part, laid on her back, spread-eagled her legs and expelled the dart which hit bulls eye on a dart board across the room. That was when I began to understand what I had signed up for. Perhaps you can imagine what pool and ping pong entailed, but gold fish was likely the best. The same woman contracted an entire aquarium out of her vagina into a fish tank. LIVE gold fish and a decorative castle to boot.

This was about the time we ran for the door. I’m embarrassed we didn’t leave sooner. Truly. But I think we were too stunned or hypnotized or horrified to bring intention of movement to our bodies.

I am unsure as to how I should feel about that whole experience. Other than slightly dumb for not reading the fine print.

I think Archie chalked it up to talent, a freak show of sorts, a circus side act. And I think that may well be the truth… yet I can’t help but wonder what would compel somebody to learn how to shoot darts out of their vagina other than poverty, lack of choices, force. And in that way, I feel that maybe I helped to exploit those woman. Then again, maybe releasing aquariums is better than being a prostitute. Maybe it’s the lesser of two evils… or maybe it’s not an evil at all.

He goes to the grocery store without shoes. His roughed-up heels and callused toes hitting up against the cold-shiny linoleum. We shop. I smell the belly of produce, gripping it, touching it, picking each piece with a purpose. He digs his dirty fingers into piles and grabs what he touches, nonchalantly tossing his picks into plastic. We slide on–pushing our screwed-up, loose-wheeled cart to the butcher. He takes a number and bites my neck–just close enough to smell him. His aged-cologne-fresh-sweat-skin mixing with his old-wheatbix-and-milk-breath.

One of my peers was brutally beaten and is now in the ICU. Boys will be boys and sometimes a punch gets pushed too far but this was a different demon entirely. This boy was not fighting. He did not get in anyone’s face. He did not call names or provoke. He was simply trying to catch a train…. The fact that he was a homosexual trying to get to the train was his one complication.

I could sit here and convince you, more than you are already instinctively convinced, that the perpetrators are horrible, sick in the head, demented. But that wouldn’t really change anything–wouldn’t really mean anything. I don’t have to persuade most people to not put somebody into the hospital for their sexual orientation.

So here’s what I can say–I wouldn’t throw punches. You wouldn’t throw punches. And yet, we were, in some small way, the force behind that punch. The boys that beat him up weren’t born with the tendency to beat, to hate–it was taught. Taught to them by extremists perhaps but further cemented by the average person who makes comments like “that’s so gay.” When we fail to call out our friends for calling someone a “fag” we add a little force to the fist. When we vote for a bill that says a homosexual does not deserve the same civil rights as a heterosexual, we add force to that fist. When we don’t rise up to bigotry, we add force to that fist. And the longer Prop 8 sits on the books, the more force we add to that fist.

So, the way I see it, we have two options: we can be the force behind a punch or we can be a force to be reckoned with. We can be catalysts for apathy or we can be catalysts for change.

We don’t have any more time to make up our minds, the time is now. The choice is now. Let’s decide to stop this. To stop the hatred and to stop any incline that the hatred is acceptable. Because, ultimately, it’s up to us to decide… yes or no?

I make apple pie from scratch and enjoy receiving hand written letters. My family is from Kentucky and my dog is inbred. I love pictures of strangers and reading aloud. Travel is my unsatiable addiction. I live for cheap taco stands, tiny coffee shops and long airplane rides. I think skinny dipping is therapeutic, especially at night. I collect antique photos of strangers and used sketch books. I think October is an ugly month. I drive around in my dirty-hippy car with the windows down and the music blasting. I don’t trust people who don’t believe in singing along. I put chili pepper in my hot chocolate and basil in my ice cream.

There’s nothing more attractive than a well-stocked book shelf.

Cigarrettes are trashy. Good sex is classy. Period. The end. No questions. No quarrels.

I’ve found that time is funny here, like the keeper of the clock is perpetually stretching her arms. In the Duomo, in the main piazza is a majestic church and in between the bell tower and the perch cross is a beautiful clock… who is missing its hands. Days change but time stands still… or something to that sentiment. The same old men sit on the same bench in the same coats smoking the same band of cigarettes. The streets smell like hot bread and cold citrus, day-in and day-out. The ocean is always misting and the wind is always well-rolled with heavy air. Doors open and close, babies cry, lights go on and off, dough is rolled, onions chopped, wine is brewed, sauce is simmered, lines are cast. Quite a departure from where I was a year ago–a blurred mess of sleepless nights and dawn-crow mornings, 20-hour work-weeks and an agenda that read like a novel. So now I’m here–so far away from Manhattan that I can actually hear the quiet hum of silence. I’ve managed to slide into Ortigia though–found my own quiet beat amidst a collective rhythm. I’ve always thought small-town life would be dull and repetitive-far too formulaic.. And maybe it is repetitive but I’ve discovered something unique in the round-about style. When days are simple, one has to settle into the details to sift out humble inspirations–we can’t rely on swirling billboards or changing faces or sixty varieties of lunch meat to distract us, to occupy our moments. 

Here I’m forced to explore the less obvious.

But then there’s a lightshow of flashing cameras and sheep-like tourists being herded by guides, all repeating the same schpeal with memorized inflections. Addicts are pouring nicoting into my nose and stamping out their steaming stubs on fallen doric columns. So I stop feeling privy to something special and find myself wishing I was somewhere else–lying on a lemon-grass covered mountain or bartering for almonds at the market or sharing a coffee with a stranger or getting beaten up by ocean waves…

For more, check out: cariklod.wordpress.com

How many times have disgruntled waitresses sneezed into our food? One shudders to think.

So here I am in a country that prides itself on having some of the best cuisine in the world. To boot, I am in a region that prides itself on having some of the best cuisine in the country. So not long after I moved into my apartment, it was time to dapple in my own culinary concoctions: it was time to cook which meant it was time to go shopping.

Food shopping in Italy is quite unlike shopping in the states. There is no massive grocery store where one might find thirty different varieties of canned tuna in an aisle next to twelve different types of apple all imported from thousands of miles away. Shopping is a market for produce, a bakery for bread, a pasta store for pasta, a winery for wine, a deli for meat.

But where to start?

It was the first sunny day to unveil itself during my time in Sicily so I had made up my mind. First stop: Outdoor market.

I left my apartment and walked down the gaping stairs. Entire chunks of the stairs are missing—rendering them more of an obstacle course than anything else. I enjoyed mastering this—skipping steps, tiptoeing around crumbling corners, until I jumped the last jutting step and landed firmly on the ground in the courtyard. The courtyard isn’t as picturesque as others I’ve seen. It’s covered in splotches of moss and scattered with a wide array of bikes and tires and dead machines and dried up paint buckets and various odds and ends.

The door into the courtyard is giant but inoperable. The actual entrance is a smaller door cut into the giant, which actually requires me to bend my head in order to exit unscathed.

My home is situated on Via Roma—the main street of Ortygia and despite the surprisingly small width of the street, it manages to bustle with plenty of activity. Little bakeries and cozy cafes and groups of old men out on early morning walks.

I’m amazed by how well the men in Sicily dress—they have slacks and vests and coats and ties, all of which are effortlessly matched down to the handkerchief which peaks out of their coat pocket. They also manage to smell like heaven, better than I ever have smelled or ever will smell—it would surely upset my femininity if I weren’t so hypnotized by the fantastic aroma violating my untrained nose.

Once moving passed the groups of strolling men and dog walkers and whispering women, I picked up my pace, revealing my inherent American-ness. (Through my travels, I’ve discovered we’re one of the few countries that is constantly in a hurry. Everybody else seems to have magically mastered the elusive art of chilling the f*ck out.) But the bottom line is I’m a hipless-blonde-haired-blue-eyed-girl in Sicily—blending in isn’t really an option.

I wasn’t really sure where I was going and the labyrinth streets weren’t entirely helpful. I saw a middle-aged man ambling past and I figured I had just as good of a bet with him as with anyone.

“Scusa, Signor?” Crap, am I saying this right? “Dove… the market?” THE market? THE market? Try any other article ever, dumb ass.

He smiled politely and pointed straight ahead and then turned his hand slightly to signify a right turn.

“Grazie!” I said, as I pranced down the street. All I had to figure was where I turned right and I would be more than on my way.

It certainly wasn’t hard to find.

The market was gigantic, overtaking the thickest street I had thus seen in Ortygia. It was well covered in a diverse blanket of vendors. Men selling apples, oranges, almonds, ricotta, pecorino, spinach, arugula, onions, leaks, potatoes, lemons, chocolate, bananas, fish, olives, basil, mint… the list goes on.

I have experienced overstimulation in many venues. A shiny plastic mall in Thailand. A candy palace in New York. A migration of elephants in Tanzania. But never before had I experienced overstimulation by vegetable. And frankly, I had never really intended to.

It wasn’t just the array of produce that floored me it was the quality. The tomatoes made every tomato that had ever come before them look dull, dusty. The lettuce made all other lettuce look crumbled and dry. The huge and heavy lemons made all other lemons feel hollow. The blood oranges actually looked as if they were filled with blood. Glorious, juicy, crimson-red-blood.

Vendors were pushing samples in my face and fish were flying over my head. I tried a slice of crisp-fresh apple and the most perfect olive that has ever met my lips. I bit, chew, swallowed, spit—overcome by a euphoric sampling.

“Signora!” Said a less attacking voice. I turned to it. An older cheese vendor—a short little man with a semi-circle of grey hair—was smiling at me and gently handing me a piece of bread piled with ricotta.

“Mi chiamo Andreas,” he said, as I took his offering.

“Mi chiamo Carina.” I popped the bread and cheese into my mouth.

Oh. My. God.

This was not ricotta as I knew it. This made all other ricotta feel like a glob of rubber in my mouth. This was soft, fluffy, flavorful, yet unassuming deliciousness. I felt like the woman in those Philadelphia Cream Cheese advertisements who takes a bite of her bagel and is suddenly dancing her heart out on a cloud.

I wanted to eat more of this cheese. I wanted to live for this cheese. I wanted to bathe myself in this cheese. I bought the cheese. I bought a lot of the cheese.

Andreas proceeded to give me different samples… He cut up some pecorino and squeezed a lemon all over it—he cut a tiny slice of garlic and stuffed it into something resembling a cheddar. Through this cutting and sampling, I ended up getting myself invited to the opening of Andreas’ new cheese store in Piazza Archimede. He was doing demonstrations on how to make his ricotta.

I was going.

Obviously.

As for now, it was time to head to the bakery.

“Perfecto.”

“Good. Now for shower, you have to put this cord to the wall, wait two hours, then turn the water on, off, on.” He did a quick 360 glance around the apartment. “I think I have said all. So if you have any questions, you can call me.”
“Got it.”
“Got it?”
“I’m sorry, I mean, I understand.”
“Got it.” He said mockingly, “gottit!” He laughed and repeated the phrase to himself all the way out the door and down the steps to the ground floor.
I waited until his last laughing echoes had faded and then I took a deep breath and let my backpack fall from my knotted shoulders and sat down on the floor, feeling the icicle tiles slice into the warmth of my skin. I breathed in my new home: A sizable space with astoundingly high ceilings that was absolutely empty—the space was bereft of decoration, making it feel more like a very cold box than anything else.
(Let me first say that I’m not a high ceiling person. When I was thinking about getting my own apartment in New York, I would read listings that boasted BEAUTIFUL WITH HUGE CEILINGS. I’ve never really understood what makes them so desirable. I like my ceilings close to me—shallow and cozy, a house should be a place you can wrap yourself up in.)
But back to the point: I took a deep breath of cold air and set to turning on the heater. I pressed and pushed and turned and one minute later, all I had to show for my efforts was a room reeking of spoiled eggs. I managed to undo the damage and flea to fresh air. Two chipping doors swung into the morning. A tiny, empty balcony, gated in with curving rod iron. There was only a wet and twisted clothesline for decoration—several clothespins dangled limply in the breeze.  The cobblestone street below me was still a strong river from the hard, night rain.
(When the city of Ortygia was originally constructed, there were no real forms of draining. Instead, the city was built at a tilt, on all sides. Rushing all of the water downstream and into the ocean.)
An old woman across the way was poking her head slyly out of the window and staring at me. When my eyes caught hers, her round head popped back inside and the shutters closed quickly after. I looked to my left—I was amidst a sea of tiny balconies and tiny windows and tiny eyes. To my right was a flat bay of the Mediterranean—angry water was doing it’s damndest to form waves in the eye of this storm. But, to no avail, it only managed to slosh angrily against the rocks.
Two older men on the street were staring up at me. But, unlike the old woman, their steady stream of looks wouldn’t be broken by my recognition. I went so far as to smile, to wave, to scream “bongiorno!” They didn’t respond. Just stared at me as if I was some marvelous exhibit in a freak show at the circus. My little balcony suddenly felt more like a cage than anything else.
I had been in Ortygia for 72 hours and I had yet to see another blonde—it was time to die my hair or find a massive and imposing hat. In the mean time, I would just go back inside. It wasn’t colder, per se, once I got back in. Rather the air was heavier, layered with more water, more iced humidity. I opened my suitcase and rummaged around for a scarf—once found, I decided to really survey this apartment. High ceilings, cold tile, a kitchen, a sitting room, a funky couch, an armoire and a tiny room with a tiny bed and a tiny chair.

What particularly intrigued me was a narrow staircase, leading up into what would seem to be a loft. I started to climb up the stairs and with my very OCD charm I counted each step. I got to five before hearing a loud creak, got to ten before feeling the stairs literally tremble under my weight, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…
A tiny bed, a botchy mirror, a shining bookshelf, a bedside table, hardwood floors and an old wood desk with a new wood chair, pale pink walls and a single lamp.
It all adds up to heaven.
I suddenly felt like I was in my Virginia Woolf fantasy. A Room of One’s Own.

The room was up so many stairs that I was cuddled up with the ceiling. In the corner was an oversized pillowcase stuffed with different patterned sheets and bits of fabric.
I set to decorating my new room. I threw a striped sheet over my desk and hung another from the ceiling. I filled the thin shelf that ran the perimeter of my room with pictures and postcards. I stuffed the bookshelf with books and journals. I lugged my bags up the disconcerting staircase.
The sound of slapping water indicated the reemerging storm so I crawled under the covers of my new bed, surveyed my tiny universe and promptly gave in to my aching need to become one with the bed and dream into oblivion.

So from the sky at night, Sicily didn’t seem particularly hypnotic or enchanting–nothing unlike the tens of cities I had previously landed in. The landing was smooth and the captain polite–coming over the speakers and delivering the usual niceties, “thank you for flying with us, welcome home or enjoy your stay,” etc. etc. The plane taxied to the gate and the seat belt sign deluminated, I collected my belongings from the overhead bin and hummed through the lines of customs and the finger-crossing of the baggage claim.

With my passport stamped and my bags in tow, I lugged onto the sidewalk and was embraced by a mild breeze of cold–a brisk but weak winter, similar to the San Diego climate that I had recently said goodbye to.

A taxi pulled up to my side and I exchanged with the driver my token Italian. “Si.” “Non.” “Gratzie.” And my personal favorite, “Parlo solo un po d’Italiano.” (Boy was that a stretch.) I started making a mental list of all of all the English-speaking, French-speaking, Spanish-speaking countries I could have chosen to study in. But once interacting with my driver, that list was quickly forgotten.

He was a deep olive man with a round stomach and a deep chuckle. He shared his tin of Italian mint candy and attempted to converse with me–laughing as I used my iPhone to light up my pocket book of Italian phrases. But my inability to understand him hardly dissuaded his conversation and at least I could understand one word he kept repeating: “Obama.” It was the eve of Obama’s inauguration and it would seem that the whole world was abuzz with Barack-fever.

His conversation continued and all I could do was smile. And instead of responding with frustration he stretched his tongue around foreign words and said, “what a very pretty smile.” My blonde hair and blue eyes, once again, came to my rescue.

We were driving down a dark, indescript highway that really could have been anywhere in the world. The 2-way pavement road was narrow and cracked in places and there was nothing to see beyond the concrete barriers. My whole body was heavy and the adrenaline of excitement had long waned but my complete exhaustion and the first signs of a stress headache prevented me from reading too far into my state of mind.

We suddenly emerged into an industrial area filled with steal and pipes billowing smoke–the old buildings of my imagination were nowhere to be found. An email had previously informed me that from Catania Airport to Ortygia, a taxi ride would take approximately fifty minutes. I glanced at my phone. It had been forty so far which meant my new city was close and how much could my surrounding change in just ten minutes? “Good god,” I thought. “Please don’t let this be it.”

A sign popped up that said “Ortygia” with an arrow directing us to stay right at the round-about.

Through previous travels, I have developed a tiny mantra. Something to repeat and cling to when I’m nervous or unsure or think one of my crazy adventures is at the precipice of going terribly wrong. It’s hardly poetic–crude at best and terribly unbecoming on a language obsessed, creative writing major with an otherwise impressive vocabulary. Yet, for some reason, it is the only thing that can calm me down and remind me to breath.

So I took a deep breath and whispered to myself, “balls to the walls, balls to the walls, balls to the walls, balls to the wa—”

Holy crap.

We were on the wooden bridge crossing into Ortygia and what I saw before me were the ruins of an epic Greek theater and tall, antique building hovering over trees twirled in twinkling lights. The main street was small and twisty with only the occasional car. As we headed further and further in, vibrant bookstores and pizzerias dotted the streets until the road opened into a grand round-a-bout circling a massive and stunning fountain. Water was falling from the knives of horsemen and the open mouths of goddesses and the outstretched hands of sirens.

We drove a 1/4 mile further and hit the ocean. It was too dark to see it but the orchestra of broken waves and the scent of salt sifting through the air revealed the presence of the epic Mediterranean. A left turn and thirty seconds on the coastal road landed me at my bed and breakfast–hiding in an old building behind sky blue doors. I  bid “Arrivederci!” to my driver and was lead to my room by a middle-aged man with wandering eyes.

The room was perfect. Tiny and decorated with blues and greens and seashells and tired wood. I temporarily disposed of my desire to become one with the bed and dream into oblivion, and instead embraced my aching need to take to the streets.

The views from the car were charming and incredibly picturesque but nothing, NOTHING, could have prepared me for the alleys. The island of Ortygia, like much of Sicily, is dominated by side streets. And, as I soon found out, this is where life is lived, amidst a maze of cobblestone turns. Chipping buildings fronted by creaky wooden doors, painted in paling colors. Big windows and rusting balconies, decorated with bright flowers, nestled into pots, literally cracking at the seams. Clotheslines on the roof tops, pinned with dancing laundry.

Some small doors flooded into art galleries, one into a pastry shop. I paused and peered into the dimly lit window and stared at stuffed cannoli and sugared fruit and bite-sized cookies rolled in powdered sugar and little cakes glazed with chocolate-hazelnut icing and decorated with grated almonds.

A little bookstore was nestled in, several apartments down. When I walked in I was greeted by eclectic arm chairs and piles of bright books stacked on uneven tables–the welding of new and old caught my attention.

When I returned to the uncharted streets, the scent of just-made loaves made me immediately aware of the aching at the core of my stomach. I read the posted menus of several ristorantes before settling on one: Trattoria Kalliope, which boasts the best pizza in all of Sicily. The tables were few and each was covered with a different patterned table cloth. The lights were dim and each table was centered with a votive candle. Six or seven patrons were sipping wine and breaking bread. A young waiting ushered me in and showed me through larger-than-life hand gestures that I could pick any table that suited me.

“Solo una.” I said. He knodded and smiled.

About an hour later, I was through my first course of arugula with blood oranges and red onions and on to my second: ravioli stuffed with ricotta, spinach and walnut cheese.

I’m not entirely sure if it was the heavenly taste meeting my lips or if it was the flickering tea lights or the drunk and laughing Italians, but in the strangest sense, my heart beat calmed and the world seemed slower.

Apparently, the sky at night is a weak indicator of what is hidden in the streets below.

Alley