Oven-Roasted Grilled Cheese

So, I guess I’ll tell you about Vulcano, which I visited after Stromboli, until October 5^th, when I came to Trecastagni, later. Because this adventure in cooking has to be told now, while it’s fresh on my mind.

So, Friday, October 5^th, I arrived in Milazzo via boat, around 10. Then, I caught a bus to Messina and got there around noon, and caught the first train out to Catania. I must have gotten to Catania around 2, and then found a bus to Trecastagni, the “suburb” of Catania where my Etna contact, Boris Behncke, lives, and where my residence for the month is, and bought a ticket for it. I was told it would leave in 40 minutes from spot 1 in the bus parking lot. Alright. So, I got to the lot and looked for others that were Trecastagni-bound. Didn’t find anyone, but I knew what I was looking for. I refused to set my bag down, as the rocks I have gathered at each volcano has made it weigh a ton, and the worst part of carrying my bag is getting it on my back. I forgot to look at my watch at the time that I was told 40 minutes from now, so guessing, I figured around 2:40. That time came and went, it was probably closer to 2:20 or so when I talked to the guy I bought my ticket from, but it couldn’t have been later than 2:30, so around 3, give or take ten minutes. For those of you that don’t know, I’m TERRIBLE at estimating time. So, keeping an eye on my watch…3:10 passed…ok, so…dang. I started asking around again. Still no one was Trecastagni-bound. Someone spoke good English though! Yay! Hope! He started asking around, in Italian, and found out from a bus driver that said bus would leave at 4. Fine. At this point, I took the bag off. I had already stood around for an hour with iton my back, after all. But the 4 o’clock bus was on time from spot 1! Maybe I misheard the ticket guy, I guess I don’t know. I arrived at i Rustici, my place of residence, and checked in and looked around some. The place is gorgeous, however, I’m in a basement room. And it feels like a basement room. But, it’s cheap, and I have access to wifi and a pool, and I have my own kitchen-ette and bathroom.  So, who am I to complain?

The next day, Saturday, I decided to find food. Find a grocery store and do some shopping, like the grown-up I’m trying to prove myself to be. Found one, and got lots of junk food, and some bread and cheese and butter and milk and juice. Good deal. Grown-up I am. I also got frozen pizza. I got back to my room, having not eaten lunch, around 4 or 5, and HUNGRY and looking forward to my frozen pizza! I read the instructions on the box, and started preheating the oven to 220°C, like the box said. I put the pizza in, because I was hungry enough not to bother with truly preheating. Yay! Pizza soon! Then, I got the fridge turned on and put away groceries before…DARK. The lights went out, including in the fridge. Ok, I shorted the circuit. Great. So I went in search of the owners…and couldn’t find them. Anywhere. Next I looked for the circuit-breaker…again, couldn’t find it. I was texting mom, freaking out now, because I had bought some ice cream, which must have been melting! She says, simply and oh so obviously, well, call them. Duh. But I don’t have their numbers. I text and ask her for them, while trying to find the owners again, and she says she already sent them to me, but before that, I found their numbers on a sign, so all good. I call, and fighting the language barrier, seem to successfully communicate my problem. Her sister will be over soon to help with my ice cream, and they’ll arrive in an hour. Fantastic, not. But at least the ice cream problem will be solved. The sister arrives, and as we’re leaving the building, to go to her fridge, I think, she spots the breaker and flips the switch! Poof! I have lights! Perfect! So, I turn the oven back on, and I’m in the dark again within minutes. I continued this dance a few more times, trying variations, hoping to use the oven. No such luck. So, I gave up, and ate a partially raw pizza. Oh well.

Next day, I just ate cereal, and worked on pictures and relaxing and such. It was a nice day. And, in the evening, Boris came and picked me up, and we went to the Hilton in a nearby town, where he gave a presentation on Etna to a group of American tourists. I think I nearly passed out from excitement. He had so much information, pictures, and videos incorporated. I was…in an unbelievably happy place. And, sitting in the front row, I looked like a freak, my face was so contorted with happiness.

On Monday, I relaxed less and worked more on the same stuff as the day before…I try, but I don’t tend to do so well if I’m taking a “chill day”. But, I got stuff done.

Today…was the first day of a 5 year old in a world of eternal Christmas. I was a 5 year old in a 5 story candy store. I was a 5 year old little girl riding her first pony.

It was AMAZING! I kept Boris very entertained, as he introduced me to different people, and showed me different areas of the Catania branch of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), as I was so enthralled. It was so cool. I met geochemists that sample the gas emitted at Etna. I met a cartographer, and saw lots of great posters and maps that thrilled me. It was amazing. Boris also has a group of German students, mostly high school, visiting, so I met them today. They all laughed when I exclaimed,” I’ll remember your name!” as I was told the name Kim amidst insanely German names. But I seem to have impressed Kim, as I did not forget her name. 

Me and the Germans

Then, the Germans and I were brought to the control room…to stinkin’ cool! There are a bunch of seismic monitor screens and other monitoring screens! And there’s an alarm that goes off in case of a real earthquake, a change in volcanic tremors, or some other changes! And there are live video feeds, both in normal view and in thermal imagery. It was amazing. And I can now die happy. Oh! And I went to a lecture given by Brittany Brand on pyroclastic flows, using Mt. St. Helens as the focus (she’s from Seattle), which was really interesting! So I had a fantastic, and amazing first day at INGV!

The INGV Control Room Screens

The INGV Control Room Screens

For dinner tonight, I wanted grilled cheese. So, I cut two “slices” from my brick of provolone cheese, and buttered my bread. Then, I tried turning on my stove…nothing. I don’t know if it’s some funny business that I don’t understand, or if it just doesn’t work. But no stove. Well, now I have two small grilled cheese sandwiches waiting to be grilled. I know! I’ll use the oven, after all, I had been told to use a particular little symbol on the knob, and use 180 at the highest, so I heat it up to 60, and put my sandwiches in a sauce pan of sorts. The butter melts…but it seems like it needs a little more, so I turn it up to 80…then to 100…then my room goes dark again…SERIOUSLY?! So, I’ll be talking to the owners tomorrow again, this time with Boris I hope, so I don’t have to resort to broken Spanish…as I’ve never learned how to say “going above 100° with the oven causes my room to lose power” and even if I had, I don’t think they have in Spanish. But, I continued to roast my sandwiches, until I gave up on them getting any darker (they were still yellow, rather than golden or brown or even black). They weren’t bad…but they didn’t really satisfy the craving for grilled cheese I’ve had for a while now.

Wish me luck in figuring out my kitchen! And just as I had begun to really settle into this room! I hope I don’t have to move, but I may…I guess I’ll find out!

Ciao!

Explosive Stromboli Part 2

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. It’s easy to get distracted here and to forget to do things like blog, even with mom bugging me to do so nearly continuously.

So, I left you all at the point when I’d relaxed the day away, before my trek up the volcano! At 3:30, I left my room and went to the MagmaTrek office, to check in for my climb. I was told to take a yellow helmet, and wait at the square. At 4:15, my group would be leaving from there. So, I found a yellow helmet, and sat in the square. I had a 2 liter bottle of water already, but decided to get a second one from the restaurant there. I was actually really nervous at this point. I was sure I could do the trek, but since I have asthma, and they say this trek is not for asthmatics, I was nervous. But as soon as our guide came, that nervousness passed, and excitement returned! I was about to go see Strombolian explosions! He counted us, saying it was generally considered polite to come back with the same number of people that you go up with, and then, we were off!

The hike was nice. It was very scenic, and a little tough with the constant uphill direction, so I took a couple puffs of my inhaler. No big deal. I was taking lots of pictures and loving it. We all were. There were some stairs, or at least the path became stair-like, and I wasn’t a big fan, but no big deal. I got this.

Then, after around half an hour, we had our first break, and I listened to our guide talk with interest, hoping for some new knowledge about the beautiful volcano. None really came, well, no new geology knowledge came. However, new knowledge did come, I suppose. I learned about two fires on the flanks, one of which, the most recent, was human caused. The other less recent was caused by a volcanic bomb landing on vegetation. For those of you that don’t know, a volcanic bomb is a piece of rock that is thrown out of a volcano during certain eruption types that is 60 mm or bigger across.

After he told us a little bit, we continued on. Now, the hike was getting tough. But, it’s ok, I told myself. I can do this. My muscles were aching, and beginning to protest, but my asthma wasn’t doing too badly. Next, I noticed my heels were hurting. But nothing was too bad. Just keep going. It’s alright. Then, we got another break (breaks were every half hour or so), and I gulped down at least a liter of water. Our guide talked again. Kind of interesting, blah blah blah, just breathe. It’s all good.

The next time we started hiking, I was lagging. I was falling to the back of the group, and now my heels were screaming in protest with continuing going uphill! Blisters were definitely forming. And the awkward way of walking I had developed to try to avoid adding to the blisters was adding to the muscle ache. At our next break, I had gotten so slow that the guide came and talked to me. Talk about embarrassing! I told him about the blisters, which really did seem like the reason I was going so slow to me. He told me to take my shoes off so he could take a look, and they weren’t really bad blisters, but we still had a ways to go, so he put some tape on each heel, over the blister, and I pulled my shoes and socks back on.

Now, with the pain of the blisters subdued, it became obvious that the real reason I was so slow, was in no way the blisters. It was my pathetic muscles, as I was, apparently, completely out of shape still, despite the weight I’ve lost in Europe and all the walking I’ve been doing here. Now, my muscles were screaming in protest, rather than my heels. And now, I was beginning to feel faint. Not good. I was convinced I was going to die. I wouldn’t die of exhaustion, but I was sure I would randomly pass out, and then proceed to fall all the way down the mountain, bouncing off of rocks and everything. ‘No! Don’t think like that! You can do this! You HAVE to do this! You aren’t just doing this for you! You’re doing this for Dusty, too! And for mom! You’re doing this for Dusty and mom. And for Ian. And for Allie. And for Rachel. And for all the geology majors. And for everyone that reads your blog. And for all your friends. Not everyone can do this, most people you know don’t get to. You’re doing this for them! So do it! Oh my word, I’m gonna die. I’m gonna pass out and die! No!’ I told myself, going in circles and listing off everyone that was counting on me, in any way, getting to the summit of Stromboli.

Finally, we were almost there. It was dark, and there was a shelter ahead, where we were going to take our last break, before reaching the summit. But this last bit was in ash, which was defeating me by making me slip down faster than I was climbing up. But Dusty, mom, Ian, Kerry, Allie, and everyone else kept going through my mind, until I made it. I did it! I survived! And we took a nice rest, before finishing up the summit, which was easier after a longer than normal break. And there it was.

As soon as we reached the summit, we could see the explosions. They were beautiful! It was SO COOL!!!!! There were fountains of red hot rocks spraying out of different vents every so often. A Strombolian explosion is a specific type of eruption. In this type of eruption, no lava is erupted. So, it is a type of pyroclastic eruption, in which only solid materials come out of the volcano. This particular eruption type is explosive and shoots out red hot rocks from the vents. So stinkin’ cool! Also, there were two vents that were continuously on fire. Flames just came out of them, and didn’t stop! It was awesome!

After watching for almost an hour (I think), we started our trip down. My muscles were all so much more willing to move from the start, after an hour rest. But the rest wasn’t even necessary, as the path down was almost entirely downhill. Go figure. And, to top it off, it started off as essentially a sand dune! Except technically, it was made of sand-sized ash, rather than sand. Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! I bounced down the volcano flank, in the dark, and thoroughly enjoyed it! The path was a little harsher on my knees, as they were used to the dune like feel, rather than walking on solid ground, but it was still much better. We got to MagmaTrek, and returned our helmets, and then departed. I got back to my room, took a shower, and collapsed.

On Saturday, I had been hoping to go for a long hike, or two, across the island, but when I got up that morning, I knew it was not going to happen. Upon hiking up the short path to the square to return my rented gear to Totem Trekking, I discovered that my legs had absolutely no desire to work. I made it there and back, and then collapsed on my bed and watched TV in Italian, and worked on understanding what was being understood. One word I learned while watching Grey’s Anatomy was “spingere”, which was when I vowed to never give birth in Italy, as I would be laughing rather than pushing as the word for push (spingere) sounds so absolutely bizarre.

On Sunday, I worked on some paper stuff throughout the day, and went down to the port to find out when I needed to be there on Monday, and to look into a boat ride around the island. By the time I got down there, there was only one option left for the day: a boat ride near sunset to Sciara di Fuoco, which is one of the sides of the volcano. It’s actually the side underneath the vents, which is made up of pyroclastic materials, materials like rocks and ash that have been thrown from the volcanic vents. Sciara di Fuoco is also where, in 2003 (I believe), a landslide occurred when the volcano emitted. The landslide actually began below the surface of the water, and created a tsunami in the area. So, I was excited to go on this boat ride, especially since I’d be able to see some more explosions! The boat took off at 7:00 pm, or so, and I had a fantastic evening, though my camera failed to take many good pictures.

Next up, is the island of Vulcano! I'll try to get this one and my first post about Sicily up soon, but (obviously) this tends to be easier said than done!

Ciao ciao!