Things get strange in Sicily.

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I’ve arrived in Catania - a gritty, bustling university town -with the hopes of breaking Syracuse’s lonely spell. I’ve sent a few desperate dispatches to local CouchSurfers and booked a bed in a hostel with a lively reputation. I’ve made a few more futile stabs at picking up some Italian. (“What is your religion?” my phrasebook suggests as a conversation-starter.) On the bus from Syracuse, eager for human contact, I send a few plaintive eye signals to my neighbors. No dice. Like the snowy peak of Etna - a cold, desolate beacon shining over a low ribbon of smog - it looks like I’ll be going it alone as we pull into the station.

It’s a longer walk to the hostel than I’d expected - the sun surprisingly strong, the basalt sidewalks cooking under me. I take a wrong turn and find myself in the middle of a busy market. The place is absolute bedlam, piles of fish glistening in the sunlight. Everyone’s haggling hard - especially the old women, who have a way of looking at a guy when he names his price that all but says, “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” The vendors are hawking their catches in a loud, sing-song chorus. I have no idea what they’re saying, but I suspect it goes something like this:

“Anchovy! I’ve got anchovy here! So fresh, you can still see the sorrow in its eyes!”

“Sardine! Just arrived this morning! In the depths of the sea, his wife is still forlornly calling his name!”

“Bluefin tuna! The pride of Catania! If a fish had balls, his would be large and made of the finest alabaster!”

Men are heaving crates of tomatoes and eggplants from the back of pick-up trucks. Seagulls are circling and swooping. The ground is slick with God-only-knows. When I find the hostel - across a bleak, torn-up piazza that looks like a DMZ - the place is almost empty.

“It’s a slow time for us,” the receptionist says dryly. He hands me some sheets and takes me to a room where a few double-bunks bear silent witness to the off-season. “This place used to be a military barracks,” he says, as if it were one hell of a selling point. He shows me the balcony, overlooking some shoddy ruins behind a chain-link fence, then tells me check-out’s at eleven.

After the manicured charm of Syracuse, Catania makes a rough impression. You don’t get the sense this is a town for moonlit strolls; on the walk from the hostel to the Piazza del Duomo - a black, spectral plaza, carved from volcanic rock - I’m making mental notes about how these same narrow streets will look after dark. It’s hardly a comforting thought. But in the piazzas, or on the aptly named Via Etna - stretching straight to its foot - Catania is a lively, likeable town. And when I come across the Villa Bellini - a pretty, sprawling garden with stunning views of the volcano - it’s colorfully set off by the bleak buildings and alleys around it.

I meet a Japanese couple strolling through its landscaped terraces; I’d seen them in Syracuse the day before, snapping shots of the cathedral. We share some small-talk, my excitement at even this idle conversation surging in my breast. I start to gush: about my love of Japan, and the memorable month I spent there. The man smiles charitably; he strokes his wife’s arm and then nudges her into the background, determined to take the first blows if I start foaming at the mouth. She grins with bright, bubbly indifference, fussing with her guidebook and the straps on her knapsack, while I rattle off the names of the Japanese cities I’ve seen.

I ask the husband to take my picture with Etna behind me. He plants his feet and crouches slightly, his quads visibly straining as he adjusts to the lighting. That this man is a master of his craft is apparent. When I’d seen him in Syracuse’s Piazza del Duomo, practically doing power lunges and squinting into the sun, I pegged him for Japanese - a people who, once you get past the old stereotypes, treat amateur photography with the grave respect the rest of us show colon cancer. I even admitted as much to him, in a flash of almost blinding stupidity, which is sort of like telling a guy you knew he was Mexican from the way he crossed the border. He thanks me and smiles and offers a slight bow, hoping - one can plainly see - that I’ll be well on my way by the time he lifts his head.


Even under the drowsy spell of a Sicilian afternoon, you can see how Catania’s university gives it a burst of life. Though their parents and grandparents might be shuttered away behind closed doors, the city’s students fill the sidewalks and piazzas: eating gelato, sending SMS messages with deft fingers, wearing low-slung jeans that are practically a crime against humanity. By evening the cafés begin to fill, the shoppers out to take advantage of the January sales. It takes awhile for the city to hit its stride, though; when I stop in a small, family-run restaurant at half-past eight, the owners look up with surprise, as if I’d just walked in on Sunday dinner.

It’s close to an hour before the locals start filing in: a dowdy couple with their goofy, grinning teen; three wise-cracking guys who spend half the meal chain-smoking outside; a handsome old couple that all but bring the house down with their entrance. The husband has a coat draped across his shoulders and a gold ring flashing on his finger, looking for all the world like he just beat the charges. The cook - a short, meek man with massive ears and neatly parted hair - comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. He greets them with vigor and then rushes back inside, bringing out a plate for their approval. There are three plump fish arranged on it, head to tail, iridescent and almost begging to be bathed in oil, herbs and spices. The man looks them over like a general inspecting his ranks, his facial muscles shifting and flexing as he struggles to choose.

It’s a satisfying meal and a satisfying walk home, a brisk wind sweeping down off of Etna. There’s a bit more life around the hostel: a small group of German girls, an American who’s just arrived from Rome, deciding on a whim that it was worth the 20-hour round-trip to “see Sicily” for a night. There’s also a young Italian who looks exactly like the sort of kid you’d picture hanging around a darkened port, skinning cats with a switchblade. He fidgets on the edge of his bunk, then gets up to smoke a cigarette in the bathroom. He has a small backpack that he takes with him every time he leaves the room, as if we’re the ones you need to keep an eye on. At least three times during the night I’ll wake up to hear him cursing in his sleep, a blood-curdling tirade that no phrasebook in the world can really prepare me for.

In the morning there’s a naked old Belgian guy washing his prick in the bathroom sink. From the matter-of-fact look on his face, you’d think I just walked in on him stuffing the fennel into tonight’s chicken. “’Allo!” he says cheerily, lathering his genitals with vigor. He starts to offer his thoughts on the American political scene, though I’m a bit more fixated on the promise I made to myself long ago, never to let my toothbrush get within six feet of another man’s pubic hair. Then the shady Italian kid comes in wearing jeans and a hoody and a pair of dirty white sneakers that look like they’ve spent a bit too much time around the pesceria. Without so much as undoing a shoelace he carries his knapsack and cell phone into the shower, the water firing just second later, at which point I’ve decided it’s high-time I made different arrangements for my second night in Catania.

I find a CouchSurfer who’s gracious enough to take me in at the last minute. Giuseppe meets me at the train station on his way home from work, a tie loosely knotted around his neck, his voice booming as we shake hands. He apologizes for not having time to show me more of the city, a slight reprimand implicit in how he says it. At his apartment nearby - a cluttered loft with empty wine bottles scattered around the kitchen - we wait for a friend to arrive. He begins to tell me about his time in America, his hands busy over the table, his stories peppered with American slang and salacious sidebars. When his friend shows up there’s a brief comic interlude at the fact that he’s also named Giuseppe. Then we set off - an American and his two Giuseppes - ready for a night in Catania.

What ensues is the sort of endurance test you’d expect from a European college town. Giuseppe shows off some of his favorite bars, hardly pausing long enough to finish a beer before marshalling us to another place nearby. The streets swell with tipsy kids in their flashy, Friday-night gear. Girls clop along on high heels, guys in designer shades putter down the street, weaving their scooters through the crowds. Unlike Palermo, whose prime bars and clubs are scattered across the city, everything in compact Catania is a short stumble from its neighbors. This convenience seems to suit everyone just fine. We bottleneck in narrow alleys and squeeze our way into loud, dimly lit clubs. At some point we stumble into a socialist meeting hall, where grave, bearded men read from a podium. Happily, I haven’t got a clue what anyone’s saying. Giuseppe the Second says the place has the cheapest beers in Catania, but the bar is empty, the lights are dimmed, and the socialists are conferring in cheerless circles.

On the way back to his house, Giuseppe treats me to a horse-meat sandwich - “a special of Catania,” or so he claims. It sits heavily in my stomach as I drift off, repeating on me in the morning as we drink espresso at the kitchen table. It’s a warm, clear day, my last morning in Europe touched by a hint of sadness. At the bus station the Giuseppes embrace me warmly and kiss my cheeks, in the Sicilian manner. Again there are promises and promises. Tonight I’ll be dozing on the Mediterranean; in the morning, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I’ll be staring at the coasts of Africa. At some point I should probably call home, to let my parents know I haven’t tumbled into Etna.

In the distance - still visible on the road to Palermo - a thick plume of snow-white smoke lifts from the volcano’s mouth.

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