Epiphany

Today is Epiphany, the Italian holiday that marks the end of the holiday season. On this day, Befana, the good witch brings candy to all the good boys and girls. This morning I woke up at Bina's house and had candy for breakfast and then my parents took me to see Befana and she gave me more candy. I wasn't afraid of Befana and didn't freak out when I sat on her lap. She is much prettier than Santa! It's been rainy and cold in Sicily for the past couple of weeks. Mom says that she's glad that the weather is crappy right now because it makes it easier to say good-bye to Sicily, but today the weather was gorgeous and we felt compelled to take one last trip up Mt Etna. It was the perfect day for such a trip.

When we reached the top of the volcano, we collected some lava rocks to take a little piece of Sicily back to America with us. Of course we asked the volcano God for permission first. We don't want any bad luck for taking without her approval.

Following Sicilian tradition, we made a little snowman and placed it on the hood of our car to watch it melt on the drive back down the mountain. We named the snowman Gufo which means owl in Italian. As we descended into warmer temperatures, Gufo lost his head and then slowly melted into a puddle.