Our group’s time in Taormina was the end of our trip. We soon had to take heartfelt leave of each other and head off at 3:00 AM to catch our plane from Catania. This time though, I was sincerely sorry to part from everyone. It had been a remarkably interesting, enlightened, and friendly group. I had been able to circulate around and chat with everyone a little – and I was amazed by the breadth of all these people’s interests and accomplishments. We had quite a few published authors in the group – quite a few active home renovators – quite a few seasoned travelers who had interesting things to say about the places they’d been.
As is customary on these trips, a hotel breakfast buffet was included every day, and those were often the best times to socialize. The topics touched on at these get-togethers truly “covered the waterfront.” One man was a life-long yachtsman and had published several books on boat maintenance, how to navigate in storms, etc. I have never been sailing, but he made his subject really absorbing.
Then there was Gabriella, a woman campaigning to become the first female ordained Catholic Priest. She was finding it an uphill battle and thought it unlikely that there would be any woman ordained in her lifetime. But she said she had a “calling” and would persist.
Then I got into a jovial, almost giddy giggling conversation with two Taiwanese women who were on the tour. They happened to mention the Chinese Horoscope, just as a set of fun-facts, not as one of their implicit beliefs. As most people probably know from Chinese restaurant placemats - the Chinese astrology involves repeated 12-year cycles. Each year is correlated with an animal or beast. There’s the year of the horse, the dragon, the rabbit, etc. When the subject came up, I chimed in that I was a pig. I laughed how I was pointedly confronted with that fact every time I sat down to a meal at a Chinese restaurant and was getting ready to order “the works.” We all laughed.
One of the Taiwanese women said, “My mother is a rat. Actually my father is a rat too. Both my parents are rats.”
Another member of our tour group was a psychologist and happened to be passing our table just in time to hear the tail-end of this conversation. She heard me declare myself a pig, and she heard the other woman declare both her parents rats. I could see the psychologist’s eyes light up. She no doubt perceived a whole smorgasbord of family dysfunction among us – perhaps something she could “help” us with later.
All-in-all, we were such a convivial group, I was sincerely sorry when the tour was over and we seemed destined to go our separate ways. I felt as if I had a lot more to learn from all the group members. I hope we get to travel together again someday.
Well, that was more about my Sicilian adventure than you wanted to know, I’m sure. You only asked, “How was your trip?” LOL.
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