Mercati Mansion Party
Small dresses in bright colours, huge heels and clutch bags
Genevieve and GiGi stay home tonight, while The Sicilian drives the rest of us to the location for the night – Mercati, an old mansion which has been reworked for partying purposes. Angel Rae, Kimmie and myself are dressed in our typical London club attire, small dresses in bright colours, huge heels and clutch bags. Nobody in Sicily on a clubbing occasion dresses like this and when we step out of the car in our tiny dresses and walk into the Tavola Calda bar the looks we receive are so forceful they could almost push you over. Kimmie doesn’t seem bothered by the attention but me and Angel Rae are practically edging back into the car. We order our food and sit down, while The Sicilian goes to pay – one of the waiters looks at us inquisitively and whispers something to a colleague. I can’t help thinking that the waiter thinks we’re prostitutes and all three of us start to get defensive. ‘Omigod, have they never seen a girl look glamorous before?’Angel Rae huffs. When The Sicilian returns with our food he informs us that the area we’re sitting in is for table service only and that we had confused the waiter. ‘Oh, so he never thought we were prostitutes?’
Mercati plays hard core house and a little bit of funky – this place is for the true raver and in every corner, on every table and chair, behind every tree and bush there are people dancing hard. Girls have left their Sicilian classic attire at home and now resemble the trendy festival goer, dressed in flip flops and wellies, leggings and shorts.
Instead of being in a botanical garden, tonight we are in the garden of the mansion which has acres and acres of land lined with Lime Groves, which are lit with tea lights and dotted with art deco chairs and tables. Lothario Roma and his friend join us and continuously order glasses of Tequila. I say glasses, because to call these shots would be an understatement, they were literally plastic cups filled with the deadly fire water. How anyone could down this drink in one go is beyond me, but of course my friends the hardened drinkers didn’t waste a drop!
Instead of being in a botanical garden, tonight we are in the garden of the mansion which has acres and acres of land lined with Lime Groves, which are lit with tea lights and dotted with art deco chairs and tables. Lothario Roma and his friend join us and continuously order glasses of Tequila. I say glasses, because to call these shots would be an understatement, they were literally plastic cups filled with the deadly fire water. How anyone could down this drink in one go is beyond me, but of course my friends the hardened drinkers didn’t waste a drop!
Lothario and Kimmie spent the night dancing together and taking silly pictures of each other, Lothario in his moment of rapture, Kimmie awe and drunkenness decided to start dancing on the art deco chair – the chair unable to take Lothario’s graceful dance movements fell back. Falling like a pushed domino, Lotharia also fell back with the chair, the large lime tree breaking his fall and taking a pounding from his head. Kimmie, as concerned and thoughtful as she is runs over to Lothario and struggles to help him up in between bouts of laughter. The Sicilian, somewhat quiet tonight is bent over in laughter, while myself and Angel Rae watch the whole thing in complete dismay. Unfortunately Mercati stops serving drinks at three, strangely the club goes on till the last man’s standing – we try our hardest to work our foreign charm to get the barman to serve us some alcohol, ‘Prosecco?’ Kimmie says, almost mortified when he refuses. On that note – we leave.
Genevieve is still awake when we get home, we decide to watch the sunrise and gather our towels to sit on the beach with the Tavola Calda we bought on our way home. We look out to sea and watch the sky, night is meeting dawn and the sky is mixed with a hue of pink. ‘Red sky at night, shepherds delight ...‘Kimmie re- sites.
All too tired to wait for sun rise we go back to the apartment.
Granita, Martini's and Prosecco for Breakfast
Today we decide to have a traditional Sicilian summer breakfast consisting of Granita (a crushed fruit and ice - sorbet/ice cream) with warm Brioche, the size of a large bap. On my introduction to this ice cream and bread collaboration I was almost in disbelief, thirty year old men eating ice cream in a roll for breakfast – this is absurd! But when in Rome... And like every food item in Sicily there’s a whole variety of flavours the granita comes in; strawberry, almond, chocolate, pistachio, lemon, raspberry and many other flavours.
For our granite we go to Mythos, a bar in fishing town, Acireale. Mythos faces the Cyclops Riviera, where three great stacks of rock loom over the sea. Greek mythology would have it that these three Cyclops are rocks that Polyphemus threw angrily from his home in Etna at the Greek hero Odysseus, in retaliation for being blinded by the hero. Mythos is filled with the few Sicilian tourists and the upper middle class local, draped in designer, flash sunglasses hanging from noses and one particular beautiful woman we can’t help but look at. A certain Lothario joins us for breakfast, he’s hung over from the night before and has a sprained wrist. Being a doctor he has already put the necessary accouchement on the injured arm for a speedy healing process. Luckily enough for excessive food consumption, we can barely manage to get merry let alone have a hangover! Lothario and Kimmie exchange romantic glances – could there be a possible romance blossoming between the two anti-relationship protesters?
After breakfast we head back to the apartment where we relax, sleep, beach, read and prepare ourselves for Pizza in the mountains with the whole gang for dinner!
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