Setting up tentpoles

I arrived in Castelmola a couple days ago. My journey wasn't nearly as impressive as Ty's (I had three flights—Boston-Paris, Paris-Rome, Rome-Catania—and from there took a 90 minute bus from Catania-Taormina and then a 30 minute bus from Taormina to Castelmola). Naturally, the airline lost my luggage. No surprise there! Alitalia isn't exactly famous for it's first-class service. Fortunately they did get my suitcase to me 24 hours later, and everything—well, almost everything—appears to be intact. My tripod suffered a small casualty: the knob that tightens the plate against the tripod head snapped off. How this managed to happen while it was in my (fairly rigid) suitcase, I can't guess. I've informed the appropriate authorities (Ernst) and await his response.

Naturally, my first stop after arriving was the Bar Turrisi (where I now sit writing this—see the picture I just took and behind me, the typical decorations). The Turrisi's have been incredibly welcoming! At the bar I learned of another setback: the two-bedroom apartment I had planned to rent isn't ready yet. For some reason, as yet TBD, the woman who owns the apartment thought I was arriving in July and so took this opportunity to renovate the kitchen. Luckily, my friends here are putting me up in a little room in the center of town. It isn't much—basically there is a bed and a bathroom—fortunately my needs are simple! Hopefully I can move to the other place soon, where there is (or will be) a kitchen.

Everyone here has been extraordinarily kind and welcoming. My close friend Francesco, who introduced me to this wondrous place, is not here (he'll visit in July), but I ran into his parents within five minutes of arriving and they took me back to their place for a lovely pasta dinner. It was really great to see them. They have always been extremely kind to me. I also got a chance to chat with Cristina, Francesco's younger sister (I met her when she was 11, and now she is 21!), and Roberto, his brother.

Last night I ate pizza at Ciccino's Pizzeria while Mimì's father sang traditional Sicilian folk songs. Later in the night I returned and there was a whole group singing together—a common end to the evening.

At any rate, I have mostly been relaxing up to this point, trying to set up my "tentpoles": both in the sense of getting situated here (though not knowing where I will be living permanently, this has proven a bit tough), and also in the sense of trying to determine what my film tentpoles (to paraphrase Alfred) will be. I'm still working this out, but I have been exploring, introducing myself to people and brainstorming ideas. More on this later. Has anyone else been thinking about this? I really like the metaphor of tentpoles—I think the hard part is figuring out what, concretely, these might be.