An afternoon in Ramacca

Today we went to Ramacca's artichoke festival. We finally found some grilled artichokes! Can't you tell how ecstatic Tony was?!? (We went to Niscemi's artichoke festival about a week ago, but went too early in the day, and there was no grilled artichokes to be found.) Ramacca's festival this year seemed a lot bigger than last year, but it could be because we went during the day this time when the huge market was still open. There were so many pictures I wanted to take, but since Carlee's stroller was full of 8 kilos of blood oranges (5 euro) and a whole crate's worth of artichokes (2 euro,) I was having to hold her hand and make sure she wasn't kidnapped by gypsies (just kidding.) But I didn't want to lose her in the mass of people that's for sure.

The day was nice until after we ate, and then Carlee caught sight of a balloon unicorn she wanted from a toy vendor. ugh, I dread facing those guys, they will pretty much shove things in your kid's hands to make you buy them. Well, that's exactly what he did, he immediately took the unicorn off and handed it to Carlee. Tony asked how much. "Five euro," the guy said. 5 EURO! for a plastic balloon toy thing! (Right at this minute, 5 euro is $7.86!) Tony took back the balloon and gave it to the guy. He went down to 4 euro giving it to Carlee again. No thanks, Tony gave it back. I think he went down to 3 euro (which I think was what he was charging Italians to begin with) and which I would have paid but we were trying to walk off. He caught up with Carlee and gave it to her again, angrily saying, "Regalo!" (a gift!) ugh. He knew we weren't going to walk off without giving him something for it. Tony ended up giving him a 2 euro coin. He angrily said something to Tony about how we could just afford to eat the artichokes and pay for that but we couldn't pay for a balloon animal.

Ohhh I wish I knew more Italian. I mean seriously there's a big difference between lunch for 2 and 1/2 people costing 4 euro (for 8 grilled artichokes) and paying 5 euro for a balloon toy that was cheaply made in China, and will inevitably end up in the trash. Plus I would have reminded him that for us, the euro is way more expensive that what they are used to, and if we didn't want to buy a toy, then that's our choice as a consumer, so tough. oh I don't know... Sometimes I think we're just getting a little burned out on being here. Just a little.... lol. On a more chipper note, Carlee fell in love the unicorn and played with it all afternoon while we cooked dinner. I did feel like we should have paid 3 euro for it, but if the vendor would have just asked for 3 from the beginning, instead of trying to get the most out of the Americans, he would have gotten the 3 euro.