La famiglia

Long before I planned the itinerary for our trip, I had asked Joel where in Italy his family was from. While his last name (and soon to be my last name, my god in forty days) is rather French, his mother's entire family is from Italy. He was pretty ambivalent about the question and gave me a vague "Sicily somewhere." I shrugged my shoulders and went on my merry planning way.

Fast forward to two weeks ago when I get a text from Joel asking me for our itinerary and then a text saying "Are we going to Palermo?" I told him that we weren't, only to find out that he had FINALLY asked his grandmother where his family is from.

I did a quick Google search or two and found out that not only is his family entirely from two specific towns outside Palermo, but his family tree has been logged back to the 1500s and beyond. I got pretty unreasonably excited about this, much more so than Joel did, because I think genealogy is pretty damn cool.

Long story long, we may be taking a little road trip out to the Palermo area to see where his family is from. Our time in Sicily is pretty loosely scheduled, so we definitely could rent a car and scoot out there for the day. Of course, Sicily is at the end of a pretty jam packed itinerary so we may just be completely exhausted by then. Not to mention, all the driving would be on Joel. I don't drive a stick shift in the US, and I certainly will not be driving one through Sicily.

But how cool would that be, to go to these towns where his family is from! I think it would be very cool indeed, especially since my ancestry is so scattered and so rooted in the US. In some branches of my family tree, the people arrived here in the late 1800s! I would have to travel all around Europe to see the places of my ancestors, meanwhile we are going to be a mere two hours away from his roots. We just have to go.