I need to take the AST bus to San Giueppe Jato today. The AST website, when it is working, gives the bus schedule but not the ticket price, nor the location of the ticket office, nor the location of the bus terminal, which could be in a side street somewhere. Naturally they do not answer their phone, and naturally they do not respond to e mails, so today I decided to go to the main train/bus station to find out what is what. AST had no ticket office where all the other bus companies had theirs. I was told they were in Piazza Giulio Cesare in front of the train station. But just in case he meant the OLD bus side street a the side of the train station, I checked there too. No AST ticket office, no AST buses. I did pass a bar that used to be called Big Bus Bar, but is now called New Bus Bar, under new management. I scoped out Piazza Cesare, saw a white bus marked AST on the other side of three lanes of traffic marked and thought I had found it. But no, a busdriver told me the ticket office is in the place where I had just looked, in a bar. "Name of the Bar?" "The Bus Bar." OK, back to the side street. The woman in the bar found me the bus schedule and said that she COULD sell me a bus ticket but that it would be better for me to buy the bus ticket nearer to where the bus leaves from. I took out my map and asked her to mark where the bus leaves from. It was off the map of the center city. So today, with the apartment elevator broken, I am to slide my duffel bag down into the street, catch a city bus to the train station, find out which city bus goes down Corso Tukory to Viale Scienze, get off at the metro station, go across the street to something called Re Gugliemo which is neither a bar nor a bus ticket seller, she said, just King William (one of Sicily's medieval Norman monarchs) buy a ticket there and ask THAT ticket seller where the bus leaves from.
All this to get me to my cousin who works in San Giuseppe Jato but lives in my grandparents' "village" of Santa Margherita Belice. I am going there to try to get my grandparents' birth certificates and other documents to start the process of getting an Italian passport. Dual citizenship is my right under Italian law. I will let you know how it goes.
All this to get me to my cousin who works in San Giuseppe Jato but lives in my grandparents' "village" of Santa Margherita Belice. I am going there to try to get my grandparents' birth certificates and other documents to start the process of getting an Italian passport. Dual citizenship is my right under Italian law. I will let you know how it goes.