Great Lake Adventures: Buon Compleanno Corrado!

I love a good birthday party! I especially love a birthday party when it's taking place in Siracusa, Sicily! Since Easter was on Sunday, almost everybody in Catania/Sicily had Monday off. Corrado is one of the players on the football team and he invited us (along with the rest of the team!) to his birthday party at a hotel/resort in Siracusa. We all piled into the car (our car! so it was quite a tight squeeze for 5 of us!) and headed south! The weather was absolutely beautiful and we could not wait to get to the party. When we showed up to the place that we thought we were supposed to be . . . we discovered that we were actually 1 km away from the real party! We piled back into the car, drove a little ways, and found the official party site! It was an incredible place complete with a huge pool and a sand volleyball court! One of the players had told us the night before that we should wear 'beach attire' to the party because we might get in the water. Because it was a little bit chilly on Monday we wore our 'beach attire', but we put on a few extra layers to keep warm. When we walked into the party, we were so happy that we had done this! It was a huge room full of lots of round tables and pretty much everybody on the team (please note that nobody was wearing 'beach attire'). Some of the members of the young elephants team donned chef hats and were cooking prawns (shrimp) outside in the back on the grill. Little kids were running around outside climbing trees and playing soccer. Little dogs were running around the room, terrified of anyone touching them. Haha. All in all, it was quite the scene! We eventually sat down at our table and were served a 'first course' plate complete with olives, different types of cheeses, bread soaked/cooked in olive oil, and some salami. It was delicious (minus the olives)! Our second course was pumpkin risotto and pasta a la norma (pasta cooked with tomato sauce and eggplant) and it was so good! The prawns were a bit fishy for me (and Eric - he's not much a seafood lover either), but the boys & Kelsey seemed to like them. After everyone had eaten they brought out a cake and everybody sang happy birthday to Corrado - the big 4-0!
After the meal we went and played some football/whiffle ball/volleyball/soccer outside, until . . . the boys decided it would be a good idea to get in the pool. WHAT?!! A brisk breeze had developed at this point and the sun was beginning to set. Nevertheless, the boys jumped in the pool and many others on the team joined them (some not by choice ha). I took some pics of the party and the pool party and I hope you enjoy!