Posted by katiep on Monday, May 15, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

Date: Monday May 15, 2017. Time: 12 P.M. Place: Cefalù.

(Watch the couples I write about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPH4lTgZRNw)

After our long day at Piazza Armerina and Agrigento yesterday I needed a relaxing afternoon on the beach. Around noon I headed out with my textbook, Hemingway short stories, water, a sandwich, and notebook paper to read and observe locals on the beach. As I set up my “observation post in the sand” I immediately realized that I was out of place. Not only was I the only American college student, I was one of few young people on the beach alone. While the beach was not crowded, I was surrounded by elderly couples. Then, a group of 20-somethings behind me caught my attention. There were two couples laying on towels in the sand by the steps that lead from the Lungomare down to the beach. They all had olive complexions and dark brunette hair, which made me guess they were Italian. My assumption was confirmed when I could hear the boys loudly speaking Italian. I scribbled these observations down onto my notebook paper and when I looked back up (only seconds later) one of the boys (let’s call him boy #1) was lying on top of his girlfriends back (let’s call her girl #1). Meanwhile, the other couple with them (boy #2 and girl #2) was not making any physical contact. As I continued to observe them, boy #1 slid off of girl #2’s back and instead laid by her side in an intimate embrace. After several minutes of this, boy and girl #2 began packing up to leave, as if deciding to leave their friends alone with their public displays of affection. It took them several minutes to gather all of their things and make their way up the steps to the Lungomare. If it were not for them speaking Italian, they could have passed for typical young Americans: the boy had a Patagonia backpack and Nike sneakers and the girl slipped on a white tank-top emblazoned with a large Starbucks logo. After they had finally put on their clothing and said their goodbyes to their friends, boy and girl #2 grabbed their bikes and headed up the steps. As time passed, boy #1 and girl #1 continued to embrace. However, no one else on the beach seemed to notice or care. I found this vastly different from beaches in the United States. Typically, U.S. beaches are so crowded that such public displays of affection would be easily noticeable by everyone else, probably even frowned upon; but here, the couple seemed to be the only two on the beach, seemingly hidden in plain site.

As I continued to watch this young couple, I couldn’t help but notice how much they stood out: not only were they the only other young people on the beach, they were also the only couple maintaining consistent physical contact with one another. Just several feet away from them, an elderly couple was lounging on the beach. In contrast to the 20-somethings, this couple was together but alone: the man (wearing a blue polo, blue shorts, and a grey baseball cap) was sitting in a chair reading a novel while his wife (with a pixie haircut wearing a dark blue and floral bikini and silver bracelets) was lying about 2 feet away from him on a towel merely enjoying the sun. After awhile, the woman got up and began to move her towel even further away from her husband and closer toward a small stone wall. She grabbed clothes and a magazine out of her bag and used the clothing as a cushion for her back as she plopped down on her towel and sat against the wall to read. As she was doing this, her husband said something to her in Italian and that was the most that they spoke in the time that I watched them. I could not determine much about them but I would assume that they were retired and probably had some money (based on the wife’s silver bracelets and large wedding ring that I could see vividly from my spot on the beach about 20 feet away). This couple reminded me more of what I see when I go to the beach at home: they did not really talk to each other much, just being together at the beach was enough. Most of the other couples on the beach were like this couple: enjoying one another’s company without needing to talk or touch.

Time flew by as I put my notebook down and read on the beach for the next three hours. When I got up to leave at 3 o’clock, neither of the couples I had observed remained. I think they left within 30 minutes/an hour of my arrival on the beach. I am so used to staying on the beach for hours at a time, but the locals in Cefalù seem to treat going to beach as a short outing on a typical Monday afternoon. Maybe I would do the same if I lived just a few steps from the beach…