Fall break part 1: Transport failures and offending the mafia

Bucknell so kindly gave those of us here in London a nice week-long fall break, which, combined with our normal four day weekends, gave us ten days off to do whatever our hearts desired. My heart was desiring some Italy and Spain, and so that's where I went. In the end, our plan was as follows: Dana, Laina, Alex and Juli go to Sicily, where Dana has family and where Juli's family is from. After four days, Alex and Juli fly back to London, and Dana and Laina fly to Barcelona for five days, with an extended (8 hour) layover in Rome.

These are our stories. (cue Law and Order music) Sorry for the long length and messiness of my writing- I wrote most of this in pieces on my ipod. I included three summary just so you don't have to feel obligated to read the whole thing. An episode of Jersey Shore (or even better, Geordie Shore, the UK equivalent) could probably suffice as well. If you're into that sort of show (and don't try to deny it now).

Our first adventure was getting to Sicily. This involved leaving our flats at 3 am (after an all day field trip that got us back to our flats at midnight), four buses, a cab, a plane, a train and a car ride for us to finally reach our bed and breakfast at 7pm. We cut it a little close at times, but generally everything went well. Well, almost. Apparently there were huge train strikes the first day in Sicily, and it was enough of a mess to confuse and annoy fluent Italian speakers. Please note that although we all knew some Spanish, I knew some French, and one girl had lived in Florence for a semester, none of us knew a useful amount of Italian. Although some of the Sicilians seemed to be making fun of us, others were helpful and nice and we somehow managed all the delays, switching of trains, and extremely crowded train cars ad got to our bed and breakfast. By the time we left Italy, almost all of us had been able to have entire interactions in Spanish with the locals, but the first day was not one of those times. We did, however, learn to count and ask for the bathroom in Italian while sitting in the station. Bellisimo.

Sicily itself was very beautiful. Our first stop was Taormina, where we saw the remains of a huge Greek theatre, did some shopping, and saw some of Dana's extended family. We also found a bus stop but no bus for a castle and found a beautiful island to visit but not a way to get down to it. We also got a little lost trying to find our way back to our bed and breakfast after getting off our train, and somehow these little Sicilian towns completely transform between the day and night- beautiful in sunlight, seedy under streetlights. Thankfully, we survived, and as far as I know escaped the mafia.

Next we took a bus over to Palermo, which someone described as an Italian Newark. In Palermo, I could understand how the mafia started in Sicily. When you looked down the streets, you could see the beautiful mountains in the distance, but the streets themselves were dirty and a little scary. Our street in particular was a strange strip of vendors, small restaurants, bars, and clubs. It was populated by an assortment of interesting people and stray cats. At first, our street appeared to be a hang out for a bunch of Italian teenagers, which was uncomfortable, especially the third time we had to walk by them when we were looking for our hostel. All of these Sicilians made me feel a little better about Jersey Shore though, because I could at least rest assured that those New Yorkers didn't completely make up the "tool" look.

We saw the three main sights in Palermo the first day- a cathedral, a large fountain, and some sculpted facades. We decided to eat pasta that night, which was no easy task. First, nearly everything is closed from 4-8pm (siesta!), and most people don't eat until almost 9. In addition, most food places that were open around 7pm were bars, weird little stands or fancy restaurants. We finally found some yummy penne at a place curiously named New York City cafe. After a failed search for gelato, we checked out the places along our street and headed back to our hostel, where we could hear karaoke until 2am. Thankfully, I have learned from my light-sleeping mother and brought along some ear plugs.

The next day we visited Agrigento with an Australian girl we met in our hostel. She was on a four month trip around Europe, and was at the moment traveling alone after her friend had gone home and her guided tour had ended. Both she and us were relieved to find more English speakers and learn that we weren't the only ones in Italy who did not speak Italian. The Greek ruins, the highlight of Agrigento, were beautiful, and after our day there we had some spaghetti and some tasty Italian deserts, including gelato. It was a nice end to the first leg of our trip. Then, it was back to the hostel for some packing and 3 hours of sleep before our next flight.

Food summary:

I ate pizza, a calzone, paninis, granite (not the rock, the icy fruit drink), good coffee, penne, gelato, and spaghetti. Pretty awesome.

Trip summary:

At times, the (occasional) rude people, crappy trains and language barrier made me miss London. The food and views made me not want to go back.

Blog summary:

I went to Sicily.