I am the worst, I know. But you must understand that it is difficult to keep up with this blog with everything that is going on, especially in these crucial final moments of my experience. That being said, I will be posting a bunch of updates of life dating back to about a month ago! For starters: Sicilia-

So, I went to Sicily with my friend Molly at the end of November, and it was incredible. We had quite the trip, which started with Mexican/Tequila night at Caroline and Jordan’s apartment on Friday night, leaving straight from there to the train at 1am, and then on to the airport to catch our 6am flight, all with only cat naps until we finally went to bed at 11pm on Saturday night, but more on that later. So Molly and I arrived in Trapani at around 8am on Saturday, and were ecstatic to be in Sicily. Although the first look at Trapani, the rundown, concrete block houses on the outskirts was quite shocking and different from what we are used to, we quickly fell in love with the tiny city of Trapani with its winding historic center, beautiful coastal views, and African and Arabian flare! We spent the day wandering in and out of churches and through the streets, took a break for lunch and enjoyed the typical couscous with fish sauce, and a variety or arancini, fried risotto balls. We took our arancini and sat by a dock for a couple of hours simply enjoying the sunny, warm weather, the food, each others’ company, and even took a little nap… that’s right, outside on the dock. We were awoken by a Sicilian man who informed us that we should move, as a boat was coming, so we figured we would let “Zeus” pull in, and headed to the train to catch a ride to Palermo.

Four hours later, we arrived in Palermo, and made our way to our hotel, Hotel Regina, a quaint, tiny hotel. We had a fantastic room to ourselves for only 10 euro a night. Once we set up camp and grabbed some delicious caramels from the candy bowl (a bowl we would revisit as often as possible for the rest of the weekend), we set out to wander a bit and look for some food. We heard that Sicily was known for its fantastic street food, so our goal was to find some. We ended up going into a fast-food Indian restaurant and getting some delicious curried lamb sandwiches on lentil bread- these sandwiches were AMAZING. So good, and so cheap that we went back on Sunday and Monday before we left. Yum. After wandering a bit and getting another sandwich, veal and innards of some sort from a street vendor we walked a bit and promptly headed back to the hotel to finally get a full night’s rest.

In the morning on Sunday we grabbed a pastry (ricotta filled, no doubt) and coffee before hitting up the street market. The market was incredible. Everywhere we looked there was amazing, fresh produce, fish, butchered meat, cheese, bread, candy, and all kinds of products (including 2 euro bootlegged DVDs…). The market went on and on, and there was so much to see that we explored for at least two hours before deciding on lunch: bread, apples, oranges, and cheese, all for 1,75 each for lunch. We took our fantastically cheap market meal to a small park and ate and chatted for a few hours before setting out to wander through Palermo some more. That night we saw most of the “must see” sights, like the Cathedral and the piazza, and we got gelato and chatted with a couple sets of Sicilian men. The first, friendly and innocent, picked us out as foreign and wanted to practice English, the second, a little less innocent tried to pick up Molly for about fifteen minutes… what can you say, southern Italians.. they’re friendly!

Monday we went to the famous Palermo catacombs, which was quite the experience. Some of the bodies still have hair, skin, or clothes, and the oldest corpse in the catacomb is from the 1500s! After the catacombs, we grabbed our things, checked out, went to the Indian place and got one more lamb sandwich and a picture with the owner, and set off on the train, extra lentil breads in tow, back to Trapani for our perilous journey back. Two enormous canoli and a bus ride later, we were on the plane to Bologna. Little did we know, our 10pm flight was just the beginning of quite a long, and rather treacherous experience. Upon arrival in Bologna, we caught a cab with three Italians to the train station. We figured there might be a train back to Ferrara soon, since it was only midnight, but alas, we had to wait until 3am until the next train. So we wandered about Bologna a bit, and eventually resigned to waiting in the station. We sat in the lobby for about two hours with all of the bums and crazies, seriously, there was a man sitting alone in the corner of the station, laughing hysterically to himself, until, finally, it was time to head to the platform. Once we get there, and think we’re in the clear, we hear an announcement that our train was 40 minutes late. Our train which was supposed to leave at 3:18am originally, was forty. minutes. late. So we started pacing around, stretching our legs, marching in place, doing anything to keep busy and warm, all the while our train is slowly getting more and more delayed, until it is ultimately an hour in ritardo. Finally, though, we make it on to the train and safely to Ferrara, and got home at 5:30am, ending our journey, which started with a night of no sleep on Friday, with a night of no sleep on Monday.

All in all, Sicily was wonderful. I had such a great time getting to know Molly a bit better, and we had a nice and relaxing time. We took our time exploring a bit, but never feeling rushed or pressured to see any particular sights, and basically ate our way through Trapani and Palermo. The 75 degree weather was a nice change to the recently grey and chilly Ferrara, but I must say I was glad to be home.

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Thanks to everyone who has helped to make it happen, and to make it wonderful.

Now I’m off to eat eat eat!