Ok, don't say that last one because it happens to be sicilian for "mother f*****". See, i'm learning all sorts of important things......
Just re-arrived in siena from 10 "fantastichissime" days in giro in Sicily. An interesting, hot, poor, beautiful, savage, sinful, gritty place. We started our journey spending the night in the roma aeroporta...bruttissimo, but it had to be done. My travel group was myself, Jenny, her friend Jenny, Mauria, and Alex, all fellow lc'ers. Good group. We arrived in Palermo early on saturday, made our way to out hostel, Hotel Firenze, and settled in to nap for a little bit. Palermo is a wonderful city. Unfortunately we did see too much of all the monuments, churches, ecc that you are supposed to see, but that was ok with me because honestly, I am getting a little worn out on frescoes of madonna and child....anyway, I made some connections with two palermitano boys through this online organization called "Couch Surfing". Simply put it's a global community of travels looking to share experiences, meet each other while traveling, find free places to stay (hence couch surfing), and other wonderful things like that. So first we met up with Davide and two of his friends, who were very "buf0" (funny). Later that night we met up with Pietro. He took Jenny, Alex, and I to the most fantastic party. I'm convinced that the apartment it was in is hidden, sort of like the leaky cauldron. It was called "left" and the best way i can explain it was a place for the leftist-artistic youth of Palermo. It was fantastic! There was all this anti-fascist, anti-Bush, pro-Obama, pro-global community propaganda on the walls, and lots of Italian hipsters dancing and drinking and making merry. Fantastic. One of Pietro's friends was very upset with me that I am not a vegetarian and he would not have my argument about how the cultivation of soy beans is terrible for the environment....mind you this is all in Italian!
The next day we went to Mondello, a beach nearby. Beautiful turquoise waters!! I was a "pazza" (crazy) and went swimming. Yes, it was freezing but it was too big of a temptation. Saw a beautiful sunset behind the hills. Stayed in the town for a bit a sipped wine by the water. Ate delicious pizza with eggplant and also a brioche stuffed with gelato....mmmm. Yes, I am getting fat. Maybe not, but I feel like I should be!
Off on a hydrofoil the next day to Salina, one of the Aeolian islands. The ride was a bit of an "incubo" (nightmare) because hydrofoils are the faster of the two options, so the ride was ridiculously choppy! But also beautiful, the sunset over the vast sea. We finally arrived in Salina, a little nauseous to say the least. We went into a little "alimentare" (grocery store) to ask directions to a hostel we looked up. No one seemed to know where it was, so I called them and found out that they didn't open until after Easter......I told this to the friendly man behind the counter, he called a friend, and a few minutes later told us that someone was coming to pick us up and take us to their hostel!! Now that's hospitality. A younger woman showed up and took us to what seemed to be her parents house, that had a back room converted into a hostel. It was perfect, we even had our own private terrace that looked over the sea and a neighboring island!! Che belleza. We had fun cooking our own dinner, drinking wine, and sitting out on the terrace.
Two days later we took off for another island, Stromboli, which is the most active volcano, I think in the world! It explodes every ten to twenty minutes. We settled in to an even more adorable hostel and started to explore the town. A man we had met on the ferry who is a geologist, gave us the name of guide we could meet to get an excursion up the volcano. We ended up at this geological center and a nice lady invited us in to teach us about Stromboli and show us a movie. The guide wasn't going up that day, nor were we very prepared to hike all the way up to the summit, so we decided we would do the 400 metre hike, which you can do without a guide. While we were back at our hostel eating lunch and getting ready for our hike, we kept hearing rumbling noises. It was kind of blustery out so we thought at first it was thunder, but then we thought it was just construction. It wasn't till about 10 or so rumbles later that I realized it was actually the volcano exploding!!! Mamma mia! So we hiked an exploding volcano.....I was a little terrified, but more thrilled! We hiked up at sunset and walked down in the dark with the full moon illuminating the sea, the clouds, and our path.
The next day we frolicked in the surf, collected beach glass, soaked up the sun, and hopped on a slow ferry back to the mainland. And what a ride it was! We happened to be the only tourists on the ferry, so the crew members of course started flirting with us, and invited us to come up to the bridge! It was an amazing view; we could see Stromboli smoking off in the distance. Saw one of the more beautiful sunsets with blackening islands in the foreground. Passed by the island Vulcano, with it's steaming fissures and sulfur smell...after a 6 hour journey we finally arrived back on the mainland, still swaying a little.
