Sicily

Quite possibly the best 5 days of my life. If there had been midnight rugby involved, it would be a sure thing, but we had an amazing time otherwise. No class, all the food, transportation, and entrance fees were pre-paid, we had sun and warm weather, went to a beach, I woke up to see the sunrise, we ate arancini, cannoli, and seafood, and got to play on ancient ruins. Aka heaven.
On Feb 24th, we arrived in Palermo and were greeted by beautiful mountains and ocean all around. We spent the day in Monreale (a hilltop town close by) where we explored a gorgeous church with mosaics EVERYWHERE. The history of Sicily is really neat—it was inhabited by just about everyone at one point or another, so the idea of having mosaic images of the Bible was to spread Christianity to people who didn’t speak the same language. It is amazing what those people could do with a bunch of shiny tile squares. We got to the bus before it started pouring and spent the next couple hours in the bus going around the city. There were a lot of cook monuments, buildings, and gardens but we didn’t stop to see any of them. Guess I’ll just have to come back someday…rats.
The next day, we went to another amazing hilltop town called Erice. This was a medieval town at the tip top of a mountain, so the bus ride was a terrifying adventure in physics and probabitily (if the bus tips to this side, what is the probability that we bounce down thousands of feet of mountain and make it!?) Our bus driver earned the title “Grande Salvatore” after this and it stuck for the whole weekend. No guided tour of Erice--we just got to walk around on our own and explore the narrow streets, pretty castles, and breath-taking views of the land and the ocean below us. It was what the gods must feel like on Olympus :) We had lunch at a hotel and got what had become the standard-meal: Pasta alla norma (quite good), French fries, and either a hamburger patty or breaded chicken. As a vegetarian, Andrea got a plate of slices of cheese and French fries. The “grown ups” got seafood and a lot of people weren’t very happy about that because we were sick of “American” food and wanted to have seafood too. Even I wasn’t opposed to seafood—we were in SICILY for goodness sake! Ricardo explained to us afterwards that we all sign up for the same meal, but part of Sicilian hospitality is giving the “professors” the good food, and giving the students normal stuff. To refuse would be impolite, but the directors started getting the hint that we needed to get seafood at some point.
After lunch and a quick game of catch with Kelsey and an orange, we went to Selinunte. The Greeks had established a city there and despite an earthquake and years and years of being uninhabited, the temples were still somewhat preserved. I paid attention to the first half of the tour, but then decided to play on the ruins of the other 2 temples close by. We got good pictures on top of ancient columns and climbed all over the place. The views were amazing from here too—the ocean was nearby and we had a great view of other former temples and current houses. I lost my sunglasses down a hole, but didn’t want to stick my hand down in the hole to get them because there were lizards all over the place and probably snakes too. Ick!
On our way to our next hotel, we passed the better-preserved Greek temples of Agrigento lit up in the dark. The next day we actually got to visit the temples and see these walls which people had been buried in. The almond trees (which look a lot like cherry trees) were gorgeous all around the temples and there were fields of them all over the place, too. Because I actually paid attention to this tour, I learned some interesting stuff like how the Greeks of Agrigento used the local limestone but painted it white to look like marble, how the Byzantines converted one of the temples into a church when they came, and how ancient Greek sculptors made their statue of Hercules with small feet and a big head so it would look proportional from the ground.
We ate lunch in an agro-turismo and had similar food but not the same thing exactly, placating us for the time being. I had lunch with the “grown ups” and talked in French to Yasemine (one of the director’s wives) and her sister for awhie. Because I still haven’t gotten my conversation partner, Yasemine and I are going to work together so I can practice my French too (which I’ve forgotten SO MUCH of). Our waiter was really cute there, and he spoke French, too. He studied in Belgium and Yasemine and her sister were making fun of him for that. Apparently the French don’t like the Belgians. Or the Italians. Or anyone for that matter, lol.
We went to a Roman Villa next, which had been excavated relatively recently and was still being fixed-up, so we didn’t get to see all of it. But the main spectacle was the mosaic floors with pictures of Baccus, animals, the 12 labors of Hercules, people exercising, dancing girls, and Grumio. Just kidding about Grumio. I wish lol  Mrs. Robertson should have been there—she would have enjoyed our tour guide, especially his explanations of the vomitarium and the sex rooms. Seriously. Those are real parts of a Roman Villa. If only those plebians knew where their tax money was going!
Our hotel in by Acireale was really nice and we had a great view approaching Etna from the West on our way there. I woke up early the next morning to watch the sunrise from the roof of the hotel and it was sooo beautiful. The way the clouds looked made it seem like the sun was rising over a far-away town or piece of land when there was actually nothing but water. I took a ton of pictures and also worked on adjusting my camera settings to get a better picture. They turned out really well! I went back to bed then got myself up for a delicious 3-course breakfast: croissants, pound cakes, yogurt, bread with meat and cheese, cereal, granola, kiwis, and fresh squeezed blood-orange juice. We started our day in Taormina and took a small tour of a roman theater, a building with influence from the Arabs, Spaniards, and Byzantines, and then went to a Greek Ampitheater which had also been used for the Romans (for Gladiator fights!) and they hold concerts there sometimes now. The view from the ampitheater was one of my favorite parts of our whole trip. Etna was to our right, the bright blue sea was to our left, and the hillside towns were in between. There were a lot of ceramics in the shops on our way back to the bus so it was probably a good thing I had left my money there. We spent the afternoon (drum roll, please) ON THE BEACH at Naxos!!! The water was freezing, but it was comfortable lying out in the sun for the afternoon. Olivia and I tried to shop around, but everything was closed. We did get drinks (strawberry vodka and limonata) at a bar nearby with some other Ciee people, found a pastry shop and got cassettine (a local specialty with the ricotta mix they use in cannolli and cake), then had gelato. We took a bus ride (SPAAAAAAL, oooh oooh oooh! (Ricardo’s version of Bohemian Rhapsody)), to another town with a gorgeous piazza (especially that night with the full moon) which appeared to be inhabited by teenagers alone. I have never seen that many pre-pubescents in one place. Jenna, Olivia, and I stopped for an arancino (a rice ball with either ragù, spinach, veggies, or ham and cheese, breaded and possibly fried).
That night after dinner, a few of us walked down to the docks and scoped out a good spot to take pics the next morning. It was a really fun walk down (thank you Queen) and the dock was pretty cool too. Lots of people hang out by the water and there was a lot of interesting graffiti and huge rectangular chunks of concrete (probably left by the Greeks, arabs, byzantines, or aliens). The next morning, Keester, Adam and I got early and headed to the dock again to take sunrise pics. It was even better than the day before. The sunlight reflected off the water and I got a ton of pictures with the seagulls and ships going out for the morning. They’re pretty good if I do say so myself, but it would be difficult to mess up something that gorgeous.
After another massive breakfast, we headed to Mt. Etna. I fell asleep after the tour guide got on the bus and when I woke up, we were on top of a volcano! It looked more like a ski resort with Italians dressed in 1970s style snowsuits riding sleds that looked like shovels. There were some craters that we learned about, and a couple people wanted first-hand experience so they took a garbage bag blowing around in one of them and rode it down the side a few times. We had a little bit of free time, so I did some shopping (and got a cool bracelet with volcanic stone) and some eating (more arancini) then went back to the bus. Finally, at last, thank GOODNESS, we got our seafood. It was the perfect close to such a great trip—a four-hour, five-course seafood meal. We started out with a plate of raw stuff which I don’t know what half of it was, and then had 2 courses where they kept putting plates of 3 small portions by us and we shared. The plates just kept coming and coming…shrimp, muscles, anchovies, sardines, crab, oyster, and tons of other stuff. I tried it all, and liked a lot of it. It was all really well prepared and they served it with veggies or mashed potatoes or lemons. Next was a plate of pasta, and I kept biting on shells so that wasn’t my favorite. We had some salad, and finally desert! (Cake with the ricotta mix and chocolate chips) Between courses we took breaks on the patio outside and soaked up the sun for the last time until it decides to come to Ferrara (probably sometime in April, we’ll see). We went back to the airport and arrived in Ferrara around 12:30. Let’s just say that class wasn’t very fun the next day.