Sunny in Sicily

 Sicily-the land of pizza, the Mediterranean and.....the Mofia.  This past weekend 7 of us flew from Pisa to Palermo, Sicily. We enjoyed the excitement of economic airfare via Ryan Air and it's luxurious blue and yellow airplanes with plastic seats and no drink service. If you want to fly a no frills airline this is it. I hope all of you who have flown with them before are laughing because of all your past experiences.
    We landed in Palermo and took a 5euro shuttle to town and got to our rooftop apartment. Apparently there was no running water in the whole city according to our landlord, but we still don't really believe that. We ended up not having water for 24 hours. We explored the markets and some more churches. As bad is it may sound, these churches are starting to blur together. As much as I like churches, they're all just blurring together.  We found a bakery and had canolis since they're an original in Sicily.  I'm more of a fan of the canolis in the states with whip cream versus the cheese filling here. Naps ensued laying out on our porch with the sun's rays as our blankets.  After napping and reading we decided to go to a restaurant recommended to us. At the restaurant, Ferro di Cavollo, we were welcomed by the owner's son, Giuseppe.  Picture the Italian version of Zach Galifianakis with lots of chest hair and glasses. He was a character who enjoyed our company and asked us girls to sign his button down with a permanent marker. He later asked Sophie if she "wanted to make love" in Italian and that was our que to head out the door. Thank you Giuseppe for your entertainment and enjoy your diet of carrots since you need to shed a few pounds. A late night snack of Sicilian pizza ensued at Frida Pizzeria (highly recommended).  Bed time around 2am after a 15 minute walk back through some alleyways with prostitutes, drag queens, and drunk couples.
     Saturday morning I enjoyed a run along the beach around the harbor and touched the Mediterranean.  The weather was about 65 degrees and sunny all weekend. We made an egg scramble, potatoes, and fruit salad all with our purchases from the previous day market visit.  Nice change from our usual breakfasts of yogurt and corn flakes.  We headed by train to Argentino on the Southern coast of the island. After a 2 hour conversation with a lovely 45 year old Australian woman we made it and hopped on a bus to the Valley of the temples.  There's something exciting about jumping around rocks from 3000 years ago.  A well spent 5 euro seeing the Temple of Zeus and Hercules on a perfect day.
      Saturday evening we wandered around and finally settled on a pizza place, but only after searching for a recommended one online, which has apparently since closed.  I don't think this pizza was anything extraordinary.  Bed time came quickly after.

     Sunday was a early morning to our 9am flight back on Ryan Air where the flight attendant spoke over the intercom from at least half the flight.  Yesenia and I explored Pisa on one of the rare sunny days after landing.  We took the expected tourist pictures at the leaning tower and got a kebab and gelato for lunch.  Pisa is a nice quaint town.  Much much more peaceful than Florence. Overall I'd say it was a success in the sun!