Having the Craic in Palermo!!

So here's the thing...I don't know what it is about this country, but everywhere I visit I just love it more and more and more! This past weekend I had my first experience going on a trip on my own without a tour group and without having someone in the city that I already knew...Maria and I decided to be adventurous and head down to Palermo, the capital of Sicily (which if you're not up on geography, Sicily is like the boot of Italy).  We didn't really have too many plans before we went other than we knew we wanted to eat a lot of cannoli (a Sicilian specialty) and maybe go to the beach...well needless to say we ate a lot of cannoli but we never made it to the beach but honestly I like what we did do sooooo much better!! 


We left Florence around 9:30 so we could take a train to Pisa so we would have plenty of time to check in for our first Ryanair flight!! We were a little nervous because we had heard all kinds of horror stories about Ryanair and how they rip you off with hidden fees and sometimes cancel their flights at the last minute...but we got there in plenty of time and besides about a 20 minute delay, everything was fine!! We got to Palermo and quickly found the discount bus that would take us into the city center of Palermo (about a 50 minute bus ride).  Upon arrival at the train station, we found out hostel about 10 minutes later and entered the front door with high hopes...only to find that it looked like an abandoned courtyard with a creepy store in the corner and lots of dirt and weirdness going on...we looked at each other and I just said..."Well, this is right the address, I guess we should try upstairs?"  So we forge on together!! About halfway up the first staircase we see a newly made sign for our hostel so we felt a little better and when we finally made it to the top floor (good thing we were used to all those stairs from our apartment!!) we found a note and a phone number to call the owner when we arrived.  Little would we know that all the sketchiness would be worth it because we definitely stayed in the best hostel ever!!!


Once we got inside we met Giuseppe, the hostel owner, and he told us to wait about five minutes while he collected all the materials to check us in.  While he checked us in he gave us a map that showed us all the sights in Palermo to see, where the good markets were, where the good places to go out were and told us where to get the best local cuisine! It was amazing, he told us where was the best place to go get a light snack and then that if we wanted we could meet everyone staying at the hostel around 8 cause people usually come back around then so everyone can go get dinner and go out together.  We took his directions to Caffe Touring where we had two Sicilian staple cuisine items...Arancina Bomb and Cannoli!! 

They were both amazing! After that we walked around for a bit before we went back to the hostel to have a quick nap before dinner.  Once we got up we met Giuseppe, Clare and Markus out on the terrace where I tried my first espresso and we made plans for dinner, Giuseppe told us he thought we should go to this place called De Salvo that basically is an outdoor fish grill that gives you this huge platter of fish, salad and unlimited wine and beer for 15 euro! It was delicious and it was great to get to hear more about life in Finland and Ireland from Markus and Clare (respectively).

 
After that we decided to meet up with Giuseppe for a night out and he took us to a couple of local bars and this great piazza that was still in ruins from when it got bombed in World War 2 but where they now basically just have this huge dance party on Friday and Saturday nights, I'm gonna add pictures of that later though since it was busier on Saturday night.  Here's a pic from the first bar we went to though, I thought the name was hilarious!!

On Saturday, Maria and I got up a little early and decided to walk to one of two recognized  museums in Palermo, the Catacombs, it especially worked out because there were a couple of things we wanted to see on the way, including an outdoor market and the main Cathedral in Palermo.  The outdoor market was really interesting, definitely different than in Florence.  It was basically down one long road that felt like it went on forever! And everyone was much more forthcoming about the fact that they wanted you to buy everything they were selling because they kept yelling what they had and how much it costs, which I've never seen in Florence before, guess that's just the difference between the north and the south of Italy haha.  They also had a much bigger fish selection than anywhere in Florence, some of them I had never even seen before...also who knew swordfish were so big?!?! (See picture below lol) After that we walked to the Cathedral and it was beautiful!! It had a great ceiling mosaic that I thought was breathtaking and even though we didn't stay for too long cause it was pretty crowded, I'm definitely glad we went! 

After that we took a LONG walk to the Catacomb museum...not gonna lie the only reason it was probably so long was because we got lost like three times!! It was lucky we got there when we did though because it was closing 15 minutes later, we got inside and it was basically a lot of dead bodies hanging on the walls and in boxes everywhere.  It was actually really interesting if not a little creepy.  One of the main things to see in the museum was a baby girl that had been preserved with special chemicals so that she looked like she was just sleeping in a glass box, even though she died in 1920.  It was definitely an interesting experience to say the least.  On the way back we stopped at a Pastecceria that Giuseppe told us had a Sicilian specialty dessert that was a seven layer chocolate cake!! It was great, definitely another first for me.  After that we tried to take a tour of the theater in Palermo (the second largest in Europe) because Giuseppe told us that the theater is so large that they used to have elephants onstage during certain opera productions!! Unfortunately by the time we made it back we were 5 minutes late for the last tour of the day :( 


Looking back though it was probably a good thing that we missed the tour because if we were on it we wouldn't have made it to our next stop in time to see the main sight there, which was my favorite of the entire trip!! We ran into Clare at the theater and she decided to come with us.  We all made our way to the train station where we caught a bus up to the mountainside town of Monreale that was supposed to have an amazing overhead view of Palermo.  Once we got up there however, it turned out to be so much more.  We figured before we found the place to look at the view we would go to the large Cathedral that was supposed to be the main sight of Monreale.  


When I first walked in, it was breathtaking.  It was the most beautiful cathedral I had ever seen.  Everything on the inside was done in mosaics made out of small tiles and everything was a different bible scene.  It was amazing how you could just read the bible on the walls of this church.  I wish I could have just sat in there and soaked it all in for much longer than we had time for since it was closing shortly after we arrived.  I would love to go back someday though.  We decided to pay the 2 euro fee to walk to the top of the cathedral since Clare's Sicily guidebook said that it was definitely money well spent.  Once we got up there we understood why! It was an amazing view of Palermo and the surrounding mountains, another breathtaking sight...if you are ever in Palermo I definitely recommend taking the time to go up to Monreale :)

 Later that night we went out for a light dinner before heading back to the piazza with the discotheque because Giuseppe said it really didn't start getting going until around 2 am, so pretty much Maria and I decided that we weren't going to sleep since we had to leave for our flight at like 5:30 the next morning! That night two French men had arrived, Cedric and Maxime and they went out with us too.  Maria and I tried intestines for the first time and the piazza was packed!!! It was the perfect end to a perfect trip, we really could not have had a better first hostel experience even though we were dead tired when we got back!!! 

On Florence news: I have my first day of community service tomorrow at 10 am!! I will be giving tours to English speaking people at the San Lorenzo church.  I'm a little nervous but right after this post I am going to go study so hopefully I will have all my info down, I'm also gonna go a little early tomorrow so I can walk around the church on my own.  Also on the agenda for tomorrow: weekly skype date with Ma and Da! Probably going to the travel agency to book my tickets to go back to Switzerland to visit Nishi in November :) Also hopefully will finally pick up my book for my Organizational Behavior class since it's been delayed like 60 gabillion times!!! I think I am going to try to post again tomorrow night to update you on how community service went and fill you in a bit on my trip for next weekend! Also, if you want to see more of my trip to Palermo there's a bunch of pictures on my Facebook as well as three videos!! Definitely check it out :) TTYL!