Palermo is amazing. We stayed for only one night but I'd love to spend more time there. We got into our hostel late and were welcomed into a lively group of American, Chinese, Russian, Norwegian, Australian, Italian, and eastern European people. They ordered us pizza and made sangria...which started off the drinking games. Later I went out to a local bar with this group. It was in a piazza (mote like a small gap between tall and leaning buildings full of balconies and laundry) with a bar on each of the three corners. We drank beer out of the bottle and stood around with the throngs of locals out on a Tuesday night. Cars kept creeping through the crowds to show off or check out who was at the local scene that night.
The next day was a little rough for me....no more sangria please! We decided to catch the bus (sho, Patrick the American, and I) to mondello, a lovely beach town just outside of Palermo. It was supposed to be a 20 min trip which turned into about two hours. The bus was FULL of young locals heading to the beach in the middle of a school day. Music was playing and there was a great energy. Patrick sat on the top of the back window, such a local after only a month. We hadn't stamped our tickets, so when the ticket guy came on the bus (the first I've seen since I've been here) we scrambled to write the dates on our tickets before he noticed. The bus stopped randomly at least four times in the midst of Palermo traffic, turning off the engine and all. Then we hadto switch buses, apparently ours wasn't good enough? Finally we arrived. Phew. Gorgeous beach.
Later sho and I made our way to the train station to catch our train to cefalu. I just have to say here how much I loved Palermo, even for my short experience. The mix of foreign music, city sounds, food smells, people talking and yelling, cars, motos, the collies and even the grime and grit of it all. The contrasts were what made it all the more vibrant.
Now we are in cefalu and it is amazing in a whole different way. Our little beach town, where we lucked out big time with our own little apartment on the sea. It has a kitchen, bathroom and balcony...in the heart of the old town. The first night we found a pizzeria that surprisingly had a massive terrace that opens onto the sea. We had prosciutto with melon, fish carpaccio and pizza while the sun set. Our server even opened our own bottle of wine for us without a fee. We made friends with the next table and ended up staying out til three or four am at a little bar down the road from our place. Small towns are interesting as now we are stopped everywhere in town by the people we met that night. Last night we tried to go for a walk before bed and got maybe 50 feet before running into the owner of the bar, pasquale, and then more people. It's rude here not to take a drink when offered, so we stopped for a bit. We did get our walk in but ran into ALL of the people we know (which is surprisingly quite a lot for one day). Somehow we managed to get home and in our beds by one.
Today it's sunny and we're off to the beach.