This of course, refers to mosquitos. It is just unbelievable how many mosquito bites I've been getting on this trip. Coming from the Bay Area where there is zero humidity, and therefore zero mosquitos, I've forgotten how annoying it can be, and how much they love me - for every bite Mike gets, I get about seven. I know I'm not the only one it town suffering because I've seen several other people with red spots all over their arms and legs, but its one reason I'm looking forward to traveling up north in a few weeks where hopefully mosquito season is over.
Today was our last day in Palermo and we had a few errands to run and a few last sights to see before catching the bus to the airport. First stop - the post office. This experience was a little different than last time. To start, we were more prepared. We found an empty shoe box on the street a couple of days ago that we saved, I set aside some paper to wrap the box and we bought our own roll of tape so that we could do our own wrapping. We arrived at the post office around 8:30 AM, and it was a complete zoo. A book that Mike has been reading says that in Italy the post office is like a public forum and people just come to hang out and see their friends. This seems very much the case. Mike got in the unbelievably long line, and I stood near the wall to wrap the box up. One of the guys in line clearly was not happy with the job I was doing (I wasn't moving fast enough for him), came over, grabbed the tape, and prepared the package. While he did a good job, I am not sure if I'll ever be able open the package again considering how much tape he used. As we waited in line, the same guy "helped" everyone else in the post office - where they should stand, who they should talk to, etc. I told him he should work there. At the end of the day, it was a much easier and more entertaining experience this time.
From the post office, we went to see some more of the sights. We saw some more famous churches, walked through another seemingly never-ending public market, and walked to visit the Botanical Gardens, where I was eaten alive. It was a pretty impressive garden, with banana and papaya trees, a large selection of succulents and cacti, many of those trees with the thorny trunks and pink/yellow flowers, and the largest of those banyan trees with the aerial roots. From the gardens, we walked back through one of the medieval neighborhoods to the Quattro Canti, where we saw the famous Fontana Pretoria from 1555, called the "fountain of shame" by some locals due to all the nude statues. We finally walked back to our hotel, packed things up and caught the bus to the airport. With the Pope coming to town tomorrow and traffic diverted all over the place, we gave ourselves several hours cushion and arrived at the airport four hours early. We'll be in Sardinia tonight and will have our first experience driving in Italy. Tomorrow's post may be interesting...
And lastly, how could I forget one of the most memorable experiences of the day - we finally got to meet Vito, the man who runs our hotel. He arrived back from Greece last night and we met him during breakfast. Imagine: Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, but with his hair pulled back. He's around 40 years old and is clearly a good guy, but very easily distracted. While we were trying to explain the WiFi that Mike set up and what he needed to do to get it to run more smoothly, he heard loud construction in the stairwell of the building. This was so offsetting to him that midway through the conversation he got up and left the room to figure out what was going on. "No one starts doing construction at 8 AM in Sicily. And even if the Pope is coming tomorrow, he isn't coming to this building!" As we were leaving this afternoon, he asked us for a suggestion to make his hotel better. I'm need to email him and tell him, but I think he should add a Magic 8 Ball to his collection and make each of his guests ask for their fortune as they arrive. It seems to fit the theme of the hotel pretty well...
Manual focus must be working because your pictures are still divine! What? No gelato flavors to drool over?
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