Catania Continued...

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Catania Continued...And the last of Rome!

The next day, Saturday, Jenn and I went to Museo dello Sbarco. This is a museum about the U.S. invasion in Sicily during WW2. This museum was very expansive and detailed. Jenn was a little happy that we were up so early, but she did want to go. Haha. A guide took us around for a bit after they showed us an introductory movie, and he explained a lot of stuff to us. It was in Italian though so I had to translate for Jenn. There was a bombing simulation that we also did. Dad I think you wouldve spent about 3 days in this museum.........there were descriptions of all the weapons, all the tactics, everything! With lots of pictures and artifacts and models and explanations...however it was all in Italian!

Some interesting facts though were that the Sicilians actually welcomed the U.S. invasion, as they did not really support the rest of Italy in the war. The U.S. also spread propaganda throughout Sicily from airplanes, dropping leaflets and whatnot. The funny thing is though is that the leaflets were written in Italian, but at the time Sicilians really only spoke their dialect, so it was basically useless! The Americans also went around and killed or arrested anyone wearing all black as this was what the communists typically wore, however it was tradition in Sicily for anyone to wear black for an entire year if a family member died.....oooh American ignorance.

They also had wax figures of Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler and Mussolini in the museum which were very cool. At the end of the museum they also had a memorial to those who died in the war, with a video screen scrolling through all the names. They also gave us a little booklet thing, which is in English which I will have to give to you dad!

We then went to this one beach called La Playa. It was a free public beach right next to their power plant....lovely! It couldve been worse though. After that we decided to go to another beach further away. It was a black, so lava beach that was mostly rocky, but AWESOME for swimming. There was a little cove there that actually got really really deep. The water was a little on the chilly side, but very blue and nice to swim in. There were also lots of fish here. Then later on we went to a very yummy dinner with some boys that were cousins of one of Jenn's friends from home. They took us to this place on the water that was sooo yummy and I had some bomb pasta! On our way home we saw lava flowing down Mt. Etna. This was AMAZINGGGGGGGGG, just absolutely beautiful. I think its one of the most breathtaking, beautiful things I've ever seen. It was at night so it was all dark, and on the mountain there was just one flow of bright red and orange lava going down the mountain. It was incredible.

The next day we did a tour of Mt. Etna. They drove us up parts of the mountain, and showed us some craters that we hiked up. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and showed us all the different lava flows from different years. We saw bunches of houses that did not make it, or that JUST made it and now their backyard is all black lava. It is no longer legal to build houses on the mountain, but of course the church built a monastery last year there. Italians do what they want! The mountain was also absolutely RAMPANT with lady bugs!!! It was interesting though our tour guide told us that during the winter, for some reason, they all migrate up to the top of the mountain, and if you go up there in winter you can find them in flocks everywhere.

We then went and explored some caves that used to be used to store wine and snow! As you can imagine it was very cold in these caves! They said that the snow that was stored there was used to make granita (the Italian version of the slurpee...much better than American style in my opinion. less fake and less sugary) as a typical sicilian breakfast used to consist of a brioche and granita!

After this we went to walk up some more craters and saw another side of the mountain. We also drove past the lava flow (that was very far in the distance) and you could see steam coming from it. After this we had a little snack and then drove through some of the towns that were further down on the mountain. Jenn and I decided that we are going to live in Sant'alfio, a town that has awesome views of the mountain and the sea, as it is located between the two. Its altitude is 550 meters above sea level. Feel free to convert that for me!! There were also lots of wineries in this area and this is where Etna red wine is made.

We then went back to Catania, had lunch at this awesome place called De Fiore Trattoria on Via Coppola, which had lots of good veggie options! I got this BOMB pasta there. Then we got gelato of course, and got our bags from our hostel to go to the train station. We were taking the overnight train back to Rome from Catania. This was definitely an experience! Haha. It was soo sketchy at first though. All that we had heard from people was that the train was not that safe, and that when we got to Naples to make sure our door and windows were all locked up. For the first three hours the lights and the ventilation in our cabin didn't work...so those three hours were pretty much hell! It was soooooo so so so hot. The train went through a lot of long tunnels, so me and Jenn were sitting in the dark with this strange man that was in our cabin. I couldn't take the darkness and silence any longer so I just started talking to him! I could only kind of understand him because he didn't speak Italian very well, only Catanese dialect, but at least it calmed me down a bit. The only cool thing about the train was that we went right along the beach through Taormina, and so we got an awesome view of the water and Isola Bella at sunset. The sunset however was behind Mt. Etna, which was actually cooler because you could see the lava and the steam with the sun setting behind it. Absolutely gorgeous! Then we tried to sleep on these little couchettes that we had reserved until we got to Rome...I maybe got four hours of sleep. Oh well!

We then had our last week in Rome which was of course crazy! I had a research paper to do for class, plus we had a quiz and a final at the end of the week. So I spent a lot of this week studying and whatnot, but did find some time to enjoy the rest of Rome and my cute little neighborhood! We also had a farewell dinner that CEA hosted. They had a little random prize drawing thing and I won an Ipod shuffle! Nice! Its seafoam green.

Our last night there my roomates, one of my friends from Paly that also goes to Cal and happened to be in Rome at the time, and I all went out to dinner and then went over to the downtown area. We went to the Trevi fountain to throw our coins in, over one shoulder it guarantees your return to Rome, and over the other it guarantees you will find love! I did both. The Trevi fountain was gorgeous at night but pretty crowded! We also hit up a very yummy gelato place around here. Then we headed over to the Spanish steps where we hung out for a little while. We met a guitarist who played lots of classic songs for us like Hotel California, etc. and we just relaxed and enjoyed the rest of Rome. Then we went home to finish up packing and get the few hours of sleep that we could. Then I'm off to Athens, Greece! Ciao Roma!

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