SICILIA

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Catania

Sooo thursday morning was crazzzzzzzzzzy!!! I woke up early to catch my flight to Catania from Rome, and I woke up to a text message saying Haley was engaged!!! Crazyness!! Then I got a phone call from my parents and they started explaining everything and I just started balling!! What an emotional morning.

Ooh I also forgot to note that Tuesday night we went bowling at a Roman bowling center...how fun! Im still pretty good at it....Then wednesday night we went to the opera!! Me and my roommates got all dressed up and went to go see the opera Carmen. It was SO COOL. The opera house itself was awesome, totally classic and what you would expect. The opera was sang in french but there were italian subtitles which I was able to read. It was absolutely beautiful and I really enjoyed it!

But so then thursday morning I was off to Sicily...I got on the airplane and PASSED OUT and when I woke up and looked out my window I saw Mt. Etna RIGHT THERE. Like literally we were level with the peak. It was insane. Amazing! Imagine waking up to that! It was crazy. And you could see steam coming from the top. That was breathtaking. I then got to the city of Catania, which is actually pretty big! I never knew this. Finding the hostel was INTERESTING. It was off in a random part of town, a little sketchy, and difficult to find! I also tried calling the people who owned the place but no one picked up. That freaked me out a bit but luckily some of the neighbors helped me find it. Then I spent my first day in Catania wandering around, doing some shopping, just finding my way about the town. I saw its duomo and cathedral, as well as one of the universities that is right in the center. I walked through the fish market, which was probably a bad idea but everyone was telling me I had to do it. It was disgusting of course. Haha. I then found some awesome Gelato and sat in Piazza Stesicoro for a very long time waiting for my roommate Jenn to arrive. Then finally it was time for SLEEP!

The next day, Friday, we caught a bus to Taormina. This town is up on a cliff and had gorgeous views. We went to the Greek amphitheatre that was there and walked through the town a bit. The views from the Greek amphitheatre were amazing and definitely worth the hike up there! Then we headed down to a beach to lie out and enjoy the view and the cold water. To get to the beach we had to get on a gondola to take us down there which was very cool! I found a large rock that some people were jumping off of and proceeded to go do that! It was so fun!! Then we went back to Catania and went to dinner at Luogi & BooBoo. It was soooo yummy. It was my first time having non-italian food in Italy! I had some curry noodles that were so good. Then we walked around the town and saw all the gorgeous sights lit up at night which was so cool! We saw Cattedrale di Sant'Agata all lit up. Then we went to Castello Ursino which is right on the water. This was absolutely gorgeous at night. The moon was out and there was an awesome reflection on the water!

Then we went to this huge outdoor disco called La Cucaracha. It was SO COOL. It was huge and there were all these trees and it was really pretty. They also had a pool but no one was swimming in it. It was funny though because it was a night for old people I think so everyone was over 30!! It was funny to see all these people dancing but it was still very fun!

Okay time to go but I will continue this soon!!!!

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