We were met at the train station by our host Luigi's son, and greeted at the apartment by Luigi himself. Luigi is of Spanish/Jewish/German/Italian descent and the same age as Bill. He experienced the bombing of Palermo as a young child, had many stories of his parents' and grandparents' struggles to survive. He was an aeronautics professor, and speaks several languages, including French and English. The apartment is wonderful: in the heart of the Capo district, a very poor, old neighborhood that is being renovated. You can walk past doorways and look inside, seeing things that appear not to have changed since the Middle Ages, right next to a renovated apartment building. On the next block, we can see buildings being torn down, by hand, from our window. While we are of course stared at, we
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