I just spent 5 days in Palermo with my friends, visiting the orthodox archbishop.
It was an amazing vacation. Sure, there were some pains of travel. Being tired, getting grumpy, feeling dehydrated, getting frustrated when other people got grumpy. Our flights were quite early and we were required to get up at 5 for both of them.
I would easily say this was my best trip in Europe this past year. We were so lucky because our hosts were locals. The archbishop works in a language high school and teaches English. He contacted some of his former students who are our age and we hung out with them the entire time. They were so generous and so much fun!
Emilo lives with the archbishop in his bachelor pad. He is a former student of Mons (what we call the archbishop) and spoke English with us. Piero is also a former student of Mons and Laura is his girlfriend. They, along with their friends Diego and Alex, took us out to a soccer game, to the beach, to clubs, to the downtown hangout whose name I can never remember.
OH SICILY, THE FOOD. We showed up at the Mons' house and he served us stuffed squid. With great fear, I tried it... I could have sworn that I died and went to heaven. The cannoli were creamy and crunchy. We tried this one kind of donut which has the same filling as a cannoli but instead is a fresh donut. It was artery clogtastic and soul fulfilling. Arancini are a staple of the south. They are fried rice balls filled with meat ragu, spinach and cheese, or ham and cheese. The one gross thing I ate was another staple, calf lung and spleen sandwich. Ughhh. I choked it down and tried not to throw up. Fortunately, I kept it down. We ate way too well and much. Gelato was served in brioche, cone or cup. Mmm...
Saturday we went to Mondello, the beach just north of Palermo. The water was completely clear and light green/blue. It was cold but I went in anyway. Ah! So refreshing to be in the water. My pale skin was swathed in SPF 50 because the day before I got a sunburn from standing outside for maybe 40 minutes and sitting in a car for maybe an hour. I never thought of myself as a pale person but I guess I am. Unfortunately, many speedos populated the beach. I completely forgot what an eyesore Italian beaches can be. Can we make a law that WHITE SPEEDOS should be ILLEGAL? Italian men are total dandies so maybe they realize it makes them look tanner. Speedos are bad enough. White ones? I basically looked down most of the day. The Italians thought we were nuts for getting in the water but they tried to brave it haha. Afterwards we got our first arancini. Amanda got ham and cheese and I got the meat ragu one. We passed them back and forth, unable to decide which one was better.
That night we (the girls) went out dancing and then to the city pit of youth (where the boys immediately went). Palermo clubs are...CREEPY. I live in Perugia, so I'm used to creepy. But Palermo took the CAKE. I tried to go to the dance floor and Laura grabbed me and said "Look around you." I realize, finally, the dance floor doesn't have women dancing on it. It's literally a crowd of men watching, like dancing hawks searching for prey. So we had to dance near the bar which wasn't really the dance floor. Fortunately, Piero and Laura watched us and were pretty protective. After awhile, we meet up with the American boys in the pit of youth. The pit of youth is a neighborhood of abandoned buildings. There are hundreds of Sicilian young people who go there to hang out. There are food stands, live music, a lot of weed smoke and absolute chaos. It's really cool but I was very tired so I was ready to go home after 20 mins.
There is so much more to stay... To be continued!
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