Notes from Abroad

Trip Stats:
Cities visited: 4
Broken Sunglasses: same one
Major injuries: 1 almost healed bruise
Lost clothing: 1 pair of undies
Blisters: kind of gross, but getting better
Flights taken: 4
Trains taken: 2
Gelatos consumed: 1 (very large scoop)

I don’t remember one ounce of my flight to Sicily. I slept like a log until just about the time where we dipped below the clouds. Sleep is a wonderful thing.

My first impressions of Sicily were great. It seemed beautiful from above and as we went in for our landing I was impressed by the landscape. Much better than Copenhagen.

I hopped on the train to Palermo. It was just over 45 minutes from the airport. The towns we passed through were cute – kids playing soccer, Vespas abound, just what you’d expect.

Then we pulled into Palermo. Upon reaching the station’s exit I believe the first words that came to mind were “uh oh” (probably closely followed by “holy hell it’s hot.”)

I was not impressed by Palermo at all. I had a 15 minute walk to my hotel along one of the major roads. The directions weren’t very clear “stay on Via Roma until the first traffic light, make a right, then a left, then cross the plaza and look for #46,” or something to that effect. Well the first traffic light wasn’t until about 12 minutes into my walk. I was sweating bullets. I looked at the street I was supposed to turn onto and decided that that couldn’t be the right one. It was far too small and off the beaten path. So I kept going, but when I didn’t see any other traffic lights in the distance I turned around and decided to give that street a try.

A right and then a quick left. There would be a piazza there. I don’t know about you, but my definition of piazza is a large, central, generally open area with lots of shops around it and people gathering. This was not a piazza. This was an alleyway. Bordered by even smaller alleyways. I asked an old man at a fruit stand where I could find my street. He pointed across the “piazza”. So I walked the 10 steps it took for me to cross the piazza – 10 steps through fishy smelling hose water and a bunch of men cleaning up their market stalls. Into the alleyway, where I passed a family that was straight out of a movie – kids screaming, babies crying, adults yelling at each other, laundry hanging from every which window, you get the picture.

So I pass through the family and make my way further down the alley. This alley is SMALL. It’s exactly the width of a small car. I know this because I was forced to practically climb up a wall in order to let a car pass. And there it was: #46. It had a tiny 10″x12″ sign on it declaring it as my hotel for the next two nights. Oh shit.

I ring the doorbell, already wondering where the nearest wi-fi cafe is so that I can try to book another hostel or something. The door was open, but I didn’t know where to go. The lady on the intercom just kept saying hello? hello? Finally I managed to get the floor out of her: 3rd floor. No elevator. And the ground floor is not floor 1. So the 4th floor. No big. I get to climbing.

I felt a little better upon reaching my room. It was decent. It was inside. It was safe.

When the owner returned to check me in he gave me a map of the sights. The whole time I’m thinking “yeah…right…like I’m going back out there.” I also mentioned that my flight was at 7:30 on Friday morning, so I’d be leaving quite early. He said that’s impossible. The first train doesn’t leave until after 4:30 (what is with these Europeans and their 4:30AM trains!?). And, not to mention, it wouldn’t really be safe for me to walk to the train station at that time of night. Yeah, no kidding. I barely felt safe in broad daylight. He suggested 2 options: a) I get a taxi to take me to the airport for 45 euro or he could take me to the train station on his scooter at 4:30 in the morning (which would make me late for check-in). Lovely.

Thank god this place had wi-fi. Seriously, I think I may have killed someone. I was able to pull up the train schedules online and found out that there was a direct, overnight train from Palermo to Venice. It left at 4PM the next day. Good stuff. I threw on my backpack (sans good camera, I didn’t feel comfortable pulling that one out in this area), and trekked back to the train station to buy my train ticket (the first using my Eurail pass) and passed a few of the sights circled on my map along the way (and by a few I mean two). I managed to get myself a couchette car which meant that I might actually get some sleep.

Back to the hotel I went, after stopping for gelato and a giant bottle of fanta for the evening, of course. I pulled out my laptop and got online. Homesickness was really setting in at this point. I think I IMed every single person who was online at the time. I just needed to talk to people and convince myself that it wouldn’t be the best idea to buy a plane ticket from Palermo to Newark and call it quits. Two not-so-great cities in a row and 3 days of being by myself with literally no one to talk to except the people at the check-in counters of my hotels and the airports, I wasn’t in a good place.

Having booked the first train out of there, I was feeling slightly better, especially since once I get to Venice I’ll be hooking up with the Busabout tour that I won through STA. I’d been putting off booking a hostel in Venice because I didn’t particularly like the one that they’d recommended, but at this point I was so damned lonely and desperate for company and people who spoke English, that I would have even paid 100 euro to stay in a place with people my own age. So I booked the recommended hostel. It’s actually a campsite. Only 16 euro a night. Should be interesting, but I don’t care. I just want lots of people around who I could possibly hook up with for a bit of sightseeing or I don’t know, general chit chat. Anything.

So after talking to friends who have been in similar situations and coming to the conclusion that I need to at least give the Busabout part of my trip a shot, I decided to call it an early night so that I can just sleep away the hours before my train left.

I woke up early today. 8:20AM. But that’s OK since I went to sleep sometime around 10PM. Oh, and there was air conditioning in my room. I don’t think I could have been happier. Finally a great night’s sleep (except for when I had to wake up in the middle of the night to put on socks and my jacket because even after turning the AC off I was freeeezing). Things were looking up. I was in a much, much, much better mood.

Breakfast courtesy of the hotel (it was actually a “B&B”) and a nice shower (which was bizarre, by the way, because it didn’t have a shower curtain and the shower head was at the level of a normal bathtub spout. I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to sit or stand or what, but let’s just say there were a lot of puddles in the bathroom when I was done. Oops.)

I packed up my things except for my laptop and a book and I just typed and read away to kill the hours. I wanted to be at the train station by 2:30 just in case I had any problems finding the track, etc. I also wanted to get some sort of lunch. Did I mention that this train was not just overnight, but practically an entire day? 19 hours to be exact.

The hotel owner offered me some lunch (pasta, of course) and a ride to the train station on his scooter. I was already running a bit late after the lunch (which was great, but took longer than I’d expected) so I declined to scooter ride and walked it. I bought myself a giant bottle of water and a sandwich just in case I got hungry at some point on the train, and on the train I went.

My time in Palermo was…authentic, I suppose. I stayed in a very authentic place in a very authentic neighborhood, was almost killed on multiple occasions by some very authentic drivers in a town with essentially no traffic lights or stop signs (or rules of the road in general), and I had some authentic spaghetti on my way out. Oh and the gelati, of course. Would I ever return to Palermo? I’m not going to say absolutely not. Maybe in a different hotel with a large group of friends it wouldn’t seem as bad, but never again by myself. Would I return to Sicily in general? Absolutely. The places we while on the train the way seemed so much nicer than Palermo. I think Sicily is the kind of place where you need to avoid major cities. Unless you’re the type who likes many-thousand-year-old dirt and grime in a city somewhat reminiscent of the bad parts of Newark. You’re a stronger person than I. Me? I booked the first train out of there to stay in a campsite 19 hours away. Overreaction? Possibly. Would I have rather been in the sketchy train station in Copenhagen at 3 in the morning? Absolutely.

(also as a side note: my internet access has been far more limited than I was anticipating. Photo uploading might not happen until I get back to the States. We’ll see.)

Tags: Adventures, City, Italy, Journal, Palermo, Sicily