Trip To Taormina

I flew Ryanair for the first time from Frankfort to Trapani. My ticket was only about $50, which is acutally the fairly expensive for this no extras absolute lowest cost possible airline. I was impressed by their (very un-european) efficiency at the airport. The plane was remarkable… not necessarily in a good way. The seats were tiny with next to no leg room, allowing them to fit more rows in the plane. I am pretty sure that I bumped the stewardess every single time she walked by. Throughout the flight they had a constant flow of duty free goods at outrageous prices that they sell to help them profit off such cheap flights. I believe that 1/3 of corporate revenues are actually generated from inflight sales… pretty impressive. Overall I was thrilled to fly so cheaply.

My flight got into the sleepy little town of Trapani last night at nine thrity. The bus from the station to town was only 2 euros… a sharp contrast with the 12 euros that I had paid for a similar fare from the Frankfurt airport into town on the way. The bus ride was a spectacle: The bus driver was a kind animated Sicilian who wanted to know where every last person on the bus needed to get off. The problem was almost everyone on the bus had been on my flight in from Frankfurt, which meant almost exclusively Germans, Frenchies, and Americans. I translated for everybody, but going in and out of German from Italian on 2 hours of sleep was an exercise in patience. I nearly had a laughing fit when a middle aged German lady saw a big sign for “Farmacia Centrale” then asked me why she couldn’t find that on her map! I got off the bus at the Trapani Lungo Mare and walked along the beach. The stars were out and the nearly full moon reflected beautifully off of the water. After a few minutes of reflection I went in search of a bar to watch the rest of the Champions league final. I found a bar full of hooting Italian men with about ten minutes to go in regular time. The game went into overtime, and then into penalties. Manchester United on the seventh round of penalties, and the bar turned into a riot. There were 15ish Italian men, one woman, who clearly cared a lot more about the boy she was with than the soccer game and myself. When the game finally finished at 11:30 I decided it would be a good idea to find somewhere to stay. I asked the guy at the bar if there were any cheap hotels nearby. He walked out from behind the bar and said, I’ll show them to you. I thought that he would walk me out the door, and point me where to go. Instead he walked me all the way through town, pointing out the sights as we went. He walked me around for probably 15-20 minutes until we found the cheapest place in town.

I woke up four and a half hours later to catch a 5:30 train to Palermo where I was too meet Brad. I got lost trying to find the station, when I finally found a map, I had 8 minutes to cover about a mile. I was the last person on the train, sweating bullets after running with three weeks of stuff on my back. Brad was waiting for me in Palermo. He was thrilled to have some company after traveling alone for about a week. I had a typical Italian breakfast of a cornetto – basically an Italian croissant – and a fruit juice about the size of an only film canister. Palermo was a zoo just like I remembered it, a lot like Naples, just a slightly different accent, and maybe marginally less garbage. We caught a bus to Taormina, where our conference is. Taormina is paradasically beautiful. It is built on the cliffs high above beautiful beaches of crystal clear water. Our hostel is small, but cheap and full of fun people. So far I have met three Americans, a Dutchie, an Irishman, and a pair of Italians. The highlight of the day was the amazing bruschetta, followed by prosciutto crudo pizza… more to come later.