I think there's more sand in my shoe than there is foot, And we're being ARTSY (Ancona, Palermo, Trapani, Favignana)

So this is the last big weekend I had in Italy (next weekend is Easter and the last weekend here so I'm sticking around the love of my life, Perugia) so Mary and I decided to go to Sicily. Our roommate Leigh had some last minute plan switches, so she came with us as well. All in all, it was an... interesting (but amazing!) trip.

First, we took the 7:40 train to Ancona. I actually had no idea where that was, but the train there was cheapest and the flight to Trapani, Sicilia was the cheapest as well.

I googled it: it's a little north of Perugia but to the east on the coast. Huh. I thought it was south. Wrong.

Anyway, we got there at 10 at night and took a taxi to our hotel. We stayed in a hotel since there is only 1 hostel in Ancona with a 53% rating on hostelworld, and because we booked last minute with the addition of Leigh. It was all right; it was about the same price I've paid for hostels and was in the middle of nowhere. Whatever.

So we go to the Ancona airport at an UNGODLY hour to catch our 8:55 AM flight. And by ungodly I mean we got up at like 7:30. The Ancona airport is small... REALLY small. But it was no big deal.

So we fly into Trapani and take a bus to the place where our hostel is, Paceco. It was just outside of Trapani. No big deal. Except the directions were confusing, so we asked some nice old man where Via Dante was. He tells us to go up the street, then says some other stuff, counts to three in English and tells us to turn left. Right. Sounds easy.

We assumed he meant go three blocks then turn left. Except three blocks later is not Via Dante. 5 blocks later is not Via Dante. So we turn around.

Thankfully a really hot boy was walking up the street as we went back down.
"Let's ask him," Mary suggested.
"I'm intimidated by his beauty," Leigh replied.

Despite this, we asked him "Dov'e Via Dante?"

He went to tell us, but then just turned around and waved us on to follow him. He took us all the way back down to the street where we had asked the old man for help... turns out the intersection we were at was Via Roma (the street we went up) and VIA DANTE. Then something weird happened:
"It's number 92."

...

Our hostel was number 90, but we did have to go to 92 to check in... apparently the hostel was THE ONLY ACCOMMODATION IN THIS PART OF TOWN. This didn't reeeeeeeeeally make me feel safe, but the hostel was AMAZING. Probably the nicest one I've stayed in, or at least up there with nice ones.

It's run by a family, and they were super nice. They told us a great restaurant to eat lunch at. It was a bruschetteria and we all got reeeeeeeeeeally good bruschetta.

Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Mountains and cloudssss.

So after we wandered around Paceco for a while we headed into Trapani the caught a train to Palermo, the capital of Sicily and the 5th largest city in Italy.

It was a long train ride but the scenery was amazing.

Uhh Palermo was kind of cloudy and we were only there for like 2 hours because the last train to Trapani was really early and there's no other way back.

Ironically, we got texts from Ryanair on the train back: Our flight had been switched from the Trapani Airport to the Palermo Airport 55 miles away... Our flight was at 8:20 AM. We weren't freaking out yet, we just had to figure out how to get there early. Also, there was an email that Leigh could read on her Blackberry and we were thinking maybe we could get a refund then just stay in Sicily for an extra day (our classes are done so we didn't have anything to do on Monday) if we had to. No big deal.

Also, apparently there is a distinct lack of foreign visitation to Paceco, the area we stayed in, since when we got back the people were staring at us and screeeeeeeeeeaming "STRANIERI!!!" that means foreigner. One guy even chased Leigh (And couldn't understand that her name was Leigh... none of them can) then got in his car and kept circling the block to tell her she was beautiful. We walked into a gelateria or something and the women in there glared at us like we were doing something wrong. It was strange.

The next day the owner of our hostel took us to the port so we could got to Favignana, the largest and most beautiful of the Egadi Islands.

It was a beautiful day!

So we got to the island and disembarked. We were just amazed by how pretty it was. The water was such a stunning color:

We wandered around the island, loving every second of it. I could see myself vacationing there. We were hungry so we decided to get legit seafood.

I got Salmon Bruschetta. I also tried fried Calamari.

Once you get over the tentacles, it's not half bad.
After our lovely lunch, we decided to explore the island in search of beaches. Wandering through the sand leads to the title of this blog, said by my constant companion Mary.

We found a small beach but wanted to find a different one. Rather than ask for directions, we decided to wander. Instead of finding another beach, we found this:

A field of flowers is not a beach, but it's still nice!
After some more wandering around the island, we found come cool rock formations and such to explore.
Please note: it would have been faster to get scooters or bikes for the island, but Leigh doesn't know how to ride a bike so that would have been awkward.

We stuck to explorin' the coast. It was such a nice day!

We had this strange obsession on this trip with taking artsy photos. Leigh took a photo of me taking an artsy photo, but she hasn't uploaded it yet since uploading things takes more time than we have left in the semester (10 days at this point!) so I'll have to check that out later.

But here's two of my artsy photos. I can't even explain how I had to position myself to get such angles. That's for only me to know. But you can still enjoy the outcome.

Flowers, water, sky. When I think about coming home it makes me want to cry that I would want to give all of this up. But I really am excited to come home. But look at this.

This is probs my favorite picture I took of the beach. Not sure why. I mean, I know why. It's ARTSYYYYYY.

We were chillin' on the beach for a while (I got sunburn on my face and mary got it awkwardly on like half of her chest while Leigh oddly just got tan) as the world just seemed to float on by. Honestly this was one of the more relaxing trips I've been on because we didn't have a set itinerary of exactly what to do when. We just went with the flow.

The flow of the INCREDIBLE water that is. I'm not much of a beach person, but I loved this so much.

I often think to myself: Am I ever going to see something this beautiful again in my whole life? Then I usually see something else in Italy and I know that I will continue to see things that take my breath away. But since we're leaving Italy soon, I'm gonna have to be more creative with seeing beauty. Man I'm getting nostalgic already and I haven't even left yet!

Getting to our flight was a disaster. Our hostel guy was like "Oh let me eat dinner then I'll come back and explain to you." At 9:30 this was a good plan. He didn't show up until 12:30 and told us where to take the at 5:55 AM to get to trapani to take the bus to Palermo airport. Except when we get to Trapani we find out that the bus only leaves at 4:30 AM, 7:30 AM and every 3 hours etc... But our flight was at 8:20 and the trip takes nearly an hour. We had to call a cab, which was an ordeal since the 24 hour cab number didn't work. We went to a tabacchi and got a number then took a 130 euro cab ride to the airport. Honestly, that's not too bad all things considered, but it was unnecessary. Thanks, Ryanair.

The drive there was beautiful though, with the sun coming up and Sicily's beauty in general.

The flight wasn't bad, and we got home safe. That's all that mattered.

Yay View! Boooo Ryanair!

More artsy.

Artsier.

And back to Pisa. Leigh had never seen the tower, and I had never arrived in Pisa during daylight hours. It was new for all!

And we got to watch Jersey Shore IN ENGLISH in our hostel. I'm feelin' ready for home, but not quite yet.

Exams and presentations and last minute food eating and all the stuff we couldn't do yet gahhhhhhhhhhhhh so much to do in 10 days!
You can check out the rest of my album here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150278666134968.393303.697649967&l=8e41a98276


Can't wait to see everyone!