2012 In Summary

As the year comes to an end, I typically like to look back on what I've accomplished and set goals for the upcoming year.  I encourage everyone to take some time and think about how 2012 went and what they'd like to see happen in the next year.  I believe in manifest destiny, all the way!

While I ponder my travels for 2013,  please enjoy this post on "2012 in Summary".

January started off the year with a cruise from Miami to the Bahamas.  I really like cruises and it's nice to escape winter with a little sun.  Two weeks later, I went to the southwest to drive from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon.  Phoenix was warm, but the elevation of the canyon meant lots of snow.  Fortunately, I had a day to get all my pictures in because while it was snowing, there was zero visibility!

February included another winter getaway back to Miami and the Florida Keys.  This was my visit trip to Key West and I really enjoyed the party atmosphere and key lime pie!

As it started to get warmer in Boston, I headed to the Midwest in March to visit Chicago on St. Patrick's Day.  The crowds were a little overwhelming and I didn't get to see too much of the parade, but I did eat some delicious popcorn at Garrett's and got some pictures of the green jello river.

Come April I made my yearly visit down to Washington D.C. for the Cherry Blossom festival!  Happy 100 Years of Cherry Blossoms!

Since my brother was getting married over the summer, May began the season of pre-wedding festivities including their bridal shower and family time over Memorial Day in Western Pennsylvania.  Only a few days later, I flew to the West Coast for a friend's wedding in San Francisco and exploration of wine country and the redwoods.  I definitely want to go back!

June was a little crazier than expected with two trips back to PA and a day trip down to Cape Cod.  I need to dedicate a full weekend on the cape in 2013.  It really is a nice place for a staycation. 

Wedding season continued in July with two wedding weekends back to back!  Fortunately, one of the two was nearby and I did not have to fly.

I was looking forward to August and the Maui trip all year!  It was very nice to get away and see somewhere new, but it was surreal to travel that far and still be in the same country.  There was so much fun jam packed into one week that it is hard for me to summarize it all.  It's probably better to just read the post yourself. :)

September in Minnesota was an enjoyable, but quick trip.  Because this was more of a visiting friends type of weekend, I didn't get a chance to really explore the area.

If you can't tell by now, a lot of my trips are dictated by friends having weddings and babies.  I guess everyone hits this point in their life and 2012 was definitely it for me!  October's trips took me back to PA for a baby shower as well as down to Baltimore for a wedding.  Unfortunately bad weather sent me back home pretty quickly and I didn't get a chance to explore Baltimore.

November was a month for me as I traded in my typical family Thanksgiving for a trip to Ireland.  The Emerald Isle was cold and windy, but full of pubs and cheerful personalities.

I rounded out the year with a final trip to PA in December to spend Christmas with my family.  That's a lot of traveling in one year!

Looking ahead, 2013 already looks promising.  My first trip of the new year will be to Quebec City for a night in the Ice Hotel (Hotel de Glace).  From there, I plan to trade in the cold weather for some sun as I head down south in February to San Antonio..  In March, I will be up in the Arctic Circle to view the Aurora Borealis from Iceland.  I'm still planning for April and the rest of the year, but my last pre-planned adventure is at the end of May to trek on the Inca trail in Peru in hopes of seeing the lost city of Macchu Picchu. 

Needless to say, I can't wait for 2013!  Happy New Year everyone!

Thanksgiving in Ireland

Dublin Castle

I just got back from an extended Thanksgiving weekend on the Emerald Isle, and I'm not quite ready to start working.  Traveling can be exhausting, but it is definitely rewarding!  I got a lot of "looks" when I told people how I would be traveling to Ireland for a few days over Thanksgiving weekend.  Most of those looks were followed by comments like "Isn't that a long flight?"  or "Only a few days?".  Well folks, here in the US we don't get as much vacation time as elsewhere in the world, and I have to seize these breaks whenever I can - even if they are short!

Wednesday evening, I caught a short flight to Philadelphia and then the red eye to Dublin for my weekend in Ireland.  Fortunately, I slept for most of the flight and was ready to go when my plane landed.  The Dublin airport is not very far from the city center and after doing some research, I decided on taking the AirCoach bus for 12 euros round trip to my hotel.  I was able to buy tickets right at the currency exchange counter by baggage claim.  The Trinity Capital Hotel was only 3 stops from the airport.  When I arrived around 10 am, I got lucky because my room was ready much earlier than the 3pm check-in time.  I was able to shower, change, and freshen up before my 1pm Sandemans free walking tour of the city. 

Christchurch Cathedral

Reading about the tour online, I expected to meet the group in front of the city hall building.  As it turns out, my idea of front is not their idea of front and after a few minutes wandering, I found the group in the side courtyard area.  The next three hours were spent exploring the city.  For a very cold and rainy day, three hours walking outside were a bit torturous.  Even though my tour guide was very knowledgeable and passionate about Irish history, I don't think I can recommend going on this tour in poor weather.  Actually, even in nice weather, I'd say to skip it unless you are a really big history buff.  Definitely don't take kids.  They will be very bored.  Perhaps the stout and the city tour would have been a better option?

After the tour, I needed to go somewhere to warm up before dinner.  What better way to do so then to visit the Jameson Distillery and enjoy some quality Irish Whiskey?  While they don't actually make Jameson at the site in Dublin, it was still a fun tour.  It reminded me a lot of the Sam Adams tour here in Boston.  We learned how the triple distillation process works and got to have some samples.  There was even a group of people who were taste testers and got to compare Jameson against some of the leading Scottish and American whiskeys.  Though I would not appreciate "tasting" different shots of whiskey, I did enjoy sipping on my complimentary Jameson and ginger.  I would recommend coming here on your trip. It is a bit out of the way from the other landmarks, but you can walk there if you want or hop in a cab like I did. 

Jameson Distillery

My initials plans for dinner fell to the wayside because I was not going to walk all the way back to St. Stephens green in the rain.  A much better plan was to pop in to a pub in the Fitzsimmons Pub in Temple Bar area and listen to some live music while sipping on a Guinness and chowing on fish and chips. It felt like a very authentic experience, to a tourist at least.  Happy Thanksgiving from Ireland!

I blame the time difference as well as walking a good portion of the previous day on not getting up in time for breakfast on Friday.  When I finally did get up and moving, Temple Bar was calling my name for a cornish pasty from Hamley's.  The reviews online all made it seem outstanding, and while it was quite good, I wouldn't say it was incredible.  At this point, I was 2 for 2 when it comes to having potatoes in my meal.  From there, I wandered into a few shops and past some landmarks. 

Gradually, I made my way to the Guinness Factory Storehouse.  It is crazy how different this was from my Jameson experience.  It is like walking into Disneyland.  Everything is very "mass" oriented.  There is no guide, but over 7 floors of random Guinness stuff, including an entire floor dedicated to marketing materials and a bar where you can learn how to poor the perfect pint of the black stuff - which I am now certified in, thank you very much.  The gravity bar on the top floor provides nice views of the city, but it packed with people and nowhere to sit.  I'm pretty sure I spent close to 2.5 hours in here, with at least 1/2 hour in the store.  This is also a must-do while in Dublin!

The perfect pour of Guinness

That afternoon I wandered through the city some more in search of a post office so that I could mail some postcards.  At this point, it became pretty obvious to me that Ireland is in a recession right now and a lot of people are struggling to find work.  There were a lot of social services offices and I passed by several homeless shelters.  Most of the shops are not very fancy (with the exception of Grafton Street) and the city just didn't feel like it was at its peak.  It would have been really interesting to visit prior to 2008 so that I could have made a comparison to when it was doing really well.

Dinner that night was set for 7pm at the Brazenhead.  This is supposedly the oldest pub in Ireland.  I made my reservations in advance and walked into a pub with no hostess or waiter/waitress in sight.  I've found that this is very common in the places I ate.  Most of the pubs are self-seated, however the bartenders are usually happy to help answer questions.  Imagine my surprise though when their website encourages reservations.. hmm.  I finally asked the bartender about it, and he pulled out a piece of paper from behind the bar and "found my reservation".  A group of very loud men were sitting at the table that was supposed to be reserved and I ended up waiting a little while before being seated in an isolated back room.  Eventually other people came in to sit down, but at first it was very odd.  I ordered the Irish Stew and a Bulmers.  I love hard cider and this was pretty good.  My stew was delicious!  For dessert I had a Baileys coffee and some cheesecake.  A Baileys coffee is actually very different from an Irish coffee.  It is very delicious though and should be tried by everyone at least once.  I also feel the need to point out there were a few scoops of mashed potatoes in my stew, so I am now 3 for 3 with potatoes in my meal.

King John's Castle on the River Shannon

The next morning I got up very early and caught an Extreme Ireland bus for my day tour through the countryside.  I actually booked the tour through Viator, but looking back on it, it probably would have been better to do it directly through the vender.  I didn't realize at the time that Viator outsourced this tour and I don't like having to pay a finders fee when I can avoid it.  Our itinerary for the day started with several hours on the bus heading southwest out of the city.  The first stop was in Limerick to view King John's Castle across the river Shannon and the treaty stone.  This was a quick stop and was mostly for pictures.  For those of you who can't keep your kings straight, King John was the bad guy in Robin Hood.  :)

Around 11:30, the bus arrived at the Cliffs of Moher.  We really lucked out because the skies were clear and we were able to see the cliffs very well.  Our guide mentioned that the previous tours didn't see the cliffs at all because of all the mist.  Recently, they built a nice museum type of thing with a cafe and look out points right into the side of the cliffs.  It's not as fancy as the lookouts at Niagara Falls, but it is a nice place to come in and warm up after being out in the wind.  There are a few walking paths to take around the cliffs, but apparently this doesn't keep people from getting too close to the edge.  I wonder how many people get blown over the edge in a year?  That drop does not look too fun.  In the summer, you can actually hop on a boat to the Aran Islands and view the cliffs from the bottom looking up.

The Cliffs of Moher

After spending a few hours at the cliffs, we drove into Doolin for a lunch at a pub.  I opted for another authentic meal and had the boiled bacon and cabbage.  It was hear I learned that the American word for bacon is not the same thing as the Irish interpretation of bacon.  In fact, when they say bacon, they really mean ham.  Either way, I enjoy eating piggies, so I was content with my meal. Yes, this also came with three scoops of mashed potatoes and I am now 4 for 4.  I washed it all down with some Guinness and I was ready for the second part of the tour.

After lunch, we had some time for a small trek around the karst region of the Burren.  This was pretty cool!  The entire region is covered in limestone that was deposited along the coast by glaciers a long time ago.  In the summer, there is some pretty unique plants and flowers, but we didn't really see very much because it is winter.  From there, we made a quick stop at the 12th century Corcomroe Abbey.   At this point, I've seen a lot of ruins in Ireland, but this was by far, the creepiest!  There were a lot of very old graves and you couldn't really walk without stepping on one.

The Burren

After a very long bus ride back to Dublin, I dreaded having to pack for my return flight home.  Because of my poor planning and lack of a dinner reservation (I should have known better, it was around 8pm on a Saturday night), I ended up at TGI Fridays for a not very delicious meal.  Sadly, I did not get any potatoes here and my potato dining record concluded with 4 for 5.   I did get a Caesar salad with "bacon aka ham" and one last Bulmers before I went home to pack.  The next morning I was up and on the Aircoach back to the airport.  At this point, I was really looking forward to picking up some chocolate at the duty free stores in the airport.  I was very disappointed to find that there were no Kinder Schokobons anywhere!  Cadbury has a monopoly here!  How unfair is that?  In addition, the airport has incorporated US Customs prior to leaving the country, so you had to leave the main airport section and wait in a tiny little area with no restaurants before your flight.  When I finally boarded the plane, I left Ireland without a full belly or any chocolate.

Maybe next time.

Upcoming Trips

Happy Thanksgiving, readers!  I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with family and friends.  I thought I'd post a quick note here with a summary of some of the exciting trips I have coming up over the next few months.  I am headed out to Ireland this evening for an extended weekend, so look for a detailed trip post sometime next week!

I haven't quite figured out my plans for Christmas yet.  There a few factors still up in the air that will determine how much time I take away from work.  As soon as I get that set, I will plan my travels.  As for January, I have a weekend getaway planned for Quebec City and the Ice Hotel.  I mentioned this in a previous post and I am really excited to see it!  It's going to be a cold winter (note to self:  buy some snow pants).  I will get a chance to thaw out in February when I head down south to San Antonio to visit some family and go to a rodeo.  I might even buy some cowboy boots.

The big news and real reason for this post is a trip I just booked for March to Iceland!  I will be spending 4 days exploring a place that most people know very little about.  I managed to convince a few friends to come with me on this trip, so I know it will be fun.  If all goes according to plan, I will be crossing quite a few items off of my bucket list in 2013!

I am taking suggestions to fill up some of my other weekends in the early part of next year.  I've got April empty right now.  I will be going to Peru at the end of May, so I'm looking for mostly weekend or long weekend trips from Boston.

Less Than 2 Weeks Until Ireland

My 4 day trip to Ireland is less than 2 weeks away.  I can't believe it is so soon!  I have spent a few days here and there trying to come up with an itinerary, but I still have a lot of holes.  This is mostly because one of the first things I'm planning on doing when I arrive on Thursday is a free city tour with Sandemans walking tour of Dublin the first day, but I'm not 100% what we will cover.  My main questions are whether or not I'll want to go back and spend more time at any of the locations we visit.  Because it is a free tour, I doubt we'll do anything that requires payment, so no Book of Kells at Trinity College or Kilmainham Gaol - the Alzatraz of Dublin.   


Some of the things I definitely know I will be doing are:

• Eating lots of authentic food including cornish pasties, shepherds pie, and Guinness stew
• Drink a lot, including Guinness from the Guiness Storehouse, Whiskey from the Jameson Distillery, and Irish Coffee with Baileys.
• A lot of walking...Hello Europe!

I will also be spending a day on a Viator tour to the west coast to see Limerick, the Cliffs of Moher, Doolin, The Burren National Park, and Galways Bay.

If anyone has any suggestions on pubs or how to spend my evenings in Dublin while I'm there, I'd love to hear it!  I can't wait for this trip!

Wrap-up

Well, CC and I are in our last week here =( Rotation is going to be
boring because all of our preceptors are gone and nothing to do but
internet surf. Its only Tuesday and we already know what the weather
is like for the rest of the week into next week in 3 different
countries…

Anyways, we are going to enjoy our last week here =) so our blogging
is done unless something really funny happens (which is a possibility
with us!)

Thanks for reading and see you all very soon!

Love,

Bianca and CC (Cindi, Cinti or Cinzia as the Italians would say)

Day 28

Tonight we got an extra hour of sleep! Wahooo! We wake up with plans to go to church and see this “trunk”. All we know is that it’s a huge Castangna (chestnut) dessert.

We wake up to no pancakes! And just a pastry breakfast and fig jam. Right after we were done.. we were told to get ready, yet again. WHERE are we going this time. It is only 9 am. We go get ready and Francesca comes in with two fleecies for us! So once again, cute outfits out the window haha. Well we put them on along with our new sneaks. And getin the car with Ponuchu and Mariagrazia. We go up the mountain to Mondella, not to be confused with Mondello the beach. Ponuchu is soo excited to show us the mountains, so we took a few pictures and saw a few FLOCKS of sheep on the road. We saw the ski lift (and I got made fun of because I don’t ski but CC does).

After our little trip, we get dropped off. We thought we were going back to change. We DON’T have umbrellas? So we get out with Mariagrazia (my 11 year old cousin) and Ponuchu drives away. Sweet.

We walk around for a while and it starts to rain. Again, we still don’t know what we are doing and now we are wet. Thankfully, we run into Zio Pietro who so kindly give us his huge umbrella =) Happy Happy!

We are still walking around in circles, finally we go to the church, but no one is there because it is so early! So we stay for 5 minutes then leave to go to the tent with the dessert in it. Just a big mess haha. So the tent never opens so we go back to church. FINALLY a normal mass! =) Time to see this “trunk”. It is actually a huge dessert on a table that looks like tree branches, and people are waiting in line to have a piece. We wait in line and try it, but it has A LOT of alcohol in it, which distorted the chocolate taste. So we had a few bites for the hell of it.

We finally convince Mariagrazia that we want to go home because it is pouring at this point. And lunch is almost ready when we get there. We had another huge meal with lasagna (with egg and babe meatballs…sounds weird, but was YUMS), fried steak, corn, walnut bread, cheese, and of course…Tiramisu and Espresso =)

Although all the meals were delicious.. we were glad it was our last because we may have gained 2 kg here!

As we were eating our dessert my family is chatting away in Italian and we come across Cynthias nationality once again, and they try to talk to her…again. Not successful. I wish they would stop trying poor thing, but somehow I tell them that she speaks French. (Ps. I told Ponuchu and Mario this yesterday) They start talking (sounds like screaming) about how I should have told them earlier because Zio Pietro speaks French and he could have translated. Well that was fun.

Me and CC did get the recipe for the Tiramisu, so watch out America… its coming haha

We take pictures, play a few more rounds of UNO with the kiddies, and pack. Pack my 12 lbs of cheese and nuts and tea and chocolate! I don’t know how this is all going to fit to go back to the states, but they would NOT take no for an answer. Even after I gave my best loud Italian arguing voice. Fail.

So we leave for the airport, with some paninis they made us in hand. They came all the way to security to say bye. I tear up/cry (No surprise there!) Let me tell you, Naples airport is wayyyy better than Palermo’s. They had leather couches instead of seats! So fun!

We made it home with no problems! Yet another successful trip!

Day 27

 Day 27- from CC’s perspective

I wake up and think okay…here it goes.. I can do this! Yesterday was a bit overwhelming considering I only pick up on words that sound similar to French. Poor B has to play translator and everyone and I mean everyone is always screaming! I wait for B to get up since I refuse to be left alone and we go into the living room for breakfast. Everyone greets us with such big smiles, its so nice to be in a family setting as opposed to our empty apartment. We sit down to eat and are told we are getting pancakes…PANCAKES?!?! Neither B nor I really want an American breakfast, I mean we are only in Italy for a little while longer. But they were so excited to give us something we are used to and they were delicious. They also had homemade jam out on the table which was molto delizioso! After breakfast, B tells her family we need to shower…after various hand motions of what we want to do, they put the heat on (FINALLY I AM SO FROZEN) so we can shower. I go first. When I come out B asks me how it went and why I took so long. It was a fiasco. I tried flushing toilet paper that wouldn’t flush then panicked. Sweating, due to the increase in stress and heat and steaming shower, I decided to wait until I saw B to see what to do. She nonchalantly told me not to worry about it and that she would flush it for me..She saved me a lot this wkd.

When we both are all showered and ready for the day, they tell us to get ready to leave…its POURING outside…why do we have to leave?!! Im finally warm and dry…why!! SO B runs to the bathroom really quick before we go…I am not sure why but almost every time she leaves me to go run to the room or go to the bathroom, everyone decides to talk to me. Again, I understand close to nothing yet they all still talk to me. I eventually got to a point where B wasn’t allowed to leave me alone!

And so we’re off..into the rainstorm we go all equipped with umbrellas. The wind has picked up and B and I are still not adequately dressed for this weather with our little baby flats. All of a sudden a look over and B’s umbrella has inverted in the wind..I should have helped her, but I couldn’t stop laughing. She was panicking trying to get it fixed while Francesca has run to her side in a failed attempt to help her. Eventually Francesca decides that the umbrella is useless and throws it to the side of the street…and leaves it there. Even after all this, we continue walking. We make it to the town center/festival still unaware of where we are going. We make it to the jewelry store where they are buying B a gift (seriously the sweetest people ever)!

We trek back home after that and with soaked feet enter into the welcoming smells of Bolognese sauce. Its lunch time. But I am still not hungry…why are we eating again. I am going to explode from breakfast still…oh boy. So we sit for another delicious 4 course meal filled with homemade ravioli, steak, mashed potatoes and prosciutto, mozzarella, bread, and of course the amazing tiramisu! We also got to eat some figs today, my favorite =)

So now we officially cannot move and I am starting to grow accustomed to the loud speaking Italian family and I am honestly trying to follow what they are saying/ pick up on some phrases! We play uno with the kiddes and then get told to get dressed since we are leaving again. Again, it is POURING and B said she thinks they are taking us to go get shoes..WHAT?! No, that cant be right…so we get in the car.

We pull up to a mall 20 minutes later, yup…we are getting shoes. Apparently, we need shoes in order to go outside. After much arguing and attempts to tell them thank you but no, we lost. I got a pair of gray sneakers and B got a black pair, we didn’t have socks on, but that didn’t matter. Then we mosey on to a different store. And Maria Grazia asked me if I like a bag she is holding up, I told her it was cute and she proceeds to motion that it is for me! WHAT, For me?! I don’t need a bag, why are they insisting on buying me a bag?! They were so sweet for wanting to get me something and after trying to say no thank you again and B trying to explain they didn’t need to get me anything, we failed. We both got scarves. After a while we realized we shouldn’t say we like things anymore because then they just end up buying them for us!

We go back home with our new sneakers on and a happy Francesca and go to the festival. As per usual, the festival was bustling with people even though the weather was crappy. We got to taste more cheese and eat more chestnuts which were delicious! B and I were sharing an umbrella when we went up to a hill to get this specific cheese (I don’t know the name, I just know it was delicious)! Anyways, we get the cheese and the wind picks up. Here we are under an umbrella, holding chestnuts, trying to eat this melted cheese and in the rain. I thought a dropped a piece of cheese but couldn’t find it so let it go. The rain picked up even harder so B pulls up her umbrella again..this time the cheese that I previously dropped flew from the umbrella onto her while she was fighting the wind and I was cracking up. No one stopped to help us, they just watched us struggle. It was quite a site.

We finally get to go home and sit around the table to talk a bit. B went to the bathroom again and left me and conversation was steered my way (I still don’t understand why they think I speak Italian) so Maria Grazia pulls out the dictionary before we call it a night.

Day 26

We wake up SO excited to go to Capri. We are all cutely dressed for a warm, sunny, gorgeous day. We go to breakfast and all of a sudden feel the breath of COLD air. CC almost immediately gets goose bumps on her legs, why is this girl wearing shorts? We knew we may have a problem. Our driver, who has beautiful eyes, comes to get us for our tour shortly after and we drive for a solid 30 minutes until we get to the port to meet our guide. We get on the boat and look behind us to see where the guide would like us to sit and she is nowhere to be found. Um, what? Where is she?! We thought she would come back, but she never did. Guess we are seeing Capri on our own today.

The boat which looked more like a bus on the inside starts going and going and I am starting to feel so nauseous. I am glad I brought my bonine. I go to take one and decide one whole one is too much. So I break it in half, hmmm still too much. So I break it into a fourth…well crumbs of a fourth as CC would say since I did not do my best work. We start nearing Capri and see clouds, uh oh. We make it out of the boat and feel that it is somewhat warm so we should be ok. We find our guide (finally) and she tells us we are taking a bus up the winding mountain up to Anacapri. So we get on the bus and find ourselves amidst a Japanese tour. The guide is speaking into a mic into their ear pieces and we have the pleasure of sitting right next to her. This is going to be a long one. We make it up the mountain somehow without headaches and the guide gives us an hour until lunch to either go up on a chair lift to the highest peak of the mountain or stroll around the shopping area. We chose the chair lift even though she warned us how cold it is 4 different times.

CC, an avid skier, had no problem with the thought of going on a 13 minutes chair lift, I on the other hand, was a little worried. I watch CC do it and it doesn’t look so bad. I go to wait on the square and proceed to tell the man that I was scared. He said NO NO NO and I replied SI SI SI.

I wasn’t ready for the chair because of our little convo. He grabs my hand and throws me in. CC described my face as one of the petrified looks she has ever seen. She said that my already big eyes were the widest shes ever seen them and that I looked like the definition of scared. And I was for a minute or two because then I also realized there was no latch…sweet. But after a little it was fun! Well sorta because then I got bored and just bothered CC for the last 10 minutes of the lift. She said she wanted to enjoy her alone time. PSHH there is no alone time here, is she crazy! It was the longest we have been separated the entire time here!

We get up to the top and realize her shorts and my tshirt were a bad choice. It also starts to rain; however, THE VIEW WAS AMAZING! The sun was shining through the clouds and casting a scattered light onto the water. It was just spectacular. We took more pictures than we probably should have, but it was seriously beautiful.

We make it back down to the town center and go to lunch, which was delicious as well. I even got to drink from the little baby wine bottles! So cute and so good! I drank the whole thing so I was kinda tipsy by the end. We left Anacapri to go back to Capri on yet another Japanese tour bus. Capri was so cute and such a nice town. The alleyways were all narrow so cars weren’t allowed. The shops there were outrageously expensive, but I did find my little baby flats!!!! AND THEY HAD MY SIZE!!!! Its unheard of around Palermo, so it’s a good good day =)

The last part of the tour was supposed to be the blue grotto but the tide was too high so we were not able to go in it. Instead, we did a boat tour around the island. At this point the sun had come out and was gorgeous. We got to see other various grottos and learn a little history about the island! There are a LOT of famous people who have villas and yachts there, we plan to come back and meet up with them! Lol We even went through the tunnel of love. It is said that if you kiss someone while going under the tunnel that you will have everlasting love. Well, we blew kisses so there is no tearing us apart. We made it this long without killing each other, so eternity should be no problem.

We make it back to Naples exhausted and wait for my family to come pick us up! We are going to BAGNOLI!!! My home home town =)! We wait maybe 5 minutes and call them to see where they were and it was perfect timing since they were just pulling up! Ponuchu and Mario (my cousins) get out of the car and the traditional two kisses are exchanged. We sit down and the conversation begins. I am NOT ready for this. I am not fluent… what was I thinking! Is this a good idea? I mean CC is not going to understand anything but hello, eat, do you understand and pants! I struggle withthe convo and the car goes silent for a while. Soon Mario starts making phone calls. A LOT of phone calls. I am picking up words like EAT, TONIGHT, are you coming. Oh lordyyy, how big is this going to be. I look over and CC has the terrified look again. Oh boy. I ask her why, and she said she is nervous. I tried to calm her down, but I don’t think it worked. We get into town, and nothing looks familiar. We go inside and everyone was there! Yay! Also, the table was set. Dinner time. We had an amazing risotto with tartufo (truffles), roast beef and potatoes and mozzarella. We were stuffed! Francesca pointed to the new mayonnaise and ketchup bottles on the table. Ponuchu made her order them off the internet because that’s what they thought “americans” liked. Sweet thought, but we didn’t touch them the whole weekend. Lol People kept talking and I was answering but in fragmented sentences. They were also talking to CC, even though I told them she doesn’t understand. So I tried to translate the best I could lol. Then came the Tiramisu… The BEST tiramisu CC and I have ever tasted. We actually had it once a day for dessert and were not mad about it! Sooo good!

We were exhausted then I thought I heard Francesca say, go get your things. WHAT? It is 10 pm  and we are ready for bed. Apparently my family is not! This weekend was the chestnut and truffle festival and despite the cold and the rain, we were going. They laughed at my sandals and CC’s shorts, so we changed into the warmest things we had. Not good enough. I ended up getting a knitted blue sweater and CC got a white hoodie. Guess our cute clothes aren’t going to get much wear this weekend, and I spent a lot of time picking out my outfits, like too much time. So we go, in the rain. Thank goodness we brought our umbrellas. Although we just ate, they kept giving us cheese from the stands. Don’t get me wrong it was GOOD cheese, but we just ate a 4 course meal. The one cheese we wanted to know the name of, so I asked. They kept saying formaggio di pegora. I never heard of pegora cheese. Then my cousin starts going “Bahhhhh Bahhh”. Well then, I guess it’s a cheese from a sheep with no name. We move on.

I accidently mentioned marco polo, this gelato place that I vividly remember from my younger years. MISTAKE. They want to buy us gelato now. Ummmm, I want to explode. Poor CC says No, grazie. Too late Ponuchu already went to pay. We are all getting cones. It was really good though. CC said it was the best strawberry she had (this means a lot because that flavor is half of every cup she gets!) We go on our way for a little long with our wet feet, then go home for bed.

Day 25

We started off the day with a pit stop at La Gaufre, today was the day I was getting my waffle. We arrive and I order a waffle with nutella and bananas…YUMM!! It was 7:50 so we allotted plenty of time to eat. Little did we know that the waffle machine was not warmed up..CC and I order cappuccinos, shes eating her pastry, its 8:15 and still no waffle. Five minutes later after realizing we were not making it to rotation on time, my waffle was done. And it was worth it. SO worth it. I may go back, I promise pictures will follow soon!

We get to rotation 10 minutes late and it seemed like no one even noticed. We had to give a presentation today at 12 so we basically did nothing until then other than talk about how excited we were for our upcoming wkd trip! We gave our presentation that seemed to go well and we even had copies of the slides translated in Italian for everyone to follow along. We are too cute! We got to leave right after that and went to Cibus to grab a quick lunch before finishing packing.

Cibus was literally a hop skip from our apartment and we ordered a pizza (margherita since we were so overwhelmed by the process of ordering) and literally watched the man make it and throw it into a brick oven. It came out and was looking absolutely delicious! We made it a “take away” order (their version of to go) and CC complained the whole way home about how hungry she was and how she wanted a piece now. It was also, worth the wait.

So we pack after eating, shower, and are ready to go to the airport to go to Naples. We agreed to go super early since we were unsure how the check in process would go. So we get there..3 hours early…We go to check in and the screen freezes on CC’s name and would not let us click that she was older than 18. We opted to go to the person shortly after and check in took about 10 minutes…now what? We go through security and I am wearing little baby flats. Here we don’t have to take off our shoes, success. CC goes through and has no problem. Its my turn and I walk through and the buzzer goes off. I couldn’t figure out what it was until the man told me to take off my shoes. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t my shoes, but I didn’t know how to say that in Italian. So; I agree and take off my shoes. And apparently it was my little baby flats. I guess they have metal in them?

We were in the smallest airport alive. There were not even any shops we could have gone to. So we decide to sit at a restaurant since we didn’t know when we would be eating again. We got salads and spaghetti thinking it was the safest option. CC finally got spaghetti and tomato sauce and I ordered the Carbonara. We would have probably preferred to go hungry.

Now feeling sick to our stomachs from the below par food, we sit at the gate and stare at each other until it is time to board. We board and walk to the airplane (smallest airplane) and people were giving their carry-ons to store underneath the plane. I see CC’s frantic face that I have now grown accustomed to and already knew what the problem was. I tried to tell her I have done this before, but she was convinced her luggage was not going to make it. So she stared out the window until we took off convinced her bag was not on the plane.

We make it to Naples, yes with both of our bags, and get to Le Cheminee Business Hotel. We had to ring a doorbell to get in while CC stared into tiny camera oblivious to what it was, they had to know we are American…. The hotel was super nice, super super nice. Everything was technologically advanced with our card serving as a light switch. Our room was very nice too with again one large bed to share, we have gotten too close on this trip. We get ready for bed and I get ready for a shower. Let me tell you about this shower… It was just a glass square. A tiny glass square. A tiny glass square with the tiniest opening I have ever seen! Im not the skinniest person, but MY GOD. I squeeze myself in there only to find out when I put my hands on my head to wash my hair, my elbows touch both sides of the glass. How am I supposed to do this? Well, in fact, it is impossible. My body hit the lever about 10 times. After about the 5th time of me screaming, I hear CC laughing in the background. I am appreciative of her concern snuggled in bed. Well, hope I got my conditioner out because I ended that nonsense early.

Day 23 and 24

Day 23-

MOST.boring.day.EVER at rotation!

We were so ready to leave come 3 pm because we had big plans. We were going to Bar Alba to get the famous Arancina con carne (fried rice ball filled with meat and peas..best thing ever, no really...so good) and gelato. So we started walking...

and walking...

...and walking some more

and 2 hrs later, WE WERE THERE!!! And it was worth the wait. This pasticceria was huge! Filled with so many pastries and marzepan (which I have yet to taste, but CC hates them) and gelato (to die for) and of course a full coffee bar, restraurant area and the beloved arancinis!

On our walk back home, we played in one of the pretty gardens and had some kodak moments! We also stopped at some shops and failed miserably with buying the things we wanted.

Around 10 pm (Italy's dinner time), we got hungry. Cooked two zucchinis and called it a night

Day 24-

Pretty uneventful; however, we found out that we can leave 2 hours early tomorrow WAHOOO!! We also did some shopping and went to Caffe Spinnato to get some goodies and a great snack =)

Off to Naples tomorrow!! And Capri AND Bagnoli and FAMILY TIME

Day 22

This trip is FLYING by...and even though we have been here for 4 weeks, we are still very much in denial that we are actually in Italy!

One thing we are not in denial about is rotation. It is starting to get EXTREMELY mundane and boring. We have exhausted all options when it comes to things to do..we have even resorted to cleaning out our
e-mail accounts..its pathetic. So nothing interesting happened today.

I have been checking the weather religiously while here, especially for the upcoming wkd since we will be taking another mini-vacay. So I KNEW for a FACT that today was supposed to be a gorgeous day. On our walk to rotation, however, it was looking a bit cloudy...we did not think anything of it.

When it came time to leave, we looked outside and realized we were in trouble. Not only was it raining, but also neither of us has umbrellas and it is an hour walk home. Oh and we were also starving. Sweet.
Thankfully, I wore a sheer scarf as part of my ensemble today, which transitioned into a lousy head shield for me and CC to wear at the same time. We looked like idiots, uncoordinated idiots who kept
running into each other and getting soaked anyways.  We decided today was not an ideal day to go to the market, so we grabbed a few veggies on the way home and the guy ended up giving us parsley and basil for free, oh and an extra zucchini. Okay? We also stop for an espresso and piece of pizza at my boyfriend's coffee bar. We finally make it home just as the rain started picking up again, kind of lucky.

So instead of going out we decided to preoccupy ourselves with other things, such as learning how to gangham style...we already looked like idiots once today, why not continue on. Right? We then decide we are starving and sautee some zucchini. Since we agreed that we cannot taste the garlic when we cook, CC decided to cut up 4 cloves for our 3 zucchinis...you'd think it would be strong...it wasn't, what's wrong with this garlic in Italy???

Day 21

I woke up excited for breakfast. I have been dreaming about this breakfast and talking about this breakfast and annoying CC with conversation about this breakfast all week. It was the sole reason I chose this hotel. But to my defense they had scrambled eggs. That’s a hard thing to come by! We decided to see the Greek Theater after breakfast and before mass. It was really big and had some breathtaking views of mt etna smoking.

We get to mass and of course were expecting something to occur during it since we have yet to have a straightforward mass. Of course, we were right. Not only was it a baptism, but also a school mass, where the children were singing and the instructor talking into the microphone upfront over masking the priest.  It did only last 1 hour though..which is also hard to come by here!

We make our way to the bus station since we decided to take buses back to Palermo. This abandoned parking lot with benches was what they called the bus station…whatever works I guess.

We got onto the first one to Catania and were on our way home. Bye bye cute little town and wonderful weekend vacay!

We make it to Catania by this horrid bus that was falling apart. There was no leg room, it was dirty, the man in front of us smelled of something wretched and we were both nauseous. Sweet. When we finally got to Catania we had 45 minutes before our next bus..we asked the bus driver where to go since he dropped us off in the middle of street and he had no idea nor spoke any English… He just said “I don’t know”…HOW DOES HE NOT KNOW!?!? Omg omg omg we are going to be stranded omg. We decide to follow the crowd of people which luckily led us to the ticket station. We buy our tickets to Palermo and waited until it was time to go. People kept coming in but since we were preoccupied with our cameras looking at pictures, we did not realize no one was sitting down. It wasn’t until 30 minutes had passed that we looked up and saw an empty room. UH OH.

I asked the guy where we need to catch the bus and he just signaled with his hands outside, well that was helpful. So we walk outside and don’t see a bus anywhere so we go back to where we were dropped off and see one after 5 minutes pull into a stranded parking lot…we follow since that’s what the last one looked like.

We stand there for a minute or 2 and no one else is around, this cant be right. I start to panic. CC is all carefree (god knows why?!) as I sit here thinking we are going to miss our bus home. I express my concern and she decides to go ask the bus driver in the stranded lot. Turns out he speaks no English, but through various hand motions we were able to make out that the buses are stationed in another parking area that is blocked off across the street.

We thank him and run. We make it to a much larger parking area with benches and signs of where each bus was going and lots of people. This is more like it. We hop onto our clean, new Mercedes benz bus that is playing current American (aside from the Barbie girl song from the early 90s) music. Peacefully, minus the almost accident and almost rear ending, we make it home…sorry we RUN home. CC has the bladder the size of a pea.

Day 20

TAORMINA! Patrizia’s husband, Alfredo (like the sauce) was right on time at 6:40 am. Guess who pops out of the car as well, Patrizia!  Wooo! This should make conversation go a little smoother. So we hug and kiss and do the typical Italian greeting, and smoosh ourselves in the mini FIAT. Off we go. 3 hours  of driving ahead of us. It is kind of silent, and CC is dozing off already, as per usual. Here is me poking her to stay awake! This is giving me flashbacks to our plane ride over here. Although it was silent for the first half of our trip, things picked up because we made a pit stop at a gas station that just so happened to have a FULL Coffee bar! WaHoooo! Espresso time! Yummm. And why not, a huge chocolate bar to boot (our excuse: we should try authentic Italian chocolate lol). So excited eating our chocolate in the car. I looked down. Oh no, a perfectly round chocolate drool spot on my white shirt. REALLY! Ugh. Its not coming out!! I look over at  CC, and she is shaking her head in disapproval as she points out yet another chocolate stain. I guess I was excited for the chocolate?? 10 minuets later I happen to move my jacket and see a huge smear of guess what? Chocolate. WTF! Clean that up, and we are almost there!

After some confusion on where our hotel actually was, Patrizia takes off down the street. Where did she go? Alfredo just asks the lady next to the car who lets us know that its down the street some more. He tells us to get in the car. CC and I are like but Patrizia isn’t here. He clearly isn’t phased. Thankfully, we pick her up mid street on the way.

We make it to the cutest hotel and run to the reception desk to see if they can print a voucher for us (yes, we can all the way to Taormina without one and prayed the hotel could print us one, allah be heb el mejedeeb (a saying in Arabic that translates to “God loves the idiots,” who just so happen to be us)! She was able to print us a voucher =) and we relax until our tour guide gets there.

We meet our guide, Ermanno (who I called Ernello and CC called Ernesso) an hour later and are off to the volcano!  He takes us on the scenic route along the coast and describes some history to us. Part of the tour is a wine tasting with some appetizers..we assumed it would be maybe a tray of cheese while we sampled 4 wines..we couldn’t have been more off

We make it to the winery  called Gambino’s that was gorgeous and are led to a dining area with a spectacular view of the vineyard, now this is a wine tasting. The people there are so charming and nice and our waiter brought us our first two wines to sample. The first was a white wine that had a light but crisp taste. It was 12% alcohol (which seems to be on lower end in Italy). This was amazing! The next wine that was a red with typical Sicilian grapes. It was STRONG (14%) and Tasty all at the same time! He poured us our glasses, but left the bottles. He left the bottles?! Arewe suppose to drink all of those?

Out comes the “light” apps…in Italian translates to HUGE meal. We look over at our waiter who is holding two HUGE platters. One platter is divided into 5 sections with olives, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, and two different types of mushrooms all in various oils and seasonings. The other huge platter was divided similarly only with different types of cheeses and salami. That one went next to me, yum!! We also got a basket of bread and were told that we could have as much as we wanted, which means seconds, amazing. We drink our glasses of wine. CC over there finished her white in a second. Can she have more? Of course, we are in ITALY! And so she does. Our waiter then brings out our next red wine. This was full of tannins (again 14%) It was also very good. CC is liking these red wines, so they have to be good! Woooo! Yummmm! As we are drinking and refilling every so often, we see our waiter with another dish. ??? He puts it down, and we notice it is sausage and a whole heap of mushrooms. These mushrooms are indigenous to the slopes of mt etna. And let me tell you… these mushrooms are also delicious. Are you jealous yet? lol

I look across the table to see CC giggling. Oh no. I start giggling. Oh no. We now have 3 open bottles of wine on our table, and we haven’t even received the last one yet. Even our tour guide comes over and asks how things are going. Sorry Mr. we are on Italian time now. And our last wine is brought out to us. Another strong red wine! But this one takes the cake of the reds! And so we drink some more. Here we are drunk on a mountain not even halfway through our tour. The owner of the vineyard so kindly came over and talked to us about their wines. I look over at CC with her semi glazed look. She is not paying attention, but drunk me was! Cutest, actually pretty hot, man had my full attention! We decide we should buy a wine on our way out and pick the white one. All giggles, we get back into the car.

We are back on our way up the mountain! We found out that Mt Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe that just so happens to erupt every so often, sweet. Drunk and most likely not able to run from an eruption. Sweet.

Up we go! We stop, of course, for an espresso- by the needs of our tour guide. Yep, there is another full coffee bar 1700 meters up. Up we go again! The views and the lava rocks and the lava sand and the black stones are beautiful and honestly unreal. And then our tour guide pulls over. We brought sneakers; however, decided to keep on our flats. Apparently, we are going for a mini hike that turned out well and with more fantastic views.

On our drive home we pass some cows on the road, get and decide we need a nap before exploring the town of Taormina (it was 3 anyways so nothing would have been open)

We groggily get up around 5 (whoops, overslept) and go out and about into one of the cutest towns ever. This town was what you expect from Italy. It was pristine. Filled with shops, churches, beautiful views and families (the cutest little nugs you will ever see!). Also there was a piazza in the town center that was playing live classic Italian music with beautiful light posts (for some reason I really liked). A clock tower, many restaurants, and antique buildings surrounded us with the view of the sea and beach behind us. Seriously the perfect place for a wedding proposal. Simply gorgeous.

We went to dinner around 9 pm (officially on italy time) after sitting in the piazza and enjoying the sweet moments of children running and music playing. And dinner, was, AH-MAY-ZING!

Day 19

Well this was an interesting day at rotation to say the least. We were actually busy. Maria was pulling us around like we were rag dolls. And you know why we were busy?? Because a translator was in the building. Not one, but two. Oh goody! Well we had a few meetings and everything was going fine, until we walked into one of the patient rooms with the pain management nurse, and our extremely awkward and tall interpreter. Here he was telling us what she was saying; however, me and CC both knew he wasn’t telling us everything she was saying. Ummm hellooo, we understand a little buddy. Annoyed and not really listening to his half assed interpretation, I give a glance at CC. This is when I noticed she has her panic face on. Yepp, the same face she had when she was running from the dog. I don’t see a dog or a butt….what could possibly be going on now?!?!.

She whispers to me, “My strapless bra somehow got unhooked. SOMEHOW got unhooked, HOW does that even happen?!?! Okayyyyy. I really couldn’t help the poor girl considering we were in a patient room with a total of 5 people around. So shes standing there with her arms crossed trying to hold it up while the awkward translator is still talking and I am trying to hold in my laughter.

In the transition to the next patient, she was able to re-hook it so it wouldn’t fall until we got back to the locker room. Well after our mini 10 minute break, we were off to the next meeting. We were in a room letting someone talk to us about social work, while the female translator (we aren’t sure where the man is now) interpreted. Half way through this meeting, we hear a knock at the door. Here is the male translator giving the female a package. She proceeds to tell us that she thinks this will be easier with “head pieces”. EXCUSE ME?? I really don’t think its necessary for these things when there is barely room for our four chairs. Once she takes these head pieces out, CC and I examine them…. They look like they were made in the 80s and they didn’t even go on top of our heads. They were ear pieces the size of olives that hung down to our chins where a larger mechanical, plastic piece laid. What is this nonsense???? Seriously. Then we see it… she busts out an actual microphone. Then she tells the man to continue. We now are facing the man with the female behind us with her voice smoothly whispering in our ears. We cant hold in the laughter. Both of us giggle, trying so hard not to be rude, BUT seriously, WHAT IS THIS?! Not only is the voice we hear absurd, we can still hear the man. This is NOT helpful. Here are CC and I now not paying attention to anything. Great.

After this long, long day. We go home and get ready for a good dinner! This place looked like the cutest little nug, and I have been eyeing it up for 2 weeks (and it was only a block away, so no chance of getting lost!). We get there and were kind of underwhelmed from the get go because it was pretty empty (we should know better). We order a caprese appetizer, pasta (which should be a safe bet) and green beans as a little side. It takes a long time  for the food to come out… and we get our pasta first. First sign. Where is the caprese?? We eat our mediocre pasta, THEN get our caprese that was clearly thawed mozzarella =( and to top it all off, NO green beans. The waiter then comes over and asks if we would need anything else. CC replies, just the green beans. And he brings over the dessert menu. I know he doesn’t speak that much English, but dessert and green beans sound nothing alike. We then politely decline the dessert, and continue to sit there hoping it will come. All we got was the owner asking about our meal. CC then says we are just waiting for our GREEN BEANS. And she asks if we want dessert. We don’t understand at this point. No one cares about the green beans. We leave without them.

At the hotel, we realize we forgot something…no not just something..a big thing. Our voucher for the trip we are taking TOMORROW is still in our locker at the hospital….An hour walk away, 2 if you count the return trip…we are not going.

Days 15-18

We are getting pretty lazy with this blog, so it is going to short and sweet. This weekend should be eventful though so we will have more to say after our trip!

Well, this week has been uneventful...really uneventful. At rotation, we've worked on a powerpoint that honestly we could have finished in one day. We did get to see a chemo embolization procedure with an extremely helpful doctor so that was fun!

We just did some shopping mostly during the week and CC literally ran into three different moving vehicles (1 bike, 1 small child on a scooter, and 1 motorcycle) in one day. She will most likely hate me by the end of this trip since I now warn her when ANY moving vehicle is coming her way even though she clearly sees them.

We had dinner on Wednesday night at a top rated pizzeria here called "Fridas Pizzeria" and we can finally say we have had a real Italian pizza. This place was fantastic. Beyond amazing. I have pictures of the pizzas. CC has pictures of the finished portion (she can never wait to eat once the food finally reaches our table!) Best.PIzza.Ever There was a square pizza with stuffed cheese and cheese overload and cheesy goodness and just cheese everywhere. I cannot emphasis enough how in love we are with this place. We plan to go back before we leave, it was that amazing!!!!

We did laundry again, in the sink, getting the hang of this. Only problem is 3 days later they are still wet. CC continues to almost slip everytime she takes a shower and also ends up getting 1/3 of the bathroom wet anytime she takes one..she still hasnt mastered the half door shower.

Hopefully a great wkd is in store for us and we will keep you all posted =)

Lessons Learned Week 2

Lessons learned:
1.) Stray dogs are not to be run from
2.) Sadly, it does rain in paradise
3.) Don't use google translate in e-mails, it will be misinterpreted
for verbal fluency
4.) No church in America can ever compare to the ones we have seen here
5.) It's a SMALL world
6.) Wine > Water
7.) When someone tells you they speak "only a little english," they
are lying and are actually fluent
8.) You do not get oil and vinegar to dip your bread in like in most
American-Italian restaurants; however, you do get oil and vinegar
(JUST oil and vinegar) for your salad dressing

Day 14

Monreale Day. Monreale is this little town just up in the hills of Palermo. It has a church that people here have been raving about. So why not attend the mass there? Well we did our research, had planned taxis, found the mass times, picked a restaurant and were expecting a nice, relaxing, stress free day!

We get there two hours early since mass is at 11 am. We sit down have a cappuccino and croissant (does this sound familiar yet? YUM) We walk around and stumble on some amazing little ceramic shops. I start talking to this one owner who seems to love us and makes us see her other store. Well, I HAVE to buy something now.

After that, we walk into the church around 10:45 because we wanted to be a little early, only to find out we were not only a little bit late, but the priest seemed to be well into his homily. I could catch a few words here and there, and noticed that he kept referring to communion and children and growing up?? Then we hear it. All little voices in the front saying amen. IS THIS A FIRST HOLY COMMUNION? Another sacrament to mark off the list. I guess it was a blessing in disguise that we were late because this 10 am mass lasted until noon!

On a good note- The church was all that it was cracked up to be. It had gold mosaics everywhere. It was an amazing site, making it well worth our trip.

CC decides she wants something from the nice ceramic lady. She walks into her small shop and gets her attention. She leads us to the other shop once again. Meanwhile, CC is desperately trying to whisper something to me. Eventually, I hear her say “Her husband was full on making out with her when I walked in with a handful of her ass!” Oh these Europeans.

Lunch was delicious! I did have a minor scare when CC educated me that these HUGE red things on my plate were whole shrimp that I need to cut to get to the actual food. Well, gotta learn sometime!

We find our overly talkative (not English) taxi driver waiting for us a half hour before pick up time. Whatever. We hop in and go home. As we walk into our room, our cell phone rings. Again, WHO is calling us?? CC throws the phone at me since I may have a better time understanding. After 8 consecutive pronto, which is the equivalent to hello when answering the phone, we hang up. Okay…?

We go grocery shopping, we go to bed, and on to week 3 we go!

Day 13

Our walking tour of Palermo is planned for this rainy Saturday. We both head out with our umbrellas somewhat dreading a walking 4 hr tour in the rain. We get to the plaza where we will be meeting our tour guide and see a woman walking around a bit…not wanting to be the first ones to say, “Are you Patrizia?” we just had 5 minutes of awkward eye contact until she asked CC if she was “Chin-sia”

We begin our tour with this extremely nice woman who was just so happy to be guiding us around.  She showed us the Capo Market which is an old arab market that carries the freshiest fruits, veggies, meats and fish we have seen yet. As we started taking a million pictures, CC and I both realize that our cameras are not charged and are dying. The one day in Palermo that it rains and the one day that we don’t have our cameras charged in the one day we desperately need both.

We managed anyways. Patrizia also took us into many churches within the market that were breathtaking. Teatro Massimo was also on the tour list and after 3 hours of walking we were  starving. Little did we know that this lunch that was included in the tour was going to be a 6
course, traditional Sicilian homemade meal. (omg, yum!)

The menu was as follows:
Antipasta: Panelle (Sicilian fritters made from chick pea flour and other ingredients. They are a popular street food in Palermo and are often eaten between bread or on a roll, like a sandwich.)

Primo: Sfincione PIzza (is a very common variety of pizza that originated in Palermo. It is typically square, with more dough, sauce and cheese. An authentic recipe often calls for Caciocavallo, bread crumbs, onion, tomato sauce and bits of anchovies)

Secondo: Anelletti Al Forno (You may find this little timballo of pasta in bars and diners in Palermo that goes with the most classic Sicilian ragout made of minced meat, tomato sauce, onions and pieces
of vegetables like carrots and peas.)

Contori: Caponata (a Sicilian eggplant dish consisting of a cooked vegetable salad made from chopped fried eggplant and celery seasoned with sweetened vinegar, with capers in a sweet and sour sauce)

Dolce:disgusting dessert wine and cassatta al forno con ricotta (traditional Sicilian dessert that is fried dough filled with sweetened ricotta cheese and choclate bits, sprinkles with powdered sugar..YUM)

Caffe: Espresso and mini biscotti

After we could barely move, we say bye to our dear Patrizia who kept referring to herself as our mother in Palermo. It was one of the best tours we have both ever been on and really appreciated how helpful and friendly she was.

We get back home and are so full that we cannot move and lounge in bed for the rest of this rainy day and refused to eat ANYTHING else. I guess it might be good we didn’t eat much the first two weeks, because food is now easier to find. This may be a problem. As we are in bed, we get a text message. Anytime our phone rings, we get scared because no one should be calling us! Who is it? Patrizia. She is with Maria from our pharmacy. Literally the only two people we really know in Italy are besties, and informed us that they are currently drinking wine to our health…what is going on?

Day 12

Its 7:15..CC is still sound asleep and I just groggily woke up. Well there goes breakfast.

The maids were coming today so we had quite a busy 20 minutes to get ready and hidethe water bottles, the toliet paper, and soap. You may wonder why we are doing this. No, it is not an Italian tradition, we just need to make sure that we are supplied with more. If we don't hide them, we don't get replenished.

After that fiasco and another unsuccessful surgery on CC's hand, we are off. Just as we turned the corner, CC runs head first into a stray dog that seems to be accompanying another person going to work. As we stroll along, I hear CC squeal "the dog is following us!"

What?!

I look back and sure enough the dog is on our heels. I am less worried about the dog than I am CC though since she has moved into panic mode. Why is she panicking? The stray dogs here have yet to hurt us, but I am a little nervous that CC's reaction is going to be mistaken as play time to the pup.

So we cross the street to avoid the dog and the upcoming traffic prevented him from following suit.

..for now

30 seconds later, I look back and see the dog sprinting towards us. Why I ever informed CC of this is still a mystery to me because the second I did, she was off. "STOP RUNNING" I screamed (has she never been told not to run from a dog?) I look back and it has just made the dog run faster...is this real? I screamed at her to go into the first open breakfast place she sees, but she kept screaming that it wasn’t what we had planned to dofor breakfast. Luckily, she ran into a place called La Gaufre (the waffle). Just when we thought we were safe, the dog literally follows us into this place. We just stared bright-eyed at the Italian barista pretending we didn't know the dog was following us, despitesCC's squeals and cowarding behind me. This man saves the day and shoos him away. Or so we thought.

While eating our crossiants and drinking our fantastic cappuccinos, we look at the door and see the dog cuddled up by it. How are we ever going to make it to rotation? Seriously, are we going to have a herd of dogs following us there? After 5 minutes, he went the other way and we were free. This is the second time CC has run in Italy, first from a leather suited man and now from a poor, friendly stray dog...I'll keep you posted on what she tried to run from next week. Hopefully, its not me.

So we made it to rotation, finished our first project and were itching to go home. Its 2:30 and we finally finished our blog (while at rotation) and were ready to relax when Maria comes to get us. It’s 2:30 and we have nothing on our schedule, we look at her confused and then she tells us we are going to the OR. Oh all right, off we go! We get down to the OR and are told to go into the locker room. Not understanding what is going on and really wishing we could just go home early, a nurse hands us scrubs- which we should have been wearing every day anyways. We start to get dressed. As I am putting on my pants I notice that CC’s pants are far too big and my pants are far too tight. Seriously couldn’t pull them up. Ummmmm I guess we picked up the wrong pants. So we switch mid locker room as the nurse is watching us. We continue to put on our tops when I realize that my boobs have NO room. This is not appropriate, but all is well because CC was swimming in hers. Round 2? So we switch again; this time the nurse is laughing. Sweet. Scrubs are finally on. Success. Then the nurse looks down at CC’s wedge sandles and my flats and says “shoes.”

We moved into another room to get the shoes and gave our European size (guessed our European size would be a more accurate statement). I had little baby socks on while CC had no socks at all. We put on these red, rubber shoes and went on our way.

We met with the nurse in the OR who took us around. We passed a few surgeries while he explained the procedures. We came up to one room with an ongoing liver transplant. The guy asks us if we wanted to go inside to see. We enthusiastically said yes! Our only prepping requirement was masks?? We only had to put on masks for a so called sterile enviorment? No hand washing, gloves or gowns? When in Rome…

We waltz in to the OR and are face to face with the donor liver. The surgeon is doing some tests, flopping the thing around as if it was..Oh, chopped liver? Lol

Anyway, it was an amazing experience to be a part of and we plan to go see a whole procedure sometime in the near future.

Day 11

CC wakes up with an inflamed finger. If you remember, she grabbed a cactus fruit (thanks to Tina I now know it was NOT a star fruit that we purchased..) and got little needles all over her hand and one stubborn one was still there. She starts freaking out and is in some serious pain. After attempting to be her doctor, she is now bleeding and we are late for rotation. Good thing I brought bandaids and
neosporin.

On our walk to the hospital, a car pulled up beside us and starts rambling on before I even got a chance to try and figure out what they were saying. Another stranger thankfully interjects and tells them where to go. They were asking for directions?

I know we look European and all, but this is the 4th time we have been stopped for directions and just give a doe-eyed stare back. We now walk with our heads down.

We also stop to get water since CC is used to a much larger h2o intake than we have been getting here. We hand over 5 euro for two bottles of water. 5 euro, the smallest actual paper bill...and he looks at us like we are crazy and clearly did not have any change. This is a common theme around here, change is essential to have. After he calls his friend from outside and a 5 minute wait, we get our 4 euro back (in coins).

We made dinner (chicken and veggies) and booked some wkd trips that evening. After getting hungry an hour after dinner, we decided we needed gelato from Ocean Ice (english name should mean we have no problems, right?). Off we go, yum! We finally mastered how to order gelato to go; however, we want to stay at a table this time and apparently are clueless about that process. So we walk in, order, and say for here and wait to pay. Clearly you are not supposed to wait and pay. We get
shooed away to go sit at the table.Ooookay, wonder if there is going to be a sitting fee like in most places because Italians are cheap tippers.

We grab a table by a plant, which in retrospect was a bad idea since I have 8 bug bites to now show for it.Finally our gelato has arrived and we are presented with the check. Do we pay now or pay after? Well we gave him the money right away so we will never know. I was expecting for us to get some change back so we could get more coins, but that did not happen. We don't have anything small enough to leave a tip. Seriously. We both feel horrible and jet off as soon as we finish.

We pass a pizzeria on our walk home that has samples sitting unattended and looking delicious. CC decides she NEEDS a piece. Here we go again. We both run in, grab a piece, and run away...what is wrong with us? It was delicious, though so we may be back for a paid pizza at some other time.

Planning to wake up early so we can actually sit and enjoy breakfast, we go to bed.

Day 10

Rotation was uneventful except for the fact that mid-day we are sitting there most likely talking about different words and translating them, when we hear a sex in the city ringtone. In the pharmacy. At work. Sex in the city ringtone that NO ONE seems to think is a little, just even a little inappropriate. Guess this just fits the theme of sensual Europeans. Go us!

You know what we have started to notice, toliet seats are hard to come by...just like toliet paper and chicken. I am not sure if they are preventing us from sitting on the seat (which we wouldn't do anyways) or if they simply do not exist, but it has made using the restroom extremely difficult. My butt would seriously just fall in..I don't know how all these tiny italians don't fall in more often.

DINNER DATE NIGHT!!! With you know who (insert eye roll here)
Just kidding, I love my CC =)
So we decide to plan ahead, research the crap out of the restaurants we wanted to go to...we were not repeating that horrible dinner last Friday. We find a place, see where it is and pick out what we are going to order...google's "translate this page" is a tool that restaurants have no yet instated.

Right before we leave, I make sure we know where we are going and tell CC that we may be walking on a highway. We both agreed there would be a sidewalk and start on our way.

We run into this highway that we assumed would just be a bigger road and see that it is 4 lanes with bridges and forks and mayhem. We looked for a cross walk and when we did not see one, decided this would not be a good idea....And we're back to the hotel... so much for a sea side dinner at Kalhesa. Maybe another day..with a taxi

We find another restaurant that was ranked # 11 in Palermo, this has to be good right? We look at the menu and decide we are hungry enough for anything.

Upon arriving at the Regine Ristorante, CC pulls on the door. It is locked. Are you kidding me??

Almost had an acute MI when a nice waiter opens the door. What restaurants locks its door?? We walk in and it is gorgeous. We sit at a table, with two huge smiles matching on our faces. They start with the bread that had a gorgonzola mousse. A GORGONZOLA MOUSSE. Heaven. I am DETERMINED to replicate this. I can't stop thinking about this cheese.

We order a risotto appetizer (delicious) a fillet with mushrooms (even better) and a fresh (fresh as in was sitting in ice head, tail, and all right in the center of the dining  area before we ordered it)
grilled fish. I ATE MY FIRST FISH BONE, on accident of course and I caught it before swallowing it (a picture will soon follow). For dessert, yes we are still eating this doesn't happen often, we had
panna cotta with a light caramello sauce--That I now know how to say in 3 different languages .

Bellies full, we head back to our place

Day 9

So its Tuesday and we are convinced that nothing interesting is going to happen to us anymore since we are starting to get the hang of things.

We couldn't have been more wrong.

Rotation went well, we met with Cheryl for lunch, yes we actually met cheryl for LUNCH...we had LUNCH and it was delicious. At lunch, we had a surplus of bread and a large bottle of water that was barely even drank from. We contemplated taking both the bottle and the bread since we were not sure when we would eat again, but decided it would not be appropriate unfortunately.

On our walk home to the grocery store (yes, an actual grocery store), CC felt a sting on the back of her knee...how she felt a sting through her tight jeans is beyond me, but she was convinced a bug was in there and stinging her. Instead of acting like a rational, normal human being, she unbuttoned her pants in the middle of the sidewalk and stuck her arm all the way down to her knee (again- tight jeans) and what did she find?

Nothing.

...and we're back on our way to the grocery store. Walked in a saw buggys...we were floored. We got everything we needed to make a pasta dinner and had a delicious, fresh meal with freshly made pasta, not that nasty, hard pre-packaged stuff.

That night after watching spongebob in Italian, we got ready for bed. I was already in bed and all of a sudden everything goes black. Of course here i say again "CC..." In our apartment we have a switch that shuts off ALL of the lights. So CC comes on over scared from the pitch black and laughing because she can't figure out how to turn it back on and begs that I (who is already snuggled in bed) go switch it back on because she is scared of the dark. After a mini-moment of terror, we go over with linked arms and my ipad serving as her flashlight...I wish I was making this up.

Buono Notte

Day 8

Week 2 begins. We are off to rotation on this hot day. We did not have any fruit at home, so it was time to stop in a bar on the way. We saw fresh oranges and got excited. We went in and asked for "two of those" in Italian and pointed to the oranges. His response was that he didn't have a juicer. Did we ask for juice? No. We tried to tell him that we didn't want juice, and what does he pull out? A juicer. Well Cynthia and I then split one little glass of orange juice. Awesome.

Rotation was going smoothly, just working quietly on our project when Maria, the assistant that speaks basically no English comes over to tell us to check our email. Okay? We did, but no messages were there. Looking puzzled and trying to come up with words but can't; she drags us to her computer where she showed us about 12 emails she sent us and asks us why? How do we know?

That problem didn't get resolved, guess its not much of a problem after all.

We had to stay a little late today for a meeting with a lady named Cheryl. A little annoyed, we followed Maria down to this office. The woman didn't look Italian, dress Italian or really speak Italian. Then she said Cynthia's name correctly. Nope, definitely not Italian. She told us she is supposed to talk about rules and regulations but she usually just gives the students survival tips for Palermo. Ummmmm, where were you last week!?! She told us that there is a grocery store close to us, but it is hidden down a staircase with no signs. And how exactly were we supposed to know this without being told?!

She then finished up by telling us of the many different places we should go visit while here on our free weekends. Good thing CC already booked a tour for this Saturday that now doesn't seem worth it. She also told us that she would take us to lunch tmw at the pizzeria across the street from the hospital...there's a pizzeria across the street from the hospital?! The hospital we continued to eat a piece of fruit and some coffee for lunch?! Seriously?! A mtg with Cheryl as we arrived may have been a little bit more beneficial...

We hurry home after what seemed like a horribly long day and pick up some lettuce and a piece of zucchini (to match the other one waiting at home)...to say we have been starving today is an understatement, but neither CC nor I really felt like getting ready to go to dinner tonight... CC ate close to all the fruit we have in the place so it looks like we will be grocery shopping tomorrow.

Oh and we picked up some star fruit when in Mondello beach (or as CC would say "star fish in mandalay bay" lol) and decided we would try it since it is in season. CC, not knowing there are small sharp hairs surrounding the fruit, decided to pick it up completely in her palm.

It didn't take long for her to scream in pain...why does this girl keep having trouble here?! No suitcase, hair dryer blew a fuse on her, and now this?! Well at least she doesn't have bug bites the size of Toronto on her legs and arms like I do. Once we were able to get all the little sharp pieces out of her hand, we settled down and talked for a bit/skyped with our families, who seem concerned that we still have yet to go to the grocery store even though we are now well aware where one exists.

We had a pretty uneventful night in, except for the random squeals coming from CC when she would find a dagger in her hand that she did not remove previously. Oh and for the fact that we are both going to bed starving again.

Ciao!