Today is Sunday, the 22nd actually, but I am going to give a little update on yesterday and then tonight I will write about the 22nd since I have no idea what today holds for me. Yesterday, Tara and I got up a wandered around Catania. I only had a few hours there, before heading off to Rome, so we booked it as fast as we would to a few of the sites. We went to Ursino castle, which was really interesting. It was filled with ancient Greek and Roman finds. The castle was build in the 1200's but in the 1600's Mount Etna erupted damaging part of it. I found it interesting that because of the volcanic eruption, Ursino Castle is now further from the ocean. The lava flowed into the mote and onto the other side adding length between the castle and the ocean. After the castle, Tara and I did a walking tour that our B&B recommended. We walked past a Greek Theatre, bathes, a Roman amphitheatre, and some randomly gated off ruins that had no sign of what they are, as if they have no significance to life in Sicily. It is crazy how apartments are attached and things are built around pieces that have such historical significance.
Side Note:I know that there are going to be so many ruins that I am going to see on this trip, but I love them! I cannot get over how people just live their daily lives around these buildings, theatres, castles, churches and most interesting to me, the random pillers and statues. The detail of each one is amazing. It is crazy how much technology we have now, and 100's of years ago people created gorgeous architecture by hand, and we create straight lined modern simplistic designs. What are people in 400 years going to stay about our work compared to the Greek and Romans and to their own? Just a thought.
Anyways, Tara and I ended our walking tour at this little cafe/bar? where we got an arancillo (im not sure if that is how it is spelled). But in short, it is a fried ball of rice with different things in the rice. Tara got a Catanese which had eggplant and some other veggies and I got Ragu which was meat sauce. We had to get one cause 1. they are delicious and 2. Sicily is really well known for them. I would suggest everyone come to Sicily just to eat!!
After seeing as much of Catania as I could in a few hours, I had to head to the airport. Being that the Italians cannot do anything on time EVER I headed off a bit early, which was perfect because the bus which is scheduled to run every 20 minutes decided that it would only come once that hour and luckily the timing was perfect for me. I met this couple, an American woman and a British man, while in line for the bus who were really nice and helped me figure the bus and how it operates.
Everything worked out fine and I landed in Rome safely, an hour and a half late, Italians stress me out!! I managed by myself to figure out the airport, find the train station to get to Termini, take the metro to my stop and then navigate the windy streets of Rome to my B&B. My B&B is super cute! It is actually more like an apartment and it is located just one stop from the Vatican. Today, Sunday, I am going to head over to the Vatican Square to watch the Pope give his blessing and then head to the Colosseum to do the "Caesar Shuffle." I'll write about that tonight when I get back to the hotel. Well I'm off now to see some of Rome. Hope you all have an amazing day!
Arrivederci
P.S. Rome has free public wi-fi so I'll be on skype and ichat off and on for the next four days.
Ursino Castle
A street in Catania
Greek Theatre ruins
Me on the main street with the Roman Amphitheatre behind
entrance to the Roman Amphitheatre
Roman Amphitheatre in the center of Catania's main street
Tara and I eating the delicious fried rice ball
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