Ciao, bella.

I've been slacking again on writing in this thing!  I'm so sorry.  Sometimes the days and weeks fly by, and although my blog is always in the back of my mind, it gets lost in the shuffle a lot!

Anyway, last week I did want to write a post about being back and settling back into my routine just like I had never left for a two and a half week break.  And I would have, except then some issues and drama came up between my host parents and myself and I had a pretty crappy few days last week and didn't feel like doing much of anything, including blogging.  I also don't want to harp about it here, because I'm trying to just forget it even happened and move forward.  I'll try to do another post relatively soon to catch up on day to day things, but this blog is all about my past weekend. 

That said, I was SUPER happy I had already booked this trip to Italy with my friends for this past weekend because it was already much needed.  So let's start there!

One thing I know that I definitely need to appreciate while its happening is the spontaneity of everything here.  At home, I/my family/basically everyone I think books and plans trips/vacations months in advance.  For this recent trip to Sicilia, we booked it about...9 or 10 days before we left.  Crazy.  Anyway, I had mentioned to the girls that the next spot I definitely wanted to see was Italy.  So we collectively checked EasyJet for what location had the cheapest prices over the next few weeks, and came up with Catania in Sicily.  (Catania is one of three main cities on the east coast of the island of Sicilty, in the Mediterranean Sea.)   Both our flights and hostel ended up being a steal, and next thing I knew we were there!  

There are honestly so many places in Italy that I would love to see, and the Sicily area wasn't really at the top of my list.  But I am so glad we went!  Sicily felt like a taste of real Italy.  Not super touristy like I can imagine Rome or Venice might be.  Not a lot of english speakers, unlike other parts of Europe where almost everyone knows some English.  We kind of agreed that it felt like the Bahamas.  It was right on the water, with some really beautiful areas, and then some really sketchy areas.  And it's not that I don't want to still visit both Rome and Venice, among others, I was just very satisfied with Sicily as well!

So we flew in at about 4 pm, hopped on an airport shuttle to take us to the area our hostel was located, grabbed a coffee, checked into our hostel (where we had an awesome 4 person room to ourselves), and began our quest for italian food and wine!  

One of the guys working at the hostel happened to be American and told us about this wine distributor about a 15 minute walk away that also sold wine to the public.  We found it and he filled up 4 2-liter bottles of wine for us for just under 12 euros!  Talk about a steal.  We didn't even end up finishing all of it.

After we secured enough wine for the weekend, we settled into the restaurant that our hostel offered, and the food ended up being amazing.  We had the best fried calamari appetizer I have ever had, along with a cheese sampler as well (we're so french now), and all had an amazing pasta dish. 

Yum.  SO happy to report that the Italian food was in fact everything I hoped it would be.  Saturday morning we were up and out and ready to explore in the gorgeous 55 degree weather.  Our hostel was located right next to the Piazza Duomo, the heart of Catania with the famous Elephant Statue and the Cathedral of St. Agatha, two prominent icons of the city. 

Another must do in Catania on Saturday mornings is visit their famous fish markets.  Talk about fresh fish...a lot of them were still alive!  All around us were people shouting (in their crazy italian) about their fish, trying to bargain with people.  Quite the ordeal!  The four of us all received a considerable amount of attention as well...not one of us looks the slightest bit Italian, and I don't think people were expecting to see 4 light haired, light eyed American girls wandering around their local markets that morning.  

We spent the rest of the day wandering around, partially on foot, partially on a bus tour, exploring the city.  We tried Arancini, a creamy rice filled fried dough ball of goodness, a Sicilian specialty.  We had strong Italian coffee and delicious gelato.  Later that night, we had some of the best pizza I've ever had at a restaurant that happened to have karaoke going on. And this was not the kind of karaoke you are probably imagining...these Italians were not only super into it, some of them were really damn good!  It made the incredibly long wait for pizza at 10 pm slightly more bearable. 

 (Arancini)

 (Gelato)

(And this fantastic pizza, all of which I finished.)

On Saturday morning, we also visited the tourism office to see what they had to offer in terms of visiting Mount Etna.  The one big attraction that this area does offer is this volcano, the largest and most active in all of Europe!  It is just under 11,000 feet high and covers about 460 square miles.  It's most destructive eruption was in 1669, destroying most of Catania, but to this day the volcano is almost always in a state of activity!  So, we got set up with a private tour for Sunday morning.  We met our guide, Antonio, at 8:30 in the morning, and were soon on our way up the mountain.  It took us about an hour to get from the city center up to our first stop, Crateri Silvestri.  We stopped at both this crater and went about 100 meters inside a natural cave.  Even though I was severely underdressed (it was below freezing), the whole experience was nothing short of amazing!  It's hard to put into words just how massive this thing was.  At one point, we went off-roading around the mountain to try to see some other views, but it ended up being pretty cloudy.  I know all the outdoorsy people in my life, especially my dad, would have LOVED this.  It really made the weekend!

We ended the tour with a little visit to this cute shop where they had olive oil, olives, honey, wine, and other specialties all set up for us to sample!  It also happened to be lunch time, and we were all pretty hungry...talk about perfect.  Again, it was all fantastic, and we all walked away with a sample of our favorite that we could fit in our carry on.  Authentic olive oil is coming your way, mom!

We had arranged the day before for our guide to take us to the airport, so after the sampling was over, we headed off the mountain and were dropped off with plenty of time to catch our flight back to Geneva.  

Ciao, Italia!  You were beautiful and will be missed.  And to Val, Michelene, and Lauren, thank you for the countless laughs and inside jokes, these trips would not be half of what they have been without you!

Back at it, with a little help

So, I didn't really think I'd have much to say so soon back to France, but I then realized I had way too many thoughts for a Facebook status, so a new post would be best. 

I arrived back in France yesterday (Thursday) but have a lot of people I need to thank for making my transition back go as smoothly as it did.

First to my mom, who always makes leaving home so hard, but makes me realize every single time that I am one insanely lucky person to happen to have the world's best mom.  (But you did forget to make me those peanut butter cupcakes...)

Second, to the wonderful American Airlines employee who was checking me in at BWI, who saw me removing the peanut butter from my suitcase when my luggage was over the weight limit, but let me go ahead and keep them all anyway and ignored the extra 2.5 pounds.  

To Jerry and Mandy, who hooked me up with a buddy pass to fly back to France for free, and by the luck of the draw got a seat in business class.  It was by far the best flight of my life, and a HUGE help to me financially.  I will never forget it!

 This seat reclined all the way into a full bed; the first time I have ever slept on a flight! The real pillow and blanket weren't too bad either. 

Champagne as I was settling in, then again for dinner.  Sure, why not?

 Starter to our meal.  

Dinner. Sorry, I ate a couple pieces of broccoli before I remembered to take the picture. 

Breakfast. (not pictured: croissant)

Okay, sorry for the bragging, back to the 'thank-you's':

To my dad, who is always the best with words and gave me the best pep talk and calmed (most of) my nerves before I walked through security as I was bawling my eyes out and not wanting to go back. 

To Karen, who let me vent and complain and offered her best advice as I was sitting and waiting at the airport with way too much unnecessary stress and anticipation.  Thanks for always understanding me girlfriend. 

To the wonderful Swiss Air employee at the Zurich Airport, who could have done what he was supposed to by letting me buy the 455 dollar plane ticket that I requested for the next flight to Geneva, but advised me to buy a 90 dollar train ticket instead. 

To all my friends, family, and friends who have become family that I spent time with these past couple weeks, who always remind me of what a great place I have to call home.  And to be honest, I've think it's finally gotten through my thick skull that after this second round of Europe fun is over, I actually want to stay home for awhile and maybe work on starting a real life.  I have the best support system at home - please know that I take none of you for granted!  My jazz girls especially - you mean the world to me.  (And the phone call, Ms. Babette, before I left - you never forget to check in on me, and I always love that.)

And finally to Sophie and Andrea, who seemed genuinely happy to see me and have me back.  Like I said earlier, I was stressed out to come back for various reasons, but now that I'm here I really am happy to be back.  I think they could sense how anxious I was about the move to London before I left, but upon arrival they filled me in on all the details and plans that had been made since I had been gone, and everything is looking good!  I feel a lot better and so much more at ease about moving forward with the next 4 months.  (There's a change as well; looks like I will be coming home mid May!)

I even think the boys might have missed me...