Sunday August 13

The b&b was on the 5th floor of a building that had different boutique hotels and b&bs on each floor. The elevator was very very small. We ate breakfast on the 6th floor. I got a weird yogurt thing, a provolone and salami sandwich, some white melon and tea. Delicious! Ciro picked us up and we went to an outdoor market with vegetables, fish and spices. We looked at a church with a lot of marble decor. Mike bought four big, fragrant lemons! Then we went to Mondello to swim, which is a beach that is part of Palermo, and about 30 minutes from where we were staying. The waves were perfect and the water was warm. There was a big tent we could lie under on our towels on the sand in the shade, which was good because we had run out of sunscreen and it is surprisingly hard to find that in Sicily. Then, we walked to town and split a spicy salami and mozzarella sandwich, and then we tried some fried eggplant, chickpea and potato sampler. The potatoes were seasoned with mint, and all of the food was so good! There were also 2 large wild dogs that looked like they lived next to the street food stand, and they seemed very lazy and well fed. We then drove to Montroyale and walked around and went into a church with a lot of detailed tiling. There were a lot of people in that church! We drove to a restaurant and had some delicious arancine, at the best arancine restaurant in Palermo. We then returned to the old part of Palermo, checked out a church and walked around some more. After that, Mike got a glass of wine, we tried some ice cream and then sandwiches (I think beef spleen?!, ground meat and potato). Then we went to the GNV terminal to take the overnight ferry to Naples. We found our room and dropped off our stuff. Then we found our way to the deck to watch the cars drive onto the ship and watch the ship leave port. We walked around, got a drink, and eventually found crew members from the ship singing as entertainment with music back tracks from the computer (it just seemed like karaoke but with only those in charge singing), and sat down and enjoyed the traditional Italian music. The guy next to us started talking to us, realized him and Mike had the same name, and our senses of humor were similar. He eventually convinced Mike to sing "Jailbird Rock" by Elvis in front of all these Italian people, and convinced the people singing to let him sing. Everyone got really into it, it was cool. We ended up drinking beers and hanging out with Michele and Francesca until midnight, making jokes in the Paninoteca. We eventually went back to our cabin and went to sleep around 1AM.