Palermo. Aka Meh, I've had better.

Ok, so I'm willing to hurt my own ego and tell all of you all of my mistakes in relation to this trip, so that you may all learn from my experiences and hopefully do it better than I did. Because this trip was not my favorite, nor was it the most successful, but as for everything in life, there were many lessons learned, and good stories to tell the grand kids (or nieces and nephews seeing as I probably wont procreate).

Also, this is me actively avoiding studying for my midterm. I know, procrastination is a bitch.

Ahem, anyways... Lesson #1: Dont go anywhere with out your passport.
Seems kind of counterintuitive to travel europe without a passport right? I know. I KNOW. Dont judge me, well us, this is what went down.
This week started out with John's sister Joanna and her friend Mariana coming to visit, so that was the main reason for going to Palermo. Trying to get more bang for their buck, ya dig? But the night before we left, we decided it would just be absolutely brilliant to go out. Ehhhhh not so much.
I might have failed to mention that we had a cab coming to get us at 4:30am.... Ya. No bene.
So we get to sleep around 3....wake up at four, and when I say wake up Im using the term very very loosely.
So we get in the cab, half asleep, half alive, some still a lil drunk, and begin our adventure to palermo.
Well, half way there someone realizes that they dont have their passport. Now here's the part you're going to look back on and say "Wtf?" but please bare in mind, we were all kind of asleep, and all the way stupid.
So we turn around and get the passport. Making the cab ride a little more expensive than we had been hoping for but I mean, hey, that's fine.
Except for when we get to the Check-In counter and two more people realize they dont have their passports either. See what I mean about the wtf? hahaha
Copies of your passports dont suffice, that is only if you're traveling on a bus or on a train. And to be fair, we are always told to not have our passports on us when traveling with in the country (Palermo is in Sicily). But in this case, it just wasnt going to happen. So what do we do? We hop in a cab and head back home, 45 minutes away. We have exactly an hour to check in, or else we miss the flight.
God must have been on our side because we run outside and there is a cab right in front of us, and instead of getting in that cab I look to my right and say "lets get in that one". At first this guy is saying something to me that I cant understand at all, which hasnt happened in italy yet. But I was so tired I could barely speak in english. So we walk away and then he flags us down and we run into the cab. Now, I am not sure if it is the desperation in our eyes, or if this guy was just the man, but homeboy should have driven from NASCAR. Instead of getting there in 45 minutes, we got there in 18. And we got back to the airport, with time to spare! And then we get to the security line, and there is no one in line! It was a legit miracle. I mean minus the 150 euro we spent on cab fair. But you win some you lose some right?
So things kind of start looking up from there, at least for a little bit, until we land and realize we have no effing idea how to get to our hostel and we have zero cash left to get a cab. Oh, and there is not an ATM in sight. And normally warm, sunny, Palermo, is cold and rainy. Peachy!
Cue Lesson #2: Dont go anywhere with out planning your transportation to and from the airport.
All I kept saying to myself this whole trip was "Thank God I speak italian", because literally, no one spoke english. But the problem is, Sicily speaks a really heavy form of italian dialect. So watching me in my tired haze try and communicate with these people was probably the equivalent of watching a monkey bang a coconut. You dont really know what's going on, and it isnt pleasant to watch, but you kind of hope something good will come out of it. Or at least something funny.
Luckily, I was able to tell the cab driver, Father Time, that we needed to get to our hostel, but needed to stop at a bank first, in order to pay him.
This man was probably the worst driver of all time, probably because when he got his license, the Flinstones taught driving school, and you put your feet through the floor board to move the car. But that is neither here nor there.
We get to the Hostel and it is actually beautiful, it's more so a hotel than a hostel. Which none of us had any problems with. But the minute any of us see the bed we immediately crash. Literally, fall on to the bad and pass out. For about 4 hours.
I know we needed it, but I really loathe sleeping that much and wasting time, in the middle of the day. It feels counterproductive. Mainly because it is.
But after we all awake from our comas, we decide to walk around. We come to find out that Palermo has a lot of open markets, which was pretty cool, minus the intestines hanging from clothes lines. hahaha Legit everywhere you turned you would see some kind of bloody intestine, brain, live, skinned baby animal, fish, eye ball, hoof, snout, literally, any part of the animal you wanted, they had it. And I mean it was actually pretty vile, and made you seriously question why you werent a vegetarian. But I wasnt as mortified because Mexico is pretty similar, minus that in between all the bloody meat hangings, are pinatas. The only this that got me was the entire body of a skinned baby cow, eyes still in tact. It was horrific.
So after walking through house of a thousand corpses, we took a little detour and found....SHOES! Ya, I got two pairs of leather (again, using the term leather loosely) for 19. 90 and then got red chucks for 10 euro. Try and beat those prices, ummm because you cant. So, that cheered everyone (meaning me) up by a lot.
Oh, I forgot to mention the coolest guy ever at the open market! He was selling strawberries, and to draw you in he would clean a strawberries, and put whipped cream on it and let you try it. What a great idea! Because we obviously bought some after that. But that's not why he's the man. After giving us or strawberries (for a very reasonable price I might add) he handed us his business card. But not of the berry business, oh no, but of his singing career. He calls himself "The Voice of Sicily" and the card said to check him out on YouTube. Bahahahahaha what a boss. That made my day.
We were still exhausted, so we crashed pretty early. But because this vaca was just the greatest, at around 1am I get a phone call from my dad. And he never calls me that late. So I knew something was up. I picked up the phone half asleep, and his voice was too happy, too chipper to be casual. At first he was just asking me why I was asleep and I told him I was not trying to walk around at night where the mafia was started, and he poked fun for a minute and then was like "Well honey Im just calling because I didnt want you to see it on fb from chuckie or anything and freak out, but Grandma fell down and broke her knee and has to go to the Hospital, we're on the way there now. But everything is fine. Dont be upset or anything." But because my dad knows me so well, he knew I was already crying by the time he said "Grandma fe..." But I got to talk to her at around 3, and she sounded strong and ok, so I was able to keep my composure better.
In the morning we wake up and decide that today is going to be a better day. The sun is shining, we got some sleep, things are looking up. Welp....
Enter Lesson #3: Never get on a bus and forget to stamp your bus ticket.
In italy, when you ride the bus, you dont pay when you get on, you buy a bus ticket, and then there is a little machine to stamp your ticket inside. In Rome, we dont worry about it because A) we rarely take a bus and B) we have a monthly pass so we dont have to. Well Palermo is intense, and we get on the bus, on our way to the beach, ready to have a good time, when all of the sudden the bus police ask for our tickets. Oh ya sure, you can totally have our tickets. Except they arent stamped. So he whips out a little notebook and asks for our documents. Shit. I try telling him in italian that we are tourists and didnt know the rule (not entirely true) but bro is not feelin it, and proceeds to demand 103 euro. Fuck. All I have is 15 euro, and I tell him that, so he hops off the bus, with our passports in hand. So I'm like "Shit, follow the guy with our passports!" After some serious groveling, he says we only have to pay 27 a piece. So it was still shitty, but so much better than 103. But the whole ordeal kind of killed some peoples moods, which sucked.
But we did make it to the beach! That was a plus. And it was the prettiest beach I've ever seen. Crystal clear water, surrounded by mountains, it was amazing. Still wayyyy to cold to swim, unless your name is John Schmulling. In which case you swim anyways, like a tard. Must be a Boy Scout thing.
The rest of the trip was fine from that point on really. Nothing too epic or too bad happened. It was fun, and we had an amazing dinner that night (I mean, minus Mariana, who only ate gelato) So things got better.
Most important lesson #4: Your attitude really makes the experience. Negativity will get you no where. And I know, for a fact, that positive things happen to positive people. Time and time again, on the best of trips, on the worst of trips, this has been proven to me. So always see the silver lining. And it is always easier to do so if you....
Lesson #5 DONT STAY UP LATE THE NIGHT BEFORE A FLIGHT! It's not worth it. It really isnt. I know I always rep the "Sleep is for the weak" motto, but when traveling, especially somewhere where you are 100% fluent in the language, you need your wits about you. You never know what could happen. As I've clearly illustrated here today.
I probably made this trip seem like such crap, but it really wasnt. It was just a bummer blowin money on correcting things that went wrong, but it was fun.

Now I have to try and multitask and do laundry and study for my art history midterm. I have no idea where to even start for that. That's the class where the teachers voice lulls me to sleep. Also, I dont have a library or Starbucks where I can study, so I have to try and be studious in my own home, where I can be distracted by any number of things. Like the fact that I know that no one has taken out the garbage since I left, or the fact that I know that no one cleaned up the salt that they spilled all over the counter. Just a few things like that. OCD+ADD= terrible at studying. Womp Womp.
I'll make it work. I just have to stay away from Tumblr, and Facebook, and anything that seems more entertaining than Art History....