Poptarticus

Shannon’s Super Sexy Blog. Music. Travel. Randomness. And a Lot of Wine.

Palermo, Pazzo

I am having a bit of a writers block situation and I think it is because this place is so insane that I cannot even begin to write about it. So this will be really boring but here goes.

Got here OK, even with four flights it seemed to go by pretty fast. But my luggage did not make it. Colleen came in several hours after me so I walked around looking for something to buy to sleep in. There are tons of clothing stores and everything is on sale. Our room is really a suite with two rooms and a little kitchen, and the owners have been so awesome… if it was not for them I am not sure I would have my luggage back…

I feel at home here so far, walking around I seem to know my way, and I am even crossing the street like the locals do, which can be a little terrifying at first. Because seriously, red lights mean nothing.

Right when they opened, I went to this cool wine bar right on our street called Mi Manda something or other and had a glass of wine in there… so far this place is the coolest place I have found, bar wise, but it is possible that I am just from another planet. I may as well be. Then I went home to wait for Colleen.

Colleen finally came in (she missed her connection and arrived at 9:30) and we immediately went back to the wine bar to eat dinner.

OH MY GOD. OK, I was starving but starving or no that was one of the best dinners I have ever eaten. Or maybe I just have not been to Sicily in a really long time. We had a salad with radicchio and pomegranate seeds and pancetta, ravioli stuffed with eggplant and with an eggplant tomato sauce, and I had this pork braised in Chianti. It was huge, like a whole leg or something. It was so good that I ate almost all of it. Plus they had these little rolls stuffed with olives. All that with a bottle of Montefalco Rosso was only 47 Euro.

After that we went back and totally crashed until mid morning. Outside there was thunder, and really heavy rain. But that stopped right when we went out.

After coffee and cornetti, we headed out to the big Cathedral here (awesome on the outside, but the inside did not do much for me) and then walked up to this park where there were some kids playing soccer. We sat on a bench and this old guy comes up and starts talking to us. I tell him my Italian sucks. “Albanese?” he says… (do I look Albanian?) I tell him no and then he asks if I am Italian! Dude, if I was wouldn’t I be speaking it a little better?

We left there and went to where the President of Sicily has his quarters and there was some kind of demonstration with lots of cops. I kind of like Italian cops, so we hung out there and thought maybe we would see the President. The old guy comes back, tells us it is some sort of demonstration for the workers. Then he asks if we like Bush and we say no, and he says Bush is always making war. (Colleen got that one – don’t give me the credit.)

Sadly after this we had to rush back to the apartment because the guy who had my luggage didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand him, and he thought MY name should be on the door instead of the B & B’s. So, after many calls by the B & B people and many hours of waiting (plus I was starting to get really nervous, also stinky) the luggage arrived.

More walking around and now we are headed to eat at a place called Vino Rosso.

Sorry this is so boring but I will try to do better. I think my body is all the way here but my brain has to catch up.

One Response to “Palermo, Pazzo”

  1. Alice Twain Says:

    The “mi manda something or something else” is probably “Mi manda Picone”, which is the title of a lovely film by Nanni Loi. It is the story of this woman whose husband (Picone himself) suicides himself in protest for being unemployed. Here the tragedy ends (we are about five minutes into the film) because the woman meets a guy who makes a living helping the people at the comune offices in Naples. This guy, who is interpreted by Giancarlo Giannini decides to help her and bit by bit discovers that Picone was actually into lots of odd trafficks. He has this address book of Picone, and visits each person in that address book, and as soon as the name of Picone comes out (Whence the title: I am sent by Picone) these people all give him some money…

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