Catania e Cavallo-Day 97-April 16th, 2018

Its always good to have some pre-trip excitement. This proves very useful when you have to get up at 3:30 AM to give yourself enough time to walk to the bus station, then take an hour long bus ride to the airport. I guess it sounds much better on paper when you book the travel arrangements.

This was my routine this morning and I gave myself about thirty minutes to wake up and get out the door. I was able to fit in a full breakfast and coffee. This coffee was was some necessary fuel for surviving my 35 minute walk to the bus station in the dark.

A Selfie from my early morning walk

Before I knew it, I was at the bus station and boarding my bus. Fortunately, there was only about five people on this large coach bus, so I had a whole row to myself and more. I shut my eyes, but really didn’t get any sleep.

In a state of half-consciousness, I went through airport security and after some waiting, made it to my gate. I fly enough budget airlines out of Lyon that this had to be my third time flying out of gate D06 of Termina B1 at the Lyon Airport. I boarded the plane and quickly found my seat.

The Plane in the early morning sun

Once we took off, I put on my sleep mask and had a decent hour long nap. I spent the remaining half of the two hour flight watching the first episode of this documentary called the Defiant Ones. One episode later, we were landing in Sicily. Despite the forecast of rain, I was surprised to see that it was warm and sunny.

After about twenty minutes of figuring out how to get to the city center and reactivating the Italian side of my brain, I was on bus heading to the center of town. On the bus I made random conversation with some dude from New York. We bonded over our tri-state area connections and he told me how he was living here for a few months to learn Italian. He gave me some recommendations for Catania and we soon parted ways. I arrived at the central bus station.

Cacti were the last thing I expected to see here

From the station, my hostel was only a fifteen minute walk. I figured I would drop off my bag there and check in before starting the day. I realized I had a slight problem. To get where I needed to go, I had to cross a decently-sized roadway without a crosswalk. I was bit puzzled until I watch an old man cross the roadway. So it turns out there was a crosswalk, just no signals telling you to walk or not. The old man just slowly walked through three lanes of traffic while the cars went around him.

I saw someone else do the same and realized this is just how crossing the street works in Catania. Once I saw a few less cars coming, I slowly walked across the road as cars mindlessly drove around me. It was like real life frogger.

The Roadway in Question

Getting to my hostel was much easier after that. I just followed google maps and did a few more crossings similar to the first one. My hostel was right next to the Piazza Univerista. This is where the Duomo is and the majority of the the tourist destinations in the city. My hostel was called il Ostello degli Elifanti. I bet you can guess what that means in Italian. I wasn’t able to check in until 1:00, but I was able to leave my backpack there. With just my shoulder bag and water bottle, I headed out to explore the city.

This is the famous elephant statue in the Piazza Universita. If you look on the bottom right, you can see a man trying to sell gimmicky toys to tourists in the square. I guess these guys are everywhere in the world.

The Cathedral of Sant’Agata. This is opposite the statue and fountain.

I took some time just sitting by the fountain and enjoying the sun. I also was planning out the rest of my day. When you travel solo, you have the freedom to go wherever you want and do whenever. You just pick a place and start walking. If you change your mind halfway through, just turn around and walk in the other direction. This freedom was a bit overwhelming at first.

It simultaneously felt like there was everything to do and nothing to do. I solved this issues by picking three to four things I wanted to see, and not planning the rest.

My first stop was the Pescharia, which is a big fish market. Seafood is huge in Southern Italy, even more so in Sicily since it’s surrounded by water. The market was near the piazza and I noticed a good mix of locals and other tourists trying to do the same thing as me.

Here are some pictures:

Imagine a strong smell of fish and a bunch of men yelling things in Italian if you want to picture this market accurately.

To this excitement of this old tourist in Tevas, this man was demonstrating how to clean the fish.

There was a huge assortment of fish. You could tell they were fresh because some of them were still wiggling  a bit.

A Chopped up sword fish with the head proudly displayed. I have never seen cuts of fish this big before, it almost looks like a ham.

I wish I could have taken more pictures of the fish market, but it was packed and I felt a little awkward taking pictures of stuff and not buying anything. Not pictured are tables filled with squid, octopi, crabs, stingrays and any fish imaginable. I am not huge fan of the smell of fish, but since all the fish were extremely fresh, it almost smelled good. If I recall correctly, my brother had similar thoughts when he went to a fish market in Japan.

I explored a park next to the market and they had these cool statues without heads. I was also surprised at how much the trees and plants reminded me of Florida.

I headed back to the main piazza since I wanted to go inside the Cathedral. As expected, it was huge and very impressive.

Inside the Church

Cool crypt of a dead Cardinal from this Church.

The frescoes in more detail.

After the church, I was feeling hungry and went to a restaurant nearby to get lunch. I was a bit disappointed though, because they did not have a full menu for lunch and just drinks and snacks. I guess it serves as a cafe during the day and a restaurant at night.

I got a limoncello and arancini. Limoncello is one of typical Italian drinks. I remember weird emphasis always being put on them in my Italian textbooks in High School. It was good, but a bit too lemony for me. Arancini is a popular street food in Sicily. It is like a rice ball, but filled with mozzarella and sauce too. This was delicious and I wish I took a picture of the inside.

Limoncello and Arancini

I headed back to my hostel afterwards and fully checked in. I made my bed and moved my stuff to my locker. I also ate a bunch of oreos and a croissant to make up for my tiny lunch.

This was the cool ceiling of the bedroom I was staying in.

As I am typing this, I am realizing I am already at 1300 words and still have so much to write about for today. What I am going to do is dump a bunch of pictures with captions and put little blurbs about certain things. I really saw a ton of things this day and want to include all of them.

Down the street was this very old Roman theater. It was pretty much empty while I was there and cool to explore.

Another view of the theater that really shows how much it is hidden behind buildings.

This cat was just chilling in the theater

It’s funny how in Italy there is always random Roman ruins everywhere.

“Yeah just toss those thousand year old columns in the corner”-some Italian dude, probably

I went to this old castle next. It was cool, but judging by the amount of old people waiting to go in, I figured that the 10 euros was not worth it. Instead, I took a picture and kept on exploring.

The castel

I was getting a bit tired from my lack of sleep and ton of activities. This was quickly solved by an Italian espresso. I was proud of this moment because it was one where the man at the bar assumed I was Italian and my speaking was good enough to continue this con.

My tiny espresso, served with a glass of water as always.

I went for a long walk and found myself a this Monastery that was now acting as a school or something. I don’t know if I was supposed to be in certain parts, but people must have assumed I was a student. I hung out in the library here for a bit to charge my phone.

The monastery.

I walked back to the main area and found a cool record store. They had a bunch of originals and I thought this Italian version of a Beatles album was cool.

I found two small contemporary art galleries near the record store. I love contemporary Art and was happy to do some viewing. Here are two pieces I liked a lot.

Batman ?This one was cool because it was a hyper realistic drawing, but purposely left unfinished .

It was getting later now, so I headed back to the hostel. They eat dinner really late in Italy, so I had some time to kill still. The hostel had a great rooftop bar and I went to participate in aperitivo. This is the Italian tradition of drinks before dinner.

My Italian beer and the view from the rooftop bar.

I hung out at the bar for a while and figured out what I wanted to do for dinner. I found some trattoria nearby and planned to go around 8:15. I went downstairs and played the guitar in the hostel lounge for a bit before I went to dinner.

The nice part about eating alone is that it is really easy to get tables. You really were supposed to have a reservation for this place, but I was able to get a table outside.

In typical Italian fashion, I ordered a primo and second piatto with what I thought was a big glass of wine. To my surprise, it was a small pitcher. Eating alone can be a bit depressing sometimes, but having a whole pitcher of wine makes this feeling go away.

For my first dish, I got pasta carbonara. It was good and the eggs in it were scrambled, which is unlike most carbonaras I’ve had.

One of my goals for the second half of my time in Europe, was to try some stranger foods. In Sicily, eating horse is very common. In the spirit of experiencing local culture, I got a horse steak for my second dish.

The horse

I was expecting it to be sort of gross, but it was surprisingly really good. I don’t know when I have other opportunities to eat horse outside of Sicily, but I would definitely try it again. I felt like I was part of the Dothraki from Game of Thrones.

By the time dinner was finished, it was close to 10:00 and I headed back to the hostel. I took a shower and got ready for bed. I spent some time typing this blog, but got too tired and opted to finish it tomorrow.