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October 12, 2003

We made it there and back in one piece!

We ended up starting out a bit later than I intended but no problem, we headed out to Messina around one pm on Friday. We get there only to find a confusing mess which included having to back up the wrong way after getting trapped on the ferry lane leading to ROME - ACK!!. Picture Eli chanting "you are going to kill us, we are going to die, you are going to kill us" about 15 times until we were pointing in the right direction. Have a little faith my favorite Eli.

We tried getting directions at one gas station but they spoke absolutely no English. The next gas station had attendents that also spoke no English but they were willing to duel with sign language. "blah, blah, blah, carta?" Oh, do you mean "do I have a MAP"? Pooh. Silly man, I don't need no stinkin map! So they break out their map and show me that I am about 30 minutes from where I need to be - Milazzo. We got to Milazzo without any further problems and quickly found the hydrofoil and ticket office. YEAH! I had to leave the van parked on the street which, through sign language and broken Italian, I was assured that it would be alright.

The hydrofoil took about 1 hour and the guys loved it. It had great big blue wings under a normal looking boat that raised us up over the water (only the very bottom of the boat and the wings were submerged). I wonder if they have ever hit anything? A lady sat next to us who turned out to be from Seattle but living in Italy on an extended vacation. She told us that she had friends that owned a hotel on the beach in Lipari. It sounded pretty good. I made a mental note to try to find it. She got off at the first stop, which was Vulcano. When we pulled into the port at Lipari and sure enough, there were people from hotels waiting to solicit our business. I realized that I suddenly couldn't remember what the woman had told me, so I just picked the first (and most persistent) solicitor, Villa Rosa. Just as we were loading our luggage into the hotel van, it occured to me that I hope this wasn't located in Timbucktoo.

It turned out to be on the edge of town but within a nice walking distance. No beach and no pool. Also, no fan, air conditioning, radio or tv and no English spoken. Eli's Italian immersion third grade homework is really starting to pay off! The island was beautiful, the beaches are black obsidian sand and pumice from the volcano. We hiked our butts off! I am guessing that we covered at least 15 miles on foot over the course of the trip. Most of my friends had rented vespas (little motor scooters) but that was not an option with small children. I also did not want to rent a car because I didn't have a car seat for Seth and they don't either apparently. We tried to get on a tour for Stromboli or Vulcano (two islands with very active volcanos) but due to Columbus day weekend, they were mostly booked. I guess it didn't occur to me that this was such a big holiday in Italy but he is a national hero here and in Spain.

So, instead, we ate a lot of food that was not exactly healthy - pizza, lasagna, brioches, calimari, ham sandwiches, ice cream and my very favorite, arancini. Arancini is the perfect traveling food and is a gas station staple in Italy. It is a rice ball with ham, mozarella and sauce in the center. The whole thing is then rolled in egg and bread crumbs and deep fried. mmmmmmmm yum-may! We also hiked to a really cool beach. I took pictures but my digital camera went on strike so they are on my other camera. We added a ton of new beach glass to our already huge collection and started a new type of collection (yah, like we needed that!) There on the beach was beach pottery - shards of pottery that have been tumbled like beach glass. The rule was that it had to be smaller than the palm of Jake's hand and had to have a little bit of the original color left on one side. They actually look way cool when collected together. We will find a neat clear glass container to display them.

I also added to my snow globe collection. The shelf of them is now pleasingly full. I hope to buy a tall curio cabinet and have it filled with them by the time we leave. Finding them is a little harder than expected though. Most of the ones in Lipari were the usual tourist kind with the plastic dolphin. Someone had taken a permanent marker and written "Lipari" on them. Blah. That is cheating. I did find a neat one though. I couldn't get a picture of it because it reflected into the camera too badly. Hrmmm. You will just have to COME OVER here and see it.

Much to Eli's chagrin, I found the most fabulous yarn in two different shops - you can see it on my knitting blog if you are interested.

We had a great time and definitely plan to return as soon as it warms back up next spring. Although next time, we will reserve a hotel in advance and book our tours as soon as we arrive instead of waiting until the day we want to tour.

Posted by DebC at October 12, 2003 10:56 PM

Comments

Posted by: Kim at October 13, 2003 5:48 PM

Posted by: Dad at October 17, 2003 6:59 AM