Umbrella girls, "baby feeesh" , vino rosso and jet lag.

So after our first weekend in Italy we have learned a lot of new things , had some fun and AMAZING food and wine. Friday night we went to eat at a local place near the base. Luckily for us most of the waitstaff spoke pretty good english. We ordered the "Sicilian seafood friday night special". Which essentially means enough food to choke 8 italians. We started with the appetizer course which was baked mussels, oysters and some mystery fish that looked like sardines. We asked the waiter what they were and he answered "Ahh, dooze are da baby feesh". The baby feesh were fantastic salty little guys that you could eat like french fries. After the appetizer we had linguini with clams, and then a grilled fish. An ENTIRE grilled fish, head, eye balls tail and all. A little freaky, but DELICIOUS. We ordered a liter of "vino rosso" and a bottle of water. The liter of wine was 3 euro. The liter of water was 3.50.













The next day we went to Gabe's friend's house. He lives in a villa out in town that is absolutely beautiful. His backyard is full of lemon and olive trees. His landlord lives next door and grows his own tomatoes, basil, oregano and wine. Yum. The view from his hose was absolutely beautiful.




We traveled all around the island yesterday. On the way we noticed girls ( always black girls) sitting on the side of the road in beach chairs with umbrellas all alone. Apparently these are the "umbrella girls". Legal prostitutes. Girls flown in from africa and under the control of the Sicilian mafiosa. Yikes.
In our travels we went to Mt Etna, an active volcano. We saw a house that was completely buried by lava and lava rocks everywhere. The top of the mountain is always smoking, and could apparently blow at any time.











We finished our day with a trip to a Sicilian mall- much like American only there is a grocery store next to the H & M. It's like food Nirvana. Bread, cheese meats, OH MY! And then had dinner at a local trattoria in Motta . Our friends are already in with the owners, who held their baby the ENTIRE time we at dinner. So cute.

Up until Saturday night we had been feeling great, no jetlag at all. Neither of could fall asleep Sat night until 3 am. Then we slept until 2pm today. Whoops. The best part is that Sophie was irritated when we woke her up at 2pm to go out for the first time.