Sicily - Day 2

Salve from Taormina! Our first full day in Sicily got off to a slow start (I won't say who slept in late--you can find out yourself by dialing 867-5309; although she is a bit under the weather so I'll go easy on her...) but we made it out for a nice lunch in the town square. Our first thoughts: there are LOTS of hills. And not easy hills easy--walking around town is like a continual stairmaster. After some authentic (and delicious) cappucinos, gelatto, and pizza in an outdoor cafe, we walked around shortly before Craig headed for a 4-hr lecture on uncertainty budgets and error propagation exercises in chemical analyses. Alex and Jenny really wanted to go too, but decided to walk around town some more instead. Very beautiful and scenic--narrow, winding streets, balconies filled with flowers, crazy Italian drivers... We met up again in the evening and walked around---it's Carnivale time here; the streets are filled with kids in costumes, silly string, confetti, and music, which makes for an interesting and fun atmosphere. Jenny had found a nice out-of-the-way restaurant for dinner, and we had a nice, relaxing (read: long) dinner, enjoying veal and chicken marsala, pasta carbonara (sadly, Craig still prefers the Stoufer's version), gelatto again, and some cannoli (we left the gun . . .) We're back at the hotel and plan to take a 2 hr walk tomorrow (after another of Craig's exciting lectures on Antimony in the environment) to a castle on a hill overlooking the town--we'll hopefully have some good pictures of Mt Etna when we do that (you can see part of Etna in one of the pictures below). Ciao for now...