another guest post from Alex

So, we've moved on from Italy and are now in Athens, Greece. But our last day on Sicily/in Italy was memorable; we got up in Catania, midway down the east coast of the island and immediately set off on a bus, with our bags, for the Temple Valley at Agrigento on the southern coast. The trip was nice, but long and was punctuated with some really tremendous rain storms. About three hours in all to reach Agrigento but luckily by the time we got there the weather was clearing so we got to see the ruins of the myriad temples without having too many tourists around since it seemed many had left the ruins for the day on account of the rain. We had stored our luggage at the train station and we returned to get it after the temples and hopped on a train which took us back up to Palermo. That was another long ride through almost pitch black night the entire way. We saw a man get on the train with a big bag as it was pulling away, and then realize it was the wrong train. He started to get off at the first stop, got his bag out and then fopr some unknown reason decided to jump back on to grab something else. Just then, the doors shut and we sped off for another station. Now he was on the wrong train, and his bag was sitting on a platform unattended in the middle of Sicily. He eventually got off. Noisy italian teenagers were on the train too and we both decided that we had never heard a group of people talk so loud and with so much vim and vigor for so long.
In palermo we took a bus from the train station to get Chinese food at a resturaunt we had eaten at when we were in Palermo the first time. Everything was fried in olive oil so it was a little strange, but still good. Then we got on another bus and sped back to the trainstation to catch the airport bus. That was a 50 minute ride and we got to the airport around 11pm and settled in there to a lovely nights rest on the benches. It was quite miserable, actually.
We awoke sore and stiff and ate an abbreviated breakfast in the airport before having to deal with the fact that our flight to Milan had been delayed so badly we would miss our flight to Athens. Luckily, the ticket agent was super-helpful and got us a quicker flight to Naples instead AND a flight to Athens from there. It all worked like clockwork and we got to our highly-rated hostel in good time to walk around and take in the sites. Yesterday we took a tour of the city and went to a museum of traditional Greek tools and labour and also a museum of Greek music with a focus on folk music and its role in Greek traditional life. Today, since every state-managed site was free to enter, we saw the Acropolis and the archeological museum until they booted us out (closing at 3???). Tomorrow I am going back. We also went to a flea market today and saw tons of really cool stuff that we would both love to have been able to buy to furnish our houses (well, my house and Ursula's imaginary house) but couldnt for the obvious transport issues. Lots of stuff though... Lunch was Greek pastries and a coke/coffee smoothie.
Tomorrow, if the Greek students dont shut down the whole city with their communist protesting, we'll head off to Corinth and begin making our descent into the Peloponnese. Oh, so much to do. Finally, today is exactly one month before we fly out of Istanbul. We've both been reflecting on that a lot. This trip has really played games with our perceptions of time. I think we'll both be sorry to leave Europe, happy to go home and really perplexed as to where all the time went simultaneously. Oh, and freaking exhausted. Ok, I am having trouble with this keyboard (better than a Croatian one, however!) and this chair is really wretched. I hope everyone is well. Ursula hopes the same and thats all for now. Cheers!
-Alex