catania and syracuse

tonight will be our third night spent in a lively hostel in catania, on the eastern coast of sicily. we came here of course for the history and to see the sights, but also largely because alex's friend sean is studying in the "centro" program. it's a semester-long program focusing on greece and rome, run by nigel nicholson, a reed classics professor. we met up with sean and some of his friends the first night we got in, getting another taste of the relaxed island atmosphere which seems to be much more prone to late-night food and drink than what we experienced on the mainland. our hostel, much to our surprise, has a bar/restaurant attached to it, and on monday nights they host what can once again only be described as a street party, with something like 200-300 people talking, smoking, and drinking in the square below our window until god knows when. it was entertaining for a while, and with ear plugs it was luckily not too hard to sleep through. on our way here we had our first experience with the italian proclivity towards striking - after sitting in the palermo train station for three hours not quite sure about why our train was never arriving we were told about the strike, refunded our money, and sent out on a bus eastwards. it turns out the buses are generally faster on sicily, so after a day of exploring catania yesterday we caught another bus this morning to syracuse, which was once one of the most powerful cities in the world under greek rule. there we saw our first glimpse of greek ruins, including one of the largest mainly intact amphitheaters, directly next to the humongous quarry, which also served as a prison camp for rival athenians who made the mistake of trying to conquer the syracusans. pretty amazing stuff - perhaps alex will post more about it later. in any case, i have to say i've quite enjoyed sicily. we've seen no trace of the mafia, but instead mostly fish markets, museums, ruins, and lots of happy-seeming young people. tomorrow we head to agrigento for a look at greek temples, then back to palermo for an early morning flight to athens! ciao italia!