Sicily... The Beach!!!

Kelsi: We are now headed to Sicily which in case you didn't know is by the beach!!!! Me and Mary Shannon signed up with the school for this trip which we were kind of glad about because we wouldn't have to do anything since they had everything taken care of ahead of time. All we had to do was show up! As we are going to the train station (Santa Maria Novella) we read this paper that said for us to meet at Campo Marte which is the other train station if Florence that is like a 10 minute train ride to get to from Santa Maria Novella. Well when we showed up the paper said to catch the 8 p.m. train to Campo Marte. Well remember how I said there was the departure and arrival board and you were suppose to look at that..... well I guess since Campo Marte is so close and just a small station then they thought it didn't need to be put on the board. There we are again looking at the board in utter frustration. We are suppose to meet everyone at Campo Marte by 8:30 and then catch the overnight train to Sicily from there. Ok so it is now 8:15 and we are still standing there now with McDonalds in our hands (its a tradition) and still looking at the board. Well so now we call Kellen to see where he is and he tells us that they are just going to walk to the station but that is 20 minutes away and we need to be there in 10 minutes and we are not walking!!! So we are kind of starting to get nervous and so I call our friend Joe and tell him to tell the people not to leave without us because we are coming! haha thinking that they are really going to wait on 2 people! haha Well we are getting really nervous now and i'm still emotional from leaving my family so my brain isn't working and we are about to start panicking when I hear this girl talking about the school trip. I run up to her and start asking all these questions like where in the freakin train to take us to Campo Marte and when is it leaving, and what bin is it in? haha she is trying to say goodbye to her mom and they are both just looking at me and then she says hang on and calls her friend who is already on the train and gets the bin number. She tells it to us and then she proceeds to say its leaving in less than a minute. Here we go again..... running full speed to catch this train and we jump on WITHOUT a ticket and head to Campo Marte. We get there right at 8:30 and we walk up to this huge crowd of students. We were so excited it was like a reunion! There were so many people going on this trip! We get our cabin numbers and hop on the train. Now the coolest part was that we were in the first class cart!! The beds were bigger and softer and we even had a sink in our room! What can I say now days we are amazed easily! :) We go to sleep and wake up to to the window view of the ocean! It was the most beautiful site ever!!! Once we got off the train we figured we were heading to the hotel but oh no we find out that we are about to go tour something. Ok so since we went with the school you know they are all about the tours and all that mess while I am just wanting to find a hotel so I can clean up and take a shower. Everyone feels gross after an overnight train I don't care who you are! We landed in the morning and got on the bus and they head off to a city call Tourmini (not sure of the spelling). Ok none of us students had taken a shower or even brushed our teeth! They then tell us that we would be going to the beach but not going to the hotel until later that night. I start freaking out because I needed to shave my legs! haha I was thinking that we would go the hotel first thing clean up put our bathing suits on and head out boy was I wrong. We go to this city and it was beautiful and it had a great view but we were still gross. haha We stay there for awhile and then we head back to the bus. We were talking to the head guy and tells us that if we wanted to change into our bathing suits then we needed to do that at the bus stop. Great! I have to put a bathing suit on with unshaved legs! Well I have the intuition razor which already has the soap stuff on it so all you have to do is get it wet so I figured maybe I could do a quick shave in the sink. Yea I know I feel like white trash but desperate times call for desperate meausures. So me and Mary Shannon go and get our bathing suits and head to the bathrooms but we had to hurry because they were leaving in like 10 minutes. So I get in the bathroom and start to change and then the lights go off!! They don't use light switches over here its more like these light sensors that go on and off when it senses movement. Ok I start moving and it doesn't come back on! Great!! So I finish changing in the dark and then try to shave my legs then I hear Mary Shannon say they are leaving we have to go. So still unshaved legs and I take off running and throw my stuff under the bus and am about to get on when I realize I left my sunglasses in the bathroom. Ok so I would have just left them behind but they were my new prada glasses and uh yea that just wasn't happening! So I take off running and tell them to please wait and so now I am holding up 2 buses with about 70 students on them. As I am running back the bus even honks at me!! Ok thanks embarassing!! We finally make it to the beach and of course it starts to rain but we are determined to go anyway. Most of the students and us head to the beach and try to lay out key word being "try". All the guys start to jump into the ocean which was absolutely freezing. All the girls were laying out and me and Mary Shannon really wanted to jump in the ocean just to be able to say we jumped into the Mediteranean!! Well none of the other girls would do it so of course small town girls take off in a dead run and jump in!! OMG the coldest water I have ever jumped in.... I mean like take your breath away cold!! We did it though and were the only 2 girls that did! haha Arkansas girls!! After we left the beach we went to the hotel which was 2 hours away and we were soaking wet so it wasn't an exciting ride but we made it there and into our room which had a wonderful shower!! haha We ate dinner at the hotel both nights and they even took us to the bars each night so that was fun. We went to bed late and then had to wake up really early to start the tours!! We had no idea how much walking we were about to do. We went to the world's largest greek theatre which was pretty cool. We even took a Chi O pic there and then went to the catacombs which was way cool!! After that we were getting really tired and we met up with these 2 girls and Ashely and Taylor and these 2 guys Jackson and Ryan and we decided we were tired of touring stuff and we wanted to see the beach! We kept trying to come up with a plan on how we could sneak away from the group but we were hestitant because we didn't know where the beach was and all that. Well after lunch we were soooo hot and the sun was shining so brightly and we wanted to go the beach so bad!! I needed a pair of shorts because I was dying from the heat since we were all wearing jeans. So I go to this one store which I am still upset about and pick up these short to buy them and the woman says I have to buy the set. I was like what set... and she pulls out this ugly t-shirt... I was like you have to be kidding and she of course wasn't so I end up buying the set for like 30 euro which wasn't fun but oh well I got a cute pair of shorts. haha enough with that complaining... haha so Jackson calls and says he knows where a beach is and so me, Mary Shannon and Kellen leave the group and head back to the hotel to meet up with everyone. We get 2 taxi's and head to the beach. When we got there we saw these other people from our group that had split to so we didn't feel so bad. Me and Mary Shannon take off running down the beach like 2 little kids screaming and laughing and loving life. We had come up on the most beautiful beach ever!! It was gorgeous and the weather was perfect!!! We layed out for a couple of hours and just soaked up the sun!! It was amazing! When it was time to go back to the hotel we got in the taxi's and headed back that way. We were trying to get back the same time that our bus did so we could meet up with the rest of the group but we did a little better than that. Our 2 taxi's pulled up in the middle of the 2 buses and we got out of course in our bathing suits and everyone else still in their clothes. haha but it ended up not being a big deal because our teacher said they let people go and that it wasn't a big deal so it was all good. We went out again that night and had a blast with everyone. We kept meeting so many people that we go to school with here so it was fun and made us feel comfortable around everyone. The next day we were heading back to the train station. When we got there our teacher said that we needed to eat the famous Sicilian sandwich and me and Mary Shannon of course said yes. Having no idea what we were about to eat followed the teacher. We came to know really quickly that it was HORSE MEAT! I didn't even know that people could do that! We ate it anyway I mean comon we are trying to be one with their culture and experience everything a European experiences which I guess includes a horse meat sandwich. It was ok when we ate it though a little chewy but then a few hours later and we weren't feeling so hot. I mean just thinking about it kind of makes me queezy! Anyhow we got on the train and headed out. Now we didn't realize it because we were asleep on the way over there but we have to get onto a ferry to cross the ocean. Our train literally connects onto the ferry and it takes us across the ocean and lets us off. It was so cool. We got out once we got on the ferry and me, Mary Shannon, Taylor, and Ashley who is also a Chi O head up to the top to explore. Well we meet up with Kellen and start climbing ladders and get to the very top of the ferry! It was sooo cool, no one was up there and we were just running around screaming acting like Charlie's Angels, being stupid and crazy!!! It was so much fun!! We run to the very front and it felt like Titantic when she says the whole cheezy line of "Jack i'm flying" I mean we were at the very top at what looked like that same spot. We see the rest of the students down below us and we start waving to them and then we hear these men yelling at us! We were like uh oh maybe we aren't suppose to be up here! Yea we weren't we were on the crew deck! OOps. We took off running and ran away and met up with the rest of the students to try to blend in. haha but wow it was so cool! The view from up there was incredible.... I have never seen anything like it!! We continued to look around and then headed back to the train since we were about to disconnect. Not much of anything exciting happened after that we just fell asleep until we got back at home. Sicily was beautiful and so much fun!! Although we got a little worn out with the touring thing I mean when you are traveling every weekend the museums and duomo's all start to look alike so sometimes you need a change of scenery like the BEACH!!! It was awesome we had so much fun and we are hoping for another beach trip real soon!!! Oh and we also saw where the mafia's headquarters were which was way cool... just to add that in there! haha I keep remembering little tid bits of things that I have to add in!! :) Talk to ya soon!