So the weather in these parts has continued to be irksome. One night in Catania, we had as much rain as they normally get all month. Via Etnea was turned into a river, with tables and chairs from the caffes washing away. On Friday, the professor and his wife drove Laura and I up Etna a bit and we got to see the remains of a major eruption from 1981. It was pretty impressive, then we ate lunch and it got really foggy and we came down the mountain. There was a tentative plan to do the whole coastal marine life cyclops islands trip we've been trying to do for two weeks, but again we were foiled by rain.
Saturday morning it was raining hard so we just slept in--late in the morning things started to clear up, though, so I ran and did some quick shopping for our guests that were arriving on Sunday and then headed out to Taormina. The weather actually held out pretty well--as long as we were on the bus! But we did get to see the theater and I think Laura managed to get some inkling of it's beauty. Boy were we cold and wet by the time we got back to Catania. Perfect for ordering a pizza and a couple of beers, delivered.
Sunday we picked up Ross, Maggie and Charlotte from the airport. Again with the British mania for allowing only one carry on item, forcing Maggie and Charlotte to check baggage they had intended to carry on that they then managed to lose for them. We didn't plan on doing much that day except try to keep our jet lagged friends awake until bedtime and feed them some food, which we managed to do.
Monday, Laura and I woke up at a bright and early 5:30 am to send her back off to RDU. Took a nap when I got back, ate lunch, then back to the airport to try and track down Maggie and Charlotte's luggage, which fortunately was there. I'm hoping the new arrivals will spend some time blogging about their impressions as new arrivals here, since I seem to be too tired to write anything particularly interesting in this here blog. They did manage to pick a restaurant out of the "Slow Food" guide that was right outside the portone of the first apartment I lived in back in 2001. I'd always seen it there but never gone in. I made a reservation for four, which turned out to be silly, because we were the only people in the restaurant. Monday night is a slow night in this town.
