Sicily: Cannoli and Oranges

Cannoli are amazing. That's a fact of life. Only Sicilian cannoli, however. I had one in Viterbo and it totally put me off cannoli, so that I was hesitant to eat them in Sicily. Well, let me tell you: you can't go to Sicily and not eat the cannoli. I had one every day, I'm proud to say. And can we say marzipan? IT IS INCREDIBLE! Emily, Aleja and I all split one marzipan apple because it was so rich that we could only eat a tiny bite at a time. In every city we went to we were sure to stop at a pasticceria to have some sweets.

While the sweets were amazing, the oranges were intoxicating. They're sweet and sour and rich and blood red... They're amazing, not to mention plentiful: as you drive through Sicily, you see endless stretches of orange trees... at which point you start drooling and throwing yourself against the window of your vehicle because the oranges are just that delicious. At Piazza Armerina there was a man with a little truck completely full of them, selling bags for 1€ each.

Also at Piazza Armerina, or at least in the nearby town... snowball fight with the Italians! We were innocently going about our business, heading down to the grocery store to get lunch, when we saw a group of Italian teenagers lurking in a parking lot. And of course, since it was snowing (remember: non nevica mai), and since we'd been sitting on a bus for a few hours, and since we had a little spare time, we launched an attack. There were 5 of us, and at first about 5 of them... but as the snowball fight went on, maybe 6 more suddenly emerged from behind a nearby building, as though they'd been waiting for this. I am sad to say that their aim was slightly better than ours. So, armed with two snowballs each, we charged, and they were forced to make a hasty retreat. Americans 1, Italians 0. Take that.

But then they made a full scale attack on the bus, just as we were about to drive to Piazza Armerina. Mr Scanlon gave a little speech about how we couldn't let America be insulted like that, and sent us after them. It was a grand but short lived battle. In our defense, there was much more snow on their side of the road... And speaking of roads, one of the guys blatantly got hit by a car! The car was going really slowly, and just sort of bumped his legs out from under him. He went down laughing, and suffered only a cut on his knee, but what a cool battle wound! The car didn't even stop, though... sketch!

Piazza Armerina was frigging boring after that. I spent my time eating snow. That's what happens when you let Californians loose in snowy places. Fools.