Santa Alessio.... WHOA.

This is where we write from.......

So today marked our arrival to Sicily where we have planned to stay with Brandon’s family friend Vince’s relatives who have lived on this beautiful island their whole life. They don’t speak

much English so we timed our visit as to coincide with that of Guiseppe, the son of the family and his polish and 8 month pregnant beautiful wife Kasha. After a 2 hour bus ride from the Catania airport to the tiny seaside town Santa Alessio, we get off the bus, grab some gelato and quickly realize that English is NOT an option here. We have arrived at what I can only described as one of Italy’s best kept secrets, lush green plants and trees, vibrantly colored flowers adorning every corner, fence, yard, inch of land that isn’t being hogged by the most incredible ocean view anyone has ever seen. Guiseppe picked us up and drove us back to Conchetta’s (his mother’s) house where

we meet his sister Chiara, wife Kasha, Uncle Peppo short for

Guiseppe, Uncle Tino and Aunt Maria. We seriously could not believe our eyes when he said “we are here!” ocean front, just nestled into the hillside, with the view of the ancient castle of Santa Alessio in the background he points up to our apartment, just next door and 3 floors above his family’s home where our balcony is pretty much a diving board into the Mediteranean Sea. The whole family is sooooo friendly, we immediately sit down to chilled home-made red wine (they make their own wine along with olive oil and sundried tomatoes) and a 3 course lunch after getting settled in our sweeeet ass pad. Guiseppe is rad, 35 years old, software engineer/musician who currently lives in Rome and comes home

to visit this utopia paradise of a town a couple times a year. I cannot imagine what someone has to have done in a past life to grow up here. The town is litterly hanging off the cliff here... Bella! There are appx. 1000 people in this town, and roughly 10,000 in the summer monthes. It is about 90 degrees and humid, no air conditioning everything is just open and relaxed. The strip that they live on is equivalent to the beachfront homes in Newport, just with tiny little pizzerias, cafes, and bars on the ocean side of the street and spilling out onto the sand. After lunch and a genuine Sicilian buzz, Guiseppe, Brandon and I walked the whole 30 feet into the water; turquoise, perfect temperature just cool enough to provide refreshment from the heat. (* note it is 9 pm and I am on the front porch typing, I can hear Brandon attempting to make conversation with Conchella as she prepares our albeit delicious dinner, in his tiny bit of broken Italian and her progressing English; priceless)...... to be continued....

Dachau, Indian food and random encounters...

Munich day 2 and 3

Our second day in Munich was pretty much our only full day to sight see around the city. After our crack of dawn 5 am breakfast we had some time to kill before our trip out to Dachau, so we decided to head up to the Olympic Stadium and BMW factory/museum/welt. Home to the ‘72 Summer Olympics the site with the huge pool and park and arenas really a site to see, crazy architectural design looked like spiderman spat his web all over the buildings. It was surrounded by a beautiful park with a lake and street vendors, a mini golf park and cafes. Then we went to what we thought was the BMW museum but was actually the welt. There we got to see some dude ride up a huge staircase on a motorcycle. Sweeet. Then it was off to Dachau, the concentratio

n camp, where we had a 2 hour tour which was absolutely amazing. Insane to see where all this history went down. They took us through the SS Nazi buildings, through the barracks which were built to house 250 people in each and ended up sleeping over 2000 in each. Probably the most intense was seeing the actual crematorium and gas chamber which we walked through. So heartbreaking. More to write about that later probably.

After we left we were STARVING as usual so Brandon gave in a tried some of the ridiculous german street food, basically some giant pink slice of ham/cow/turkey/mystery meat on a roll with sweet mustard. It actually wasn’t too bad! Needless to say we took 2 bites, threw it away and carried on to the delicious Indian restaurant right around the corner from our hotel. This was seriously one of the best meals I have had in a long time. Being closer to India must make a difference, eh? Went back to the hotel, watched an episode of “its always sunny” and passed out by 9 oclock, shortly after

realizing that our flight to Sicily which we thought was at 6 am the next morning was actually the next day. Oops. Being as pooped as we were we decided to give ourselves a day of doing absolutely nothing, and booked a hotel near the airport. Once again we both woke up at 2 am the next morning cuz our sleeping habits are so off. Dilly dallied around the hotel til about 6 when we set out on a nice morning walk around the city in search of croissants like aimee and I had in spain and eggs. No eggs in germany. They looked at us like we were crazy when we asked the people in the cafes for eggs. After that we packed up our stuff and took the train to our hotel by the airport. Soooo nice. Hotwire actually came through this time.

The craziest part about all of this is, for my friends back in marin, we ran into Maria and Netto (Lua’s parents) in the hotel lobby. These are the parents of my friend growing up who unfortunately passed away shortly after we graduated high school. Netto is a musician and is finishing up his European tour, they were just heading out to a gig when we ran into them. I have not seen them for years and let me tell you, that was something else to run into them so randomly like that. What a small freakin world it is out there. Then now its early to bed for our flight to Sicily where we will meet Guiseppe and our Sicilian family who is taking us in! We cannot wait….Caio.