Some of you might notice that I'm behind on my posts, as I'm currently back in the glorious USA. Well, it wasn't always easy to blog in Europe; there had to be a perfect convergence of affordability, availability and free time for me to write. With internet rates that sometimes exceeded €5/hour and distorted, foreign-language keyboards, the opportunities were quite rare. In any case, I will spend the next few days posting some delayed entries that were handwritten into my journal. The following was a reflection on my first day in Sicily.
When I was a young griller, my dad and I used to make annual car trips from New York to the my grandpa's place in the Florida Keys. Among the many highlights and lowlights of our adventures - such as throwing up all over my dad's new leased Cadillac following an overly ambitious breakfast buffet at Bob's Big Boy - there is one that stands out in my memory above all: the Stardust Motel.
The first time my mom and sisters made the trip with us, we grew somewhat road weary in southern Georgia and had to stop for the night at the Stardust, the only affordable motel we could find. To this day, the name Stardust is synonymous in my family with griminess and parsimony. I never thought I would find an equal in my life, even as I embarked on a month of backpacking. I was young, naiive, and innocent.
I got into Trapani late last night. Trapani is a small port town on a peninsula in Western Sicily. It's the sort of place I'd have never visited or even heard of, but it's where Ryan Air flies into on the island (they use a small former military airport). The bus into town dropped me off at the harbor, which thrives during the day (and where ferries can take you to Tunisia, i.e. Africa). Late at night, though, it was dark, deserted and desolate. Walking alone with my backpack, I felt extremely vulnerable.
I eventually found my Bed and Breakfast - the Casa Malvarosa - on a side street so narrow that only bikes can fit through. I picked the Malvarosa because of its affordability; much to my horror after booking a late flight into Trapani, I discovered that the town has no hostels. At €25 a night, the Malvarosa was appealing despite its horrendous reviews.
It wasn't a huge shock (having slept in the Stardust, I should have known), but sometimes you really do get what you pay for. The outer door of the courtyard was locked and the buzzers - of which there were several - only had last names; none was labeled as that of the Malvarosa. The first I rang prompted the emergence of an aggravated (but clearly accustomed to the annoyance) Sicilian man, who told me who to ring. I was delighted to find that the owner, a woman who lived in the upstairs of the apartment, didn't speak a word of English. The courtyard and apartment were filled with statues and paintings of the Madonna and other saints, but they didn't seem to be interceding on behalf of the Malvarosa or its guests.
On the inside, the B&B is essentially an old, run-down apartment. The plaster on the walls was peeling, mold dominated the bathroom - where the toilet seat was cracked in half - and there was a general griminess to the bedroom floor that deterred me from walking barefoot. The sheets were dirty - telltale orange-red stains indicated the potential presence of bedbugs - and the room was windowless. But...it was late, I was exhausted from three weeks of traveling, and it was a room for myself. I read for a little while before falling into a deep and restful sleep.
There's a couple of lessons to be learned here. First, sometimes Ryan Air flies you into the middle of nowhere; if you then stay at the cheapest place you can, you will really, really be getting what you pay for. Second, when you're tired, you can sleep anywhere. And third, I'm picking up foreign languages quickly. "Malvarosa," for instance, is Italian for "Stardust."
Thanks to Saul Young's KnoxNews Blog for the photo. Unlike the room it pictures, though, the Malvarosa lacked carpeting, air conditioning, and abundant lighting).\
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