- Everything we heard about the people before traveling here turned out to be just the opposite. Sicilians are some of the nicest people in the world, maybe the nicest. You hear about the rough side, how the people can be unwelcoming to foreigners and very private. You hear how Mafia violence has cast a shadow on tourism as foreigners fear for their safety. The term the mafioso use is "La Cosa Nostra", which translates to "Our Thing", and that's the message received by many: that Sicily is run by Sicilians and belongs to Sicilians.
But this is why we travel - we have learned that Sicilians will open their land, and their hearts to people traveling here. If you are lucky, they will even open their vineyards! We have found that they are as curious about us as we are about them. Sicilians seemed to feel honored to share their heritage, they are very proud of their land and we are honored to have been their guests. The owner of the hotel in Agrigento even gave us a bottle of wine when we were leaving.
- Upon our return to Taormina, we stayed at the Dolphins Guest House - it had a kitchen and a washing machine! We were ecstatic not to be hand washing everything as we had been for the past 3 weeks. We will forever appreciate our washing machine and dryer at home. Even though the wash cycle took about two hours and dryers don´t exist in this land, it was fun to watch it as we sipped on some vino and made a home-cooked meal. 
The Dolphins Guest House is a great place run by sweet people. They even gave us a ride to the bus station in the morning when they saw that we were panicked to make the train.- Our "Last Supper" was back to Nino's, where else? Francesco kept us out until 3:30 am. It was tough to say ciao to our Taormina friends, they made us feel like family.
The train to Naples was at 9 am, so needless to say it was a rough departure. At least we had one of the most beautiful train stations in the world (see photo) for our zombie-like state as we waited for the train´s arrival. 
We (foolishly) thought we could try to get some sleep on the 7 hour train ride. If you have ever been on a train from Sicily to Naples, as we had not, little did we know what awaited us - very entertaining. Stay tuned for a separate blog for details. - While we were in Agrigento, we met Paolo, Franco, and Franco's son, gentlemen from the Naples area traveling on business. They were eating in the same hotel restaurant as we were, and we are sure they heard our complete fiasco of trying to order in Italiano. And, we are sure we were horrifying people all over Sicily by "splitting" meals. Most Italians will eat an appetizer consisting of vegetables in olive oil, followed by a pasta course, then a meat course, then salad, then a fruit dessert. This takes place over about 3 hours. If they could only see us eating McDonald's in the car, steering with our knees so one hand is free for the cell phone and the other the Big Mac.
Paolo and Franco overlooked the fact that we were "splitters", and decided to invite us out for gelato after dinner (probably thought that we did not get enough to eat, the Sicilian motto being "mangiare!", eat!). We had a great time trying to communicate and translate back and forth, with both sides laughing in between the "how do you say...?" questions. We love the fact that Italians, when asked if they speak English (parla inglesi?), respond "poco...a little" and always with the finger gesture of a little. Fact is, most Italians, compared to the amount of Italian we can speak, are fluent. Some speak more better English than many Americans!
Franco kept calling Becky "Bella" ("Beautiful"), because we are convinced that he could not remember her name, and Becky kept correcting him "BECKY!" We all got a good laugh out of it every time.
Paolo, in keeping with what we had been experiencing with the people of Southern Italy, generously volunteered to be our host for a day while visiting Naples the follow week. We had been warned multiple time, even by people from the Naples area, that whenever visiting this area: "ATTENZIONE!" - pay attention to your valuables and watch for pick-pockets. Needless to say, we were very excited to have met these new friends, and to have Paolo offer to be our guide - another offer we could not refuse!
