Posted by seryna on Wednesday, May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

The other day, a few of the girls I live with and I decided to make the trek to a city, Palermo, about an hour away to get all you can eat sushi. After getting the name of the place and the address from our professor we planned to make a whole day out of it. We looked up the train times online and started planning out what we were going to do. When we arrived at the train station in Cefalu, after sprinting across town because we were running late, we found out that the first train was not for another two hours. We ended up having to figure out how to take a bus to into Palermo instead all while experiencing a major language barrier between us and the cashier at the station.

At home I do not have a lot of experience with using trains and buses, but I have taken the Caltrain from somewhere near home into San Francisco, which is about an hour and half train ride. Even with my limited exposure to public transit I could already see differences. First of all, everything in America is automated. When you get to the station you use a machine to buy your ticket, look at the screens to find your platform, and get on the train to wait. When we got to the train station in Cefalu we had to do everything through the cashier, which presented some issues. We had to figure out the cost of the tickets, which bus we should take, and when that bus would be leaving while none of us are able to speak Italian and he spoke very little English. While the experience was more difficult than it has been at home, I think it is pretty cool there is still so much human interaction during daily tasks here in Cefalu. It is a different way of life. Everything is not automated, and everyone seems to know each other. There is not the disconnect that I see in America during seemingly small tasks, such as trying to buy a train ticket. In America it is so easy to get stuck in your own world when you do not have to interact with another human, but here in Cefalu human interaction is everywhere and a part of everything.

After successfully figuring out how to get into Palermo, we had to find the actual sushi place in a city that none of us had ever been to. Armed with the address and name we set out into the city. This city was unlike anything I have been to. It felt like a mix of a bunch of different cities and vibes. I tried to mentally compare it to other cities I have been to, but could not say it was directly similar to any city I have seen. The buildings were huge like New York, but they were old and it reminded me of a movie set. There were also huge cathedrals randomly spread throughout the city, which I have not seen before. At home, there may be one or two churches spread out in the city, but in Palermo there were at least four on our 15 minute walk from the train station to the sushi place.

One of the most shocking differences were the traffic rules in the city, and that was that it seemed like there were none. People were riding by on motorcycles at close to 70mph not wearing helmets. Pedestrians did not have the right of way, and I saw so many people almost get hit. There were little to no crosswalks. People would just cross super busy streets and cars would not slow down for them. One of the girls I was with commented that the traffic rules were similar to ones she has experienced in India, but I can say it was nothing like I have seen in the states. I felt like I had to be constantly aware of everything so I would not be hit by a car, whereas when I am at home I have the bad habit of being distracted by my phone when I am walking places.

Overall, Palermo was an experience I am really glad I had. When we successfully made it to Palermo and back we were all so proud of ourselves. We figured out a train/bus schedule and ticket when none of us speak Italian, found a restaurant nestled in the center of a city we had never been to before, and survived being pedestrians in a city where cars have the right of way. The city was beautiful and the sushi was well worth the trip.