Without a Traceroute

NOTE: Unlike my other posts lately which were written on or about the day they were posted, this was actually written on the night in question (Thursday, October 2).

I finally got out of Palermo. I’ve decided that I want to visit the Aeolian islands, which are a series of volcanic islands off the coast of Sicily. Apparently they’ve only recently become a tourist destination and are still lightly frequented during the off-season(i.e. Now). In any case, I needed to get out of Palermo. It was dirty and noisy and crowed. “Clusterfuck” is the only word that adequately describes the traffic situation in Palermo. I feared for my life every time every time I set foot on the street. People I met at the hostel said that Palermo reminded them of Morocco or some Latin American countries more than Europe.

This is what large parts of Palermo look like: cars parked randomly and garbage on the ground.

Other parts are quite beautiful, however

The hackers were really cool, but I slept on a couch of somewhat questionable providence and woke up with my hands/forearms covered with insect bites of some sort (couchbugs?). I would’ve left Palermo sooner, but I was trying to get things straightened out with my computer problems. I did buy a new machine, it’s an Asus eee 901 and so far I’m pretty pleased with it. I’ll try to write a detailed review later. I’ve been trying to find an affordable way to ship my broken computer back so it can be warranty serviced, and so far have not been having much luck. UPS wants €110 for one-week shipping; Postale Italia wanted €76 for the same timeframe. I can’t believe that there’s nobody who will ship by boat instead of by plane and do it for less. I guess all of that stuff must just be container ships at this point, and there’s no money in shipping anything less than a container-load. Today I putzed around trying to find some more shipping options; I tried to go to a DHL retail location, but either the address on the website was out of date, or the map was misleading, because I wasn’t able to locate it.

Finally, I decided I needed to leave, even if I had to haul the broken computer with me for a while. I caught the last train out of Palermo to Milazzo, which is the point of departure for ferries (and hydrofoils!) bound for the Aeolian islands.

Right now I’m at the train station in Milazzo. My train got in at around 11 pm, and I was originally planning on making at least some effort to find a hostel. However, it was raining lightly and the train station doesn’t appear to be anywhere near the city center (or maybe it’s just a very small city) but the station seems to be pretty much out in a field. Factor in the fact that the station itself is quite nice, totally deserted (there don’t even appear to be janitors or security personnel here—although there is somebody sleeping in an RV in the parking lot), and you can see why I didn’t have any desire to go wandering mapless through a field in search of hostels which may or may not exist, may or may not be booked up or expensive. The main building of the station is open, as is the 2nd class waiting room (where I am now) which features a spacious and relatively comfortable bench to sleep on. The bathrooms are also open, which was nice for me to use the facilities, brush my teeth and so forth. The bathrooms also contained the only accessible electrical outlets, which I availed myself of to charge my laptop and my camera batteries.

Charging in the bathroom

I read a bit, hung my towel up to dry, emptied everything out of my backpack(s) and cleaned up / reorganized it, watched Futurama on my laptop, and now I’m thinking about going to sleep. The first ferry is at 6 am (from a sign posted outside the [closed] tourist information office), but I doubt I’ll be up that early. Unless I’m roused by cleaning people or something.

Considering this night isn’t costing me anything, I’m very pleased with the quality of the facilities.

Bench, sweet bench

If only they had wireless internet, I might just stay here for a couple of nights. Sadly, they do not, and I will be missing the Sarah Palin / Joe Biden smackdown. I hope it turns out to be hilarious.