ripples

even if the overall experience of the sicilian holiday remains hassle-free, a few mishaps have still taken place. first one was what you could call a classic -- the bankruptcy of the airline that was supposed to fly us from palermo to rome.  no biggie, after a few days of figuring out the options new flights were arranged, even with a reasonable price, and as i am under the impression that i just might get the money back from the credit card company, no big losses in terms of money were suffered either.

the second one was a classic as well, at least for me -- i managed to catch a stomach bug or some kind of food poisoning like i do basically every time when i travel abroad for a longer periods of time. this unfortunate surprise left me throwing up my guts for a day or so; but now i feel somewhat recovered, even if today i still skipped the morning run due to relatively dehydrated state my body most likely is in.

the third might be the general difficulty in organizing some things that in finland (or basically everywhere else, it seems) would have been a child's play to do. this is partly because in august the whole sicily is more or less shut down; no surprise, then, that one the first sentences i have learnt in italian is chiuso per ferie, closed for the holiday. this has at times led to frustration followed by irritation, but on the other hand there really is not much to be done about it, so one can only accept and try to deal with it the best as possible.

there is less than a week left, and of course i can't help wondering where on earth the time went. suddenly the three and a half weeks have shrunk into a handful of days, and the reality of coming back to finland looms closer and closer in the event horizon. but i must say that it has been a great holiday so far, and i have no reason not to expect it to get even better as the countdown of the last few days soon starts.