Yesterday morning, Christi went to the open air market, which is a collection of folding tables with awnings lining one of the streets of Ortygia, near the canal. Most of the vendors were selling produce or fresh seafood. There were a few venders selling cheeses and cured meats, such as ham and salami. And a few vendors selling thinks like olives and sun dried tomatoes. There was also a random assortment of durable goods, with vendors selling everything from clothing, to cloth, to toys, belts, purses, jewelry, etc. We had been told it is the best market on Sicily and it really was good.

While Christi was out, Eric flushed out the DC water maker and changed the pre-filter. He was doing some computer work when he noticed that the generator was suddenly making an abnormal noise. He shut it off and inspected it. He changed the impeller and cleaned the sea strainers, then turned it back on. He saw white smoke coming out and noticed the temperature was slightly hotter than normal. Eric realized the problem was probably water in the fuel, so he drained the sump and changed the fuel filter. He tested the fuel he had collected and found no water in it. He then cleaned the air filter. After all that, it still wasn’t running properly.

We have also forgot to mention that we seem to be having an issue with our LPG (propane gas) alarm. Lately it has been going off fairly often, like once every couple weeks or so. We never smell any gas. It goes off even when we have the gas turned off, which means the leak is either in the tank or the sensor is not working. We suspect the latter, since the alarm would be going off more regularly if there really was a leak in the tank.

Today we pulled our awesome little folding bikes out of the lazarette and went for bike ride. FINALLY. We have dragged those things 2/3 of the way around the world and only used them once until now. In riding around saw quite a few sites we had missed on our walk. We found some ancient ruins near the market. We have put in the picture so you understand what we meant when we said the ruins were “still ruined”. The signs are only in Italian, so we can’t tell you what they once were.

Actually, we have found very few informational signs in English at the various tourist attractions and historical monuments. This is the first place in the world we have been with no English signs. The English signs are a luxury we took for granted. Likewise, we haven’t found many English speakers. Communicating with the locals has been a challenge, and we have found out that Spanish isn’t nearly as close to Italian as some people would have you believe.

Anyway, we continued on from the ruins and got lost in a maze of small streets with lots of twists, turns and dead ends, but eventually made our way out without having to trace our steps back out. It was fun to explore all the back little side streets. We felt like we got a better sense of the town. We noticed that there are a lot of houses up for sale and a lot of buildings being renovated.

When we got hot, we stopped for granites, a sweet frozen beverage. It is kind of like sorbet with more water and less fruit and sugar. It is served with a spoon and a straw. Even though it is frozen, the texture is soft and you eat it with a spoon until it melts, then switch to a straw. Granites come in all kinds of assorted flavors.

We went across the canal bridge and tried to pedal around the modern Siracusa. It didn’t take long to realize that we were taking our lives in our hands being on the roads with maniacal Italian drivers. We tried to stay on side streets to keep out of the heavy traffic, but somehow we kept finding ourselves on busy streets with drivers that seemed to be intent on running us over. We quickly turned around and headed back to Kosmos.

When we got back to Kosmos, our neighbor two boats down, Chad, was having a barbecue and invited us to join them. One of the guests is a man named Sal who was originally from Siracusa and who now lives in New York. He happened to be here visiting his family. He told us that Ortigyia was a run down red light district up until recently and the revitalization of the old buildings has been a recent phenomenon.

Sal invited us to go out to dinner out to dinner with them at his cousin’s restaurant. When we got there, we told Sal to order for us. We had no idea what was coming out, but we had high hopes that Sal knew the best things on the menu. The meal was exceptional, just as we had hoped.

The appetizer was deep fried whole sardines. Christi has always thought she didn’t like sardines, but these were really good. Not at all fishy. The only downside is that in some of them you could feel the texture of the head, tail and backbone in your mouth. But, some of them you couldn’t feel the bones at all. It was luck of the draw. Sal says they are a popular local snack food.

The next course was mussels. Christi was sad. She despises mussels. Sal and Eric kept urging her to try them, saying they thought she’d like them. She gave in to peer pressure and tried some. To her shock, they were delicious. Sal says that the local wild mussels are never fishy. He also said they are abundant and easy to harvest, hence the significantly lower prices compared to fish.

At this point, we thought we were done. It turned out we weren’t even close. Three more courses came out. One was small fried local fish, another salad, and finally linguini with shrimp in a tasty creamy sauce. We’re including the photo of the linguini because, once again, the presentation is something you’ll rarely see in America.

The courses were all spread pretty far apart, and it was a long dinner. We were having such a good time with Chad, Sal and Sal’s friends that we didn’t notice the time passing. We had a couple bottles of some great locally produced wine. After dinner, Eric requested dessert. Sal’s cousin brought us a lemon sorbet in what looked like a real lemon peel and a ball of ice cream with sprinkles. It turned out the exterior of the ball was vanilla and the middle was coffee flavor. The sprinkles turned out to be small bits of meringue. It was yummy. The highlight of the meal was the after dinner drinks. Sal’s cousin brought out a bottle called “Erotica”. It turned out to be the most delicious chocolate liqueur of all time. Christi liked it so much they sent us home with a bottle.