Today is the day we leave Sicily and travel to Paestum in southern Italy. Our route takes us across the Straits of Messina. Below you will find Rebecca’s account of our harrowing struggle to navigate between the voracious whirlpool, Charybdis and the rabid, six-headed beast Scylla. Which way will we go? Do we attempt to sail pass Charybdis and risk the loss of the entire expedition, or do we turn our prow towards Scylla and condemn only six of our companions to ensure the survival of the rest of our fellowship? Only the Fates know our destiny!

——Rebecca——

On our long travel day, we got up bright and early from our hotel and ate before sitting on the bus for five hours. When we first started driving towards Messina, many tired people had fallen asleep after the previous day of hiking on Mount Aetna. As I (and many others) were awoken by our peers, we came to find a body of water next to us, called the Straits of Messina. This was the most exciting part of our travel day, as we drove the bus onto a ferry and were carried across from Sicily to southern Italy. We drove for around four hours through southern Italy, until we finally arrived at the Poseidiania Mare Hotel. A few minutes after we exited the bus, everybody was refreshed as we splashed into the warm waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, my favorite of all three seas. After dinner Mrs. Pollio taught us a really fun Italian card game called Scopa, which uses a completely different deck of cards than traditional games. After a mini tournament, teams Alpha and Gamma were tied with three wins, with a final game left to come.