The days before city changes are always quite busy. I woke up early and packed all of my things. Since my packing has been so precise for everything I acquire on my travels I have to get rid of one corresponding thing that I brought with me. This meant I had to head to the Post Office for the annoying ritual of sending a package back to the States. A plan that everyone else had as well! After I was all packed I worked for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening a couple of us went to a late dinner at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal which was excellent. The Tipsy Cake that I had for dessert was possibly one of the best desserts that I’ve ever had.

Uneventful day today. My parents had to head to the airport early to catch their flight to Scotland so I worked for the rest of the day until my flight back to London. Annoyingly, the train ride back to my place from Gatwick was longer than my actual flight back. Got me home pretty late so I went right to sleep.

Wow, 90 day mark. This has really flown by. Today we did a black cab tour of Belfast and covered a lot of the political history of Northern Ireland. I thought this was a subject that I was pretty well versed in but I had no idea how little I actually knew. I certainly had no idea that to this day portions of the city are divided into Catholic and Protestant by these huge walls that get locked every night. It was a real eye opener. In the afternoon I had to do some work so I headed back to Established Coffee which I’d become an immediate fan of. In attempting to find my parents I ended up at The Dirty Onion which is a really nice beer garden and the gorgeous weather made it a perfect place to hangout for a pint.Oh, also worth noting that this place is set around the remnants of the oldest building in Belfast.  In the evening we went to dinner at Holohan’s which is in an old barge moored on the river and serves excellent food.

After an annoying overnight connection back through London this morning found me in Belfast, Ireland. My parents were arriving later in the day so I had some time to kill. I headed over to Established Coffee to get some work done while I waited for them. Once they turned up we walked around the city center and ended up in Victoria Shopping Center, a critical destination for my mom. Afterwards we had dinner at Mourne Seafood Bar where I’d highly recommend their signature dish, the seafood casserole.

On our last day in Sicily we hung out at the pool some more before heading down to Sunshine for lunch. Another great lunch and this place is right on the sand. We went in the ocean for a bit after lunch but then had to head out to catch various planes to various places.

Today was spent basically just lounging around the pool and hanging out at the hotel. In the evening we went to dinner in the little square by the hotel at Birreria Nettuna which was very good. I discovered this type of pasta called busiate (I think) that is apparently a big thing on the island and is still freshly made by hand every day by all the restaurants.

Relaxing kicked in fully today. Slept in, had breakfast at the hotel and walked down to the beach. I guess it was just a misconception on my part but the ocean was much colder than I anticipated. That being said it was quite nice once you got it. Hung out at the beach for a while and then walked back up to the hotel. In the evening we headed in to town for dinner at La cambusa. Once again, getting there was a major adventure. The restaurant is on the water and there was a maor festival for… something going on so once we actually arrived and stopped being lost it was quite nice.

Today was a travel day so it was mostly spent on trains, planes and automobiles. Flew down to Rome were it just so happened that I ran into a cute girl at the airport. We headed on to Sicily together to meet one of her friends from Russia and go to her gorgeous summer house in Salemi. Driving through Salemi was quite the adventure. Long story short; I don’t think I’ll ever be able to return to Sicily. Afterwards we headed to our place the Hotel La Tavernetta in Scopelo which was gorgeous. Below is the view from our terrace.

Not much excitement today. I spent most of the day hanging around The Collective catching up on work before running a few errands. In the evening I finally made it to Dishoom but just had a few apps because I wasn’t that hungry. It was still quite good. Headed back early to pack my things for the flight to Sicily tomorrow.