Sicilian bike sales plummet
When I arrived back in Messina today, the main order of business was to try and sell my bike. I'm not planning to do any more cycling in Italy (or anywhere else in Europe), so I don't need it any more. Unfortunately, I didn't have any success in flogging the daym thing off to anyone. I spent about an hour cruising around the streets of downtown Messina, looking for bike shops that might be interested in purchasing it. I only found one place that was a dedicated bike shop: they flatly declined interest in the bike, saying that they only sold new bikes, and that none of their customers would be interested in my third-hand (at least) piece-of-junk. The only other place I found was a hardware store, but they also sold a few bikes: they too had no interest in buying. Doesn't anyone want a nice, cheap Roman bike here in Sicily?
As a last, desperate measure, I tried offering the bike on the street this evening: just before I stepped on my train out of Sicily, I wandered around the central train station, loudly advertising the bike as being for sale, and offering it to anyone who happened to be standing around. Finally, I gave up, and I just gave the daym thing away, 5 minutes before I stepped on the train — I'm not a very good businessman, I know; but I can't take it back to Rome with me, and nobody wanted to buy it.
Apart from the unsuccessful bicycle peddling (no pun intended), it was another lazy afternoon today (like yesterday), mainly spent online. At least Messina — unlike most places in Sicily — has an abundance of cheap Internet cafes that are open all day long. I grabbed some of that most fabulous of Italian fast foods for lunch: baked focaccia slices, covered in pizza toppings. Also had a strange liquidy ice-cream and break snack, during the afternoon: apparently you're meant to dip the bread in the ice-cream, and to eat it like that; didn't taste amazing, but apparently it's something of a delicacy. I finished off the day's pigging out, with a giant salami pizza, that I devoured whole and hot in one of the city's many pizza joints. Seems that I'm already starting to make up for all the cooking and self-catering I've done lately: time to indulge once again.