Rather un-fantastic, this picture represents the more mundane aspects of our trip: in addition to sleeping in hotels, we spent a good chunk of our time on the bus, always as a group but sometimes individually and sometimes together. The protractible seats served us well as we slept, listened to music, or thought restfully, and their proximity made it easy for songs and conversation and games of “Contact” and “VMASH” and joking around and making fun of Kim (not too meanly), and at one point even a small presentation on the Aeneid. The adjacent windows lent us their view of the passing scenery and people, which, in the city and in the country, provided our imaginary pictures of Sicily, perhaps too influenced by the stereotypes of its ideally bucolic nature, with real nuances. And, let me not forget our driver, Carmelo: a native of Palermo whose good-humored personality I got to enjoy through conversation, and whose driving deftness made a quick impression on us when, on our way to Erice or Segesta, he and a fellow passing bus conductor skillfully wedged their way past each other and converted the narrow road of a quaint Italian town into a slow-motion two-lane highway.