{"id":25970,"date":"2014-09-26T11:49:33","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T09:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/?p=25970"},"modified":"2014-09-26T11:52:29","modified_gmt":"2014-09-26T09:52:29","slug":"su-story-of-the-week-marvellous-messina-and-im-not-messin-a-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/2014\/09\/26\/su-story-of-the-week-marvellous-messina-and-im-not-messin-a-round\/","title":{"rendered":"SU Story of the week: Marvellous Messina (and I’m not messin-a-round!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Monday, 3:00 AM, a beach in Messina next to the famous U Piluni (it looks like a pink Eiffel Tower and it\u2019s almost as famous as the French one). We\u2019re sitting on the beach by a bonfire, drinking \u201cMessina\u201d beer, singing Italian songs, chilling. It\u2019s a night of full moon and falling stars… suddenly, Lena, our German colleague, notes that she lost her mobile. \u201cDon\u2019t worry!\u201d said our Italian gentlemen organisers. \u201cWe will call you and we will find it!\u201d. We are calling… We don\u2019t hear the tone… and suddenly someone answers! We hear an Italian voice:<\/p>\n

\u201cHello?\u201d
\n\u201cWhere are you? Where did you get this mobile from?\u201d
\n\u201cLeave me alone, it\u2019s my mobile!\u201d
\n\u201cTell us where you are! We are looking for this phone!\u201d
\n\u201cPlease, leave me alone!<\/p>\n

He hangs up and doesn\u2019t answer again. \u201cThis son of a b*tch took the phone and is playing dumb! We will call him again!\u201d. the Sicilian boys screamed, and and they called seven more times. \u201cWe will find you!\u201d. After a while it turns out that Lena finds her phone in her purse and our boys forgot to add the dialling code to Germany… all the time they had been threatening a poor inhabitant of Milan, who might have thought that Sicilian mafia was going to kill him. That day, that moment I knew that the next two weeks with the Sicilians would be a crazy and mind-blowing experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Let\u2019s take Manuel Giofr\u00e9 (president of AEGEE-Messina), who plays the role of the Godfather in the antenna\u2019s promo movie. Well, such is the case in reality as well. This gentleman knows all the people in the city, including the police and the mayor. Thanks to this we were in a private meeting with local authorities, we talked to a film director and our driver in Cittanova was an Italian porn actor.<\/p>\n

The organizers took great care so that our program was as packed with adventures as a Japanese subway is filled with people in the rush hours. At the same time the organization was even better than the one in a Rolex factory. We squeezed each day like a lemon, having only four hours of sleep.<\/p>\n

First, we took a trip to Etnaland, the largest aquapark in Southern Italy. Then a trip to Calabria – to one of the most beautiful beaches in Italy: Scilla. Swimming in the sea in the colour of Powerade is definitely a thing you should do before you die. Our next checkpoint was Mount Etna. Yes, you are right! A volcano! But before we could take a beautiful selfie on top, we had to go through the black rocks, brown dust and red sands. In these circumstances, wearing flip-flops, as our friend Hussein did, was not a good idea. However, he doesn\u2019t know fear or pain. He prefers difficult paths to glory, because success tastes better after taking a huge effort. Mission accomplished!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Most of the SU participants used public transportation or ride bikes. In Messina we levelled up a little and drove everywhere by car. That was a breathtaking experience, because in Sicily there are no speed limits or traffic signs. Driving on the Italian roads is as safe as a rollercoaster ride. Fortunately, our organizers were masters of the steering wheel like Giamby Sofia in particular (a very aggressive driver, probably too much \u201cNeed For Speed\u201d) and Natalia Micali, who reminded me of Jason Statham and Charlize Theron in a movie “The Italian Job”. However, the return from any night club by car is a wonderful thing.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Ilenia Gurnale (Treasurer of AEGEE-Messina) could certainly write a guide book for Marco Polo, because she knows the best ice-cream shops and restaurants in the city. Messina is the capital of the worldwide famous pistacchio ice cream. Locals say it is better than drugs and after two weeks – I know they\u2019re right. Actually if you adore good food, there\u2019s no better place than Messina. A huge selection of regional food made me lie in bed after dinner every day, stuffed like a chicken. Lasagna, four kinds of pasta, pizza, arancini, foccacia, then ice cream, watermelon and pudding and red wine and coffee to finish off the feast. Ufff… La dolce vita<\/em>!<\/p>\n

Alright! Stand up and go out! It\u2019s almost midnight, so it\u2019s high time for clubbing. As Messina never sleeps, we don\u2019t sleep either. Tonight we\u2019re heading for an elegant club with a band (drums, trumpets, guitars) is playing in the middle of the beach. Beautiful Sicilian girls, looking like Armani models, are dancing to the rhythms of salsa. Could you punch me to see if I am not dreaming?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Written by Marcin Rau, AEGEE-\u0141\u00f3d\u017a<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, 3:00 AM, a beach in Messina next to the famous U Piluni (it looks like a pink Eiffel Tower and it\u2019s almost as famous as the French one). We\u2019re sitting on the beach by a bonfire, drinking \u201cMessina\u201d beer, singing Italian songs, chilling. It\u2019s a night of full moon and falling stars… suddenly, Lena, our German colleague, notes that… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":25974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[5,17],"tags":[1509,38,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25970"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25984,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25970\/revisions\/25984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}