Gray's Academy

Today I visited Catania, the second largest city in Sicily. It was a perfect day. I took the train back to Taormina. The train hugs the coast. The downside? I have to get from the train station up the hill to Taormina. This is why most people travel by bus.

The bus from the train station to Taormina should be at the posted time, right? It wasn’t, and like most things in Sicily, it was serendipitous. There was a young man waiting for the bus who was considering taking the 500 steps from the station to Taormina. These aren’t your average steps. I hiked up to an ancient church last week and I wanted to turn around several times. Was it worth it? Yes. I did something difficult.

It was easy to see that Cristian was on a budget. I invited him to share my cab. He insisted on buying me a beer to reimburse me for the taxi.

Cristian was born in Romania before the days the end of USSR. He knows a thing or two about communism. His job is in IT. He works to help people get legal visas into the US. I didn’t know that it is not possible to visit the US from countries like Romania without a Visa. The flight risk is too great.

I asked him if he had ever been to the US and he told me that it would be extremely difficult to get a visa. He is single and therefore a flight risk, and he is educated. The US doesn’t want someone like him to visit.

Cristian said to me, “There is a fascination with communism right now in many places around the world. No one who has ever lived in a communist country would entertain that thought.”

We agreed, dictators are not what the world needs. And the beer was good too!