WAKING UP AT 4am SUCKS. But after forcing myself to get up and shower it actually wasn't too bad. We took to the rode soon after and drove to Messina. At 7 we took a boat from Messina to Stromboli island, which took about an hour and a half. The island is shockingly small at first but it gets a little bit bigger as you walk around (only a little).
This is about the entire island, and there's no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell for the placement of anything. Once we got settled into the hotel (very nice hotel), Ciccio, Marco, Mack and I all immediately took like 4 hour long naps and it was amazing. We are sharing a room and I'll post some pictures of them all sleeping while I was awake to show you the room.
In addition to the large hotel room by European standards, it also has the largest shower I've seen and it's wonderful. I'd never thought I'd miss my shower at home but it's hard not being able to move your arms freely while showering. I have hit my elbows on almost everything in the shower at ciccio's house. After we woke up, we went to the black sand beaches. While trying to avoid burning our feet, we finally got to where we would set up camp. 15 minutes later when Mack and I were going to go swim Marco found several jellyfish and we had to leave the beach so no swimming for today. For dinner we went to a place up the volcano that could only be reached by a 15 minutes car ride that these 2 mini minivans taxi'd people up. Imagine a 4 foot wide minivan driving up a 4 foot 4 inches wide road and that's basically what we did. The road was all uneven cobblestone so incredibly bumby and very sharp turns, kinda scary.
This held 7 people, a baby stroller, a baby, and a driver. Anyway once we finally got to the restaurante it was bellissimo (gorgeous). The volcano erupts about every 15 minutes and in a pitch black sky you'd see chucks of red rock flying into the air and you could watch it roll down the hill. Absolutely amazing. However, because it was so dark I couldn't take any pictures if it and have them turn out visible. Hopefully I'll be able to get them off of ciccio's go pro once we get back to his house. Once we got back to the hotel I also had the pleasure of video chatting with Chandler, even if the video was very glitchy as he put it. Well that's all for today! First day in Stromboli!