Day 35, April 3.

Monica took pity on me and graciously paid for a flight for me to Sicily, instead of my having to take an all-night train. That was so nice of her!

Wow, coming into Catania and Belpasso, Sicily was like stepping into a world of chaos. People driving the narrow streets in all directions with no streetlights or stop signs, avoiding people walking on the side of the road or riding mopeds. Garbage lining the sides of the streets. Many young men all over the place, apparently not able to find work. It definitely had a third world feel.

Yet, stepping into Peppe Longo’s parents’ house was like stepping into a tiny slice of paradise, with its beautiful marble staircase and beautiful sculpture in the middle and looking out the back deck over the garden onto Mt. Etna, the largest volcano in the world; in fact the largest mountain on earth measured from ocean floor to the top.

But it was really cold there—something I did not expect at all, and the dreaded cough started. The biggest mistake I made on this entire trip was not listening to wisdom and not walking out of Tammy’s house and getting a hotel the moment I saw her kid was sick and coughing all over the place.

My symptoms have mirrored hers exactly, because hers started with a fever, tended to subside for a couple of days and then came back as a bad cough. And for me to be coughing in someone else’s house is extremely uncomfortable for me. And because the two-day training there had been shrunk to a two-hour training and only one person had yet committed, and a few other reasons, all of a sudden my wisdom got my attention and said, “You need to get out of there.” Then I felt guilty, but I decided, as I usually do, that guilt thoughts are not to be taken nearly as seriously as wisdom thoughts,

I screwed up my courage and broke the news to Peppe that I was going to leave, after all the work he had put into this, and I was really sorry but it was something I really needed to do. He was kind of crushed but very gracious and I felt terrible about that, especially because a fellow named Silvio was supposed to be flying down from Milan to attend (he was the one committed) to help translate for me, and he was really looking forward to meet me.

So we reached a compromise and Skyped him and I did an impromptu coaching call with him while Peppe observed, which seemed to go well, but which totally drained me of the few resources I had left.

Meanwhile, we were supposed to be on the internet trying to get me a cheap flight out. I started coughing like a maniac and felt worse and worse. By well after midnight when we still found nothing and I was so cold and feeling so horrible and beyond exhausted, I was willing to pay anything—eat up my entire profits for the trip if I had to (if there were any in the first place), just to get out of there. Because there was no way I could handle an all day and all night (or worse) train ride, feeling like this.