Octopus Juice on my Glasses!

So far, Sicily has been everything we had hoped for. We enjoyed two days in the capital, Palermo. We were fortunate to arrive on a Saturday when the street markets are in full swing. They go on for blocks and blocks. The vendors yell out about their wares, trying to attract buyers. The vendors are broken down into type: cheese, olives, anchovies and capers, bread, fruit and veggies, and fish...many, many fish vendors. Most things were still sqirming. And evey kind of tuna imaginable! Often, most of the tuna was laying on the table, and the fishmonger would cut a huge slab off it when needed. It was crazy!!
In Jamie Oliver's most recent cookbook, he visits several towns in Italy and writes about their cuisine. One thing that he loved about Palermo was the variety of street food; that is a guy preparing food on the streets for sale, to be eaten right there. So, when faced with the street cooks, often having questionable methods of hygiene, we would ask "what would Jamie do?". Of course this would always equate to eating whatever was to offer. First, was boiled octopus. Goes in live, comes out dead, chopped and lemon juice squeezed on it. Apparantly, the head is the best part, which we also managed to try. We would argue that it is NOT the best part. So, after getting juice sprayed on my glasses, we moved to the next vendor. Gilles liked the octopus so much that he later ordered it in a restaurant--without the head! So when we approached the vendor selling boiled tripe and spleen in a bun, we jumped right in. Everyone else was doing it! Then came the vendor selling grilled bread with pepper, olive oil and tomatoes on it. This looked harmless. Then, they offered us local wine. Great, you think. As we're sipping the wine out of a plastic glass, they bring over the jug of wine--a 2 L reused water bottle, and insisted we have it. So, we sat on the sidewalk and drank our jug of wine (before noon!) while the proud locals looked on.
The people in Sicily have been incredibly friendly. We're in Marsala today and have some vineyard tours scheduled. We picked up our rental vehicle yesterday and survived the drive here...hopefully that luck will continue!