This past week I was really tired, and still sick. I know I say I am tired a lot, but I have had trouble sleeping because of my illness, and on top of that, we did travel to and from Spoletto. It has been a pretty normal week in regards to work load and activities. We did happen to watch the DvD of the Macchina of Santa Rosa that the mayor gave us, I think on Wednesday night. I hate to make my week sound boring, but a lot of it was spent doing homework, going to class, eating, or sleeping. Sounds like a good time, but the sickness created the need for all the sleeping I did, haha.
On Thursday, I woke up at the crack of 8 to go to my literature class at 9:30. It was a little bit of a frustrating class because the book that was ordered was a “selections” book, and the professor thought it was a complete edition. The pieces that the professor selected were not included in our book, for the most part, and so we had little to discuss. Perhaps being a literature major for 3 semesters at Capital before I changed to a minor (I have the major done except for the capstone) spoiled me. I am not used to people asking too many questions that I do not have myself. The girls in my class (as we are strictly a group of females in this class) ask the questions that I feel have the most obvious answers, when there are other classmates sympathizing with me and wanting to ask the more complex questions. I felt like I was in a 100 level literature class and not a 300 level, but hey, whatever works. Being in groups with students who mostly have gone to state schools has made me really appreciate my private education. I don’t want to put state schools down, but honestly, some of these girls are starving for personal attention, and since they get it here, they are asking the questions that I asked years ago. I feel like I have had a better and more thorough education at Capital than these girls are getting at places like UNLV or Iowa. There is in particular, a girl from Mount Union that sympathizes with me when I shake my head in this class. Anyway, that is enough of a plug for private education, haha. I went to Giulio’s to get a cappuccino with Lindsey because she had no one to go with, and our professor came with us. He told me that his friends saw the wedding story on the news and that the report indicated that I was in his class so he was getting lots of questions about me, haha. That was fun. Appearently he got married in the states so we talked a little about the hassles of trying to get married in a different country. It was good to have someone to sympathize with.
After class, I almost literally ran home to pack for our Southern Italy tour. Kevin picked up some pizza from up the street, and we ate quickly. Though I did a fair job of packing, during the trip I realized that I was missing several things, but luckily I remembered essentials like contact solution, which I seem to be running short on.
We ran across town to our bus, and in Mediterranean tradition left a half hour late. We drove for about 5 hours, the last of which was full of fun twisty curves that made me have to sit far forward on my seat to see over the heads of the two rows of people in front of me. Seeing out the bus window would later get me the “shot gun” fold down chair in the front of the bus next to the driver: the perks of having a reputation for getting sick on buses. We arrived in Sorrento, got our room assignment and key, and went upstairs. We were really excited to find that our room had a view of the Mediterranean Sea and a balcony with two little plastic chairs and a tiled side table. I took some pictures of the bright yellow décor, and we watched some MTV with Italian subtitles, because we haven’t had access to TV since we were in Venice about 5 weeks ago, and we only caught one Olympic event there. We went upstairs to dinner, which was nice, but predictable. There was a cake for dessert, and I don’t know what was in it, but my texture aversion kicked in big time. How sad is it that I gave up cake? I find I do that a lot here in Italy. Usually the cakes are soaked in something like a liqueur, and the mushy cold feeling in my mouth is a problem. After dinner, we went to the hotel bar, which was a bright happy room with lots of couches, to hang out. We weren’t supposed to congregate in our hotel rooms (because it isn’t done here, I guess), so about 6 of us bought drinks and nursed them for an hour. I bought an “Alexander” which is milk, brandy, and crème d’ coco, and prompltly dropped it after two sips. So Danielle bought me another as a “wedding present,” haha. Our director eventually came downstairs and we sat with him and sipped our drinks. It was a little weird to think about the fact that we were “drinking with our director” but, it was more like we were drinking pop than cocktails, and it was probably about 20 minutes of that before our hour was up and most of the students (including the 6 of us) left to walk around the town. We went to one of the ports and I touched the Mediterranean Sea with my pinkie. We climbed down a lot of steps to get to the dock, and I dreaded the climb up, rightfully. When we finally fell out of awe with staring at the reflection of the city’s lights on the water, we made the climb back up to the hotel. It was miserably long. I honestly don’t think we could have made the climb before we lived here and walked everywhere; it was really rough. When we got to the top we walked around the upper layer of the town, and found a gelato shop that was still open, and we got banana and chocolate. The way back to the hotel was longer it seemed than walking to the gelateria, and we crashed into bed as soon as we got back to our room.
In the morning, we woke up at 7and went to breafast at 8, and then travelled to Capri, an Island in the Napoli bay. The ferry ride was nice, and I actually made it through without getting sick. I was impressed with myself. When we got to the Island, we jumped on the opportunity to go see the Blue Grotto with a whole bunch of the kids on our group. The Grotto was created when certain part of the cliff bottom was eroded, and a lot of sunshine shines from underneath the water, making t glow this gorgeous blue that is something else. We had a decently sized motorboat all to ourselves, and the trip took about an hour, as we zipped around the island, and then got taken by row boat into the cave. Kevin and I got our own rowboat, and didn't pay a cent extra for it while other kids in the group had 3 or 4 people in their boats. It was really nice, and we didn't even ask for it. The rowboat was interesting, as we had to sit in the very bottom of the boat, and our rower had to bend backwards and practicaly lay down on top of us, while pulling a rope to get in through the tiny hole in the side of the cliff. It was really nice, and probably my favorite part of our whole trip.
When we got back on dry land, we took the funiculare up the cliff to the top of the city (as all these are hill towns and perilously perched on the sides of cliffs). We walked around some of the back streets and were able to find a pathway up to the very top of the cliff. There were some beautiful views and we took probably about 40 pictures just of that spot. We adopted a seagull friend with a red beak, and two pigeons who were in the middle of mating season and trying to escape the males. The spot was completely empty of tourists for a long time, and then a group of carousing french boys came. We couldn't hear the sea anymore, so we decided it was time for lunch. We got toasted sandwhiches and gelato (I got lemon sorbet as we were in the part of Italy known for citrus fruit and limoncello, an after dinner licquer.), and sat on some steps to eat overlooking the sea. We were eventually met by some girls on our trip, and instead of taking the cable car down the hill as we had up, we took the stairs. When we got to the bottom, it was about 10 minutes until we had to leave, so met up with our advisors to get back on the ferry. We took a later one than expected because on this trip, everyone seemed to adopt that "30 minutes late" lifestyle. When I got to the front with my ticket, I was told by the ticket taker that it was the wrong ticket, and between his bad English and my newly learned and very limited Italian, we did not understand each other. I took the ticket to GianLuca (Francesca's main man) to ask what was wrong, but he speaks English like I speak Italian, so he gave me a new ticket. It was then I realized that I had the receipt ticket and not a real ticket. So they did let me on the ferry, but I was scared for a long time. We didn't get a good seat on the way back because of the misunderstanding.
When we got back to Sorrento, we loaded onto the bus to go to Positano, a little town on a cliff on the Amalfi coast. We drove for a while, I got sick, sat shotgun in the little fold down seat, and then the bus randomly stopped in traffic. We sat in the same place for about 2 hours. Our bus (yet again) was without a bathroom, and until the last 15 min or so, I was ok, but you know me. The kids on the trip whined and complained about the stopping, but there was a bus about a half mile ahead that was broken down in the middle of the street, and there was not way past unless you were in a small car or on a scooter. So we waited until they could move hte bus away. Eventually enough of us had to use the restroom that Francesca took us on a walk towards town to try to find one. We didn't find one in time, because of course the bus in the way gt fixed and our bus came to pick us up. There was no way to turn around if we weren't in town (and we couldn't get in town because police were directing traffic) so we had to drive the rest of the Amalfi Coast, and make our way to a highway about an hour and a half away to drive back to Sorrento. We did get to stop at the first cafe/gift shop with a parking lot big enough for our bus to go to the restroom, and there were battles in line, I swear. We drove back with me in the fold down seat, and we got to the hotel at about 9:30, ate dinner, and went to bed.
The next day we went to Pompei, but we left a half an hour late, of course It was Saturday, and there were a lot of people. We had a really great tour guide named Alisandro. He was great. We learned about the town and the volcanic erruption that destroyed it. We ate lunch, headed to Napoli, which I was petrified of. Luckily, all we did was get off the bus, walk through the palace there, walk to a main square and a mall, and then back to the bus where got a tour of the town. My shoulders got burned a little, but that was ok: they make it look like I live in Italy, haha. When we got back, there was another traffic problem, so we walked around town, and went back to the hotel. We got back in time for sunset, so about 10 of us ordered some drinks and sat up on the roof of the hotel to watch the sun set over the sea. It was really quite nice, though the conversation turned towards casual drug usage, which Kevin and I had nothing to say about, and it got a little awkward for us. Luckily, very shortly afterwards it was dinner time, and we got to sit at one of the big tables. The dessert was really good that night, it was a pudding thing with instant coffee granules and whipped cream. Tasty times. We tried to go to bed early, because the time in the sun wiped us out, but the girls in the nook on our end of the hall way were louder than you could imagine and were probably drunk because they kept slamming doors and giggling. It made me pretty mad, but since I am not an RA anymore, what could I do? On top of that, the girls in that room don't respect me in the first place, so it would not have done any good. So it died down a little after 1am, and we fell asleep.
In the morning, we piled on the bus, late yet again, even after threats of being left. We did manage to get to Caserta on time, and saw the castle after a long walk. We also saw the gardens. I liked the palace, but we've seen a lot of them lately, so my favorite part of the palace was the seasons rooms, where each of the decorations and frescos were done in a theme of the seasons in Italy. They were really awesome. The gardens were nice, and we ate lunch, during which I had pigeon issues. Seriously, the pigeons here speak Italian. They would not go away when I said "go" and shooed them. They would only leave when I said "vai." It was an interesting revelation. After lunch, we toured around the gardens a little, but didn't make it too far because they were designed to be seen by chariot, and so were really long. There were enormous fish in the fountain and we took pictures. When we had to start walking back, we ran into Francesca and GianLuca, and the four of us hired a little horse and carriage to take us to some things we had not been able to see. We got to see this other castle created as a toy for an 8 year old king and a lake where there were staged military battles. It was really a lot of fun. We got back, waited a half hour for about 5 people, walked the 20 minutes back to the bus, and rode the 4 hours back. We made dinner and slept for almost 11 hours when Kevin had to wake up for class today, and I had to write this journal.
So that about wraps things up. I have another 2 minutes before I get kicked off, so it's a good time to go. I will try to post pictures when I get the time, and when we get them labelled on Kevin's computer. Mom, don't forget to water my plants!
A Presto!
Doreen