Last weekends adventures...

I downloaded more pictures from the Amalfi Coast, Positano, Pompeii, and Mt. Vesuvius. If you don’t want to watch the whole slideshow again, I think you can just click in and it will open the whole album so you can skip to the new ones…

Thursday night we left for the Amalfi Coast with the FlorenceForFun group designed for American students studying in Italy. It took about 7.5 hours by bus to get to the coast, but it actually wasn’t that bad. We watched a few movies on the way which I completely soaked up. I hadn’t realized how much I missed watching movies, and Elf was my favorite. It reminded me that even though I will miss Italy when I leave, I am happy I will be home for Christmas. We also experienced an Italian truck stop, (Auto Grill) which was a million and ten times more accommodating than any truck stop I have been to in the United States. They cook fresh food from a pre-set menu, had very nice bathrooms, and even sold little bottles of wine to go with the food they served. We finally checked into our hotel around 2 am and passed out.

Friday we had our complimentary breakfast of a roll, croissant, and the least concentrated coffee I have ever consumed. At least it contained caffeine. We then got on a ferry to the Island Capri which was so fun! The inside of the ferry reminded me of an airplane since they had seats lined up exactly like an airbus, but with a lot more legroom. Once we got to the Island we took a boat ride with a tour guide and were able to go into the blue grotto. This is what Capri is famous for because the water looks almost as if someone had painted the bottom of the grotto a bright blue. To enter the grotto you get in a really tiny boat and they pull you through a very tiny entrance into the cave. Once inside the water illuminates everything with a beautiful bright blue color. After the grotto we split up for lunch and beach time. My friends and I ate at this restaurant that overlooked the ocean which was beautiful; however the bees liked to hang out there too. The waiter was very determined to rid our table of bees and even took some clams of my plate and tried to lure the bees to a different table, all the while making whistling noises as if it were a dog. A bee returned and my waiter surprised all of us when he squished it in his bare hand. We then hung out at the beach for a few hours and just enjoyed the coast. That night back at our hotel we discovered at least 10 daddy long leg spiders (I stopped counting when I got to 10) in our room and a centipede on the wall which managed to make its way into my shoe by Sunday morning.

Saturday, we had all day in Positano. Unfortunately I left my sunglasses in Arizona and by this point I really needed something to protect my eyes. I spent a good hour searching for sunglasses cheaper than 22 euro, but there was only one place all along the entire beach that sold sunglasses (it was defiantly a sunglasses monopoly). Finally I was able to relax on the beach with a strawberry daiquiri (I know, not very Italian but it was good). Later that night we went out to a few different discos in the town and even managed to get squirt by a water gun by a random car… It kinda reminded me of Tempe, Arizona.

Sunday we went to both Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. Pompeii was unbelievable…it was my favorite part of the trip. There is something very mysterious and exciting about walking around the ruins of a very old city. After Pompeii we were able to climb Mt. Vesuvius which was a steep hike, but very worth it.