I know, I stink at blogging; I was doing so well for a while! Oh well, enough dreading on the past. The first weekend in October was amazing!!! Twelve of us from the Villa went on a trip to the Amalfi coast of Italy. It was so beautiful. This was also the weekend that it got real cold in Wisconsin--haha. We took a night train to Salerno...what a journey! When we bought our tickets ahead of time on a little computer kiosk in the main train station of Florence, we were under the impression the train would be like a normal train...you know, two seats next to each other, etc. Well, it was actually little cars of 6 people. And we could have filled two cars perfectly and been super comfortable...but we didn't get tickets next to each other...shoot! Anyway, there were four of us in our car and we were okay because the seats laid down and my friend Laura and I kind of cuddled all night. I got plenty of sleep...some people got none! In Rome, they turned the air conditioner off and everyone got so warm and gross. Anyway, we arrived in Salerno at 5:30 and were greated by rain! yay! I was in a great mood because I got so much sleep! haha We eventually found a bus to take us to the town of Amalfi.
Amalfi was so beautiful and right on the coast. Everyone headed toward the middle of town except my roommate Amanda and I bolted toward the pier to check out of awesome water! Eventually, we met up with everyone at the cafe they found. We watched hoards of children head up a hill to school--it was so cute! Then we headed back towards the water and relaxed on the pier in the cool 7am drizzle. We were trying to kill some time in the little cities on the way to Sorrento because we couldn't get into our hostel until 4pm. We eventually boarded a coach bus towards Sorrento with the intention of stopping in a picturesque little town called Positano. Well, this was a packed coach bus trip on the crazy windy hills of the Italian coast. We ended up missing the stop in Positano...and a few of us nearly got sick. I don't know that I've ever felt so car sick before. Maggie would have died for sure! It didn't help that people were standing filling up the aisles, our backpacks were on our laps, and it was stuffy. Anyway, an hour and a half later we made it to Sorrento and had to then find our hostel. I explained my car sickness feeling as someone had taken my brain out of my head, spun it in 100 circles and put it back in my head, upside down, and my stomach was in my throat. The fresh air helped and we made it to the hostel.
At that point, we had to wait an hour or so until our room was ready. The hostel restaurant opened back up for us and we had pretty darn good hamburgers. Then, we got our room and it was shower and nap time. Later, people decided to go out to eat for supper. Laura, Amanda and I weren't really hungry so we got a gatorade from the grocery store and found a park to hang out in. We all met back up at the hostel that evening and had a couple drinks on the beautiful rooftop lounge.
Early Saturday morning we were scheduled for an all day Capri boat tour. We thought we were going to get to hand out on the island of Capri all day--this wasn't the case..it was even better! We were sad when we first saw the boat...it looked like a little dinghy that would barely hold us all (the 12 of us, 2 Aussies, the captain and 2 of his friends). But, we started by boating to a little bay with a waterfall and jumped into the beautiful blue water. Then we drove to a nice rock where we "cliff dived"--not exactly a cliff, but it was probably 20 feet high or so. Then we drove around and saw some little caves where the bright water reflects onto the rocks. We eventually had lunch--the standard tomato, mozzerella, basil sandwich of Italy--and then headed on our tour again. We went to the champagne rock, the green grotto and many other picture perfect spots.
The highlight of the day was probably swimming in the blue grotto. Usually, there are rowboats hanging outside of the grotto and you pay to sit in one and row into the grotto. The seas were too rough and not the right conditions so it was closed. When we pulled up, our captain Andrea told us to swim in and be careful to swim flat at one part because there was a shallow rock. We said, "okay" and hopped right in. Inside was absolutely beautiful, everything was so blue. You have to google image search the blue grotto and check it out. I think it's kind of undescribable. Anyway, when we finally emerged from the grotto, we were told that it was quite illegal to swim in there...but it didn't matter--it was so great!
We continued on the boat tour and got some good views of Capri and Mount Vesuvius. Our tour ended at like 6:30 at night and when we got back to the hostel we showered and got ready for supper. We went out to eat with our new Aussie friends (yes, Libby, Aussies!). Amanda and I shared a quarter or half of chicken and some pasta...it was delicious and cheap. After supper we went back to the hostel and hung out on the roof there again.
Sunday, most of the group wanted to go to Pompeii. Two people were going back to Florence early to save a little money and get home earlier to get work done. While I wanted to go to Pompeii, I decided I had to head back to Florence so that I could get to church that weekend. Andy, Diana and my trip home ended up taking quite a while. Our trip from Rome to Florence took four hours and we were expecting it to take and hour and a half...i guess that's what we get for taking a regional train instead of a Eurostar.
Anyway, we made it home at 5ish and mass was at 6 at the Duomo (Cathedral). Diana and Andy went home and I hung out on the steps of the Duomo until mass. Then, I went home and got some supper and tried to absorb all of the wonderful events of that weekend. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've had.
Check out facebook so some pictures from it...I'll try and add pictures to this when I get back from fall break in a week.
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