Southern Italy

Ciao everyone! Thank you for keeping up with me through the blog. I love reading the comments!

My roommates (Kelly and Karen), 5 other girls in our building (Melissa, Ashley, Meg, Kelly, and Darian) and I signed up to go to Capri, Sorrento, Amalfi Coast, Positano and Pompeii with a student travel company called Bus2Alps. They provide transportation and accommodation. On Thursday (9/25) we met the group at the train station at 7pm and we traveled by bus to Sorrento. On the way we had to pick up 10 people from Rome. There was a lot of traffic and we didn't end up getting to Rome until around midnight. We finally arrived at the hostel in Sorrento at 2:30am and were in bed by 3am. The hostel was actually really nice and was recently built in June I think. Everything was very clean and it was very safe. It felt like a hotel with dorm rooms. There were 10 girls in our room. We had to leave the hostel at 8am the next morning to catch the ferry which was a 35 minute walk away. The views were AMAZING and soo beautiful! The ferry ride wasn't bad and we arrived at Capri in about 10-15 minutes. Darian has been to Capri at least 10 times during her summers growing up with her family so she knew how to get around. Instead of taking the tour boat around Capri first thing with the Bus2Alps group, we took convertible taxis all the way to the top of Capri and walked around the shops. There were soo many cute stores. Capri is known for its handmade leather sandals and the bell of Capri charm on bracelets, necklaces etc. Some of my friends got sandals but I didn't think that they were that comfortable or worth the money so i passed on them. We got lunch at a place called Villa Verde and there were TONS of pictures of celebrities who had eaten there. Mariah carey had at least 20 pictures up on the walls, Jay-z and Beyonce had a few pics and also chris martin from coldplay. The food and wine were awesome! unfortunately we didn't see anyone famous while we were there. After we had lunch, we took taxis back down to the Marina Grande. We had a lot of time left before we had to meet back up with the group so we decided to take a boat ride around capri. The blue grotto was closed due to rocky seas so unfortunately we didn;t get to see that. We all pitched in to rent a private boat for 2 hours and our captain was named Marcello. We put our swimsuits on while touring the different grottos. There was a white grotto and a love grotto and one with orange coral all along the water line. They were all soo pretty! We took a ton of pictures from the boat. Finally Marcello took us to a spot where we could go swimming off the boat. the weather was perfect and the water was so warm! we all jumped off the edge of the boat and had so much fun swimming around. The sun was just starting to set as we headed back to the marina and it was such a relaxing and beautiful time of day. When we got back to the marina, we were all freezing because the sun was going down so it wasn't as warm out anymore. I had to buy a Capri sweatshirt because my coverup got soaked on the boat. We met back up with the group and took the ferry back to Sorrento.
Darian's father has a lot of family friends in Italy because they spend a lot of time here and he conveniently had a friend based in Sorrento. He called him up (his name was Rafaelo but his nickname was Lelo) and Lelo just so happened to own a hotel in Sorrento. So he was waiting for us when we got back to the dock in Sorrento. He drove us to our hostel (so we didn't have to walk the 35 minutes in the rain and in the dark!) and we quickly gathered all our stuff and he took us to his hotel! All of this happened soo fast and it didn't even seem real! All of a sudden we go from staying at a hostel in the outskirts of Sorrento to being treated to a 4 star hotel in the center of town! We all showered and got ready quickly and Lelo told us to get dinner at the restaurant (all taken care of!). So we have dinner and then meet him and his father for a drink at the bar (his name was Mariano and he actually owns the hotel and is the one who is good friends with Darian's dad). their generosity was too much, we couldnt believe it. Later that night, all the girls went into town for some Sorrento nightlife. We found an Irish pub that was really fun so we stayed there for most of the night. The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel and Lelo arranged for someone to take us out on their speedboat! So our captain named Miguel took us from Sorrento all the way to Positano, where we anchored and swam/relaxed for a few hours. The boat was soo nice, there were 3 huge cushions along the back of it to lounge on. When lunch time came around, Miguel asked if we were hungry and we all said yes. He took us to meet up with their other sailboat called the Lucky Beggar where a chef named Gigi had cooked us the best lunch EVER! We tied the boats together and crossed over onto the sailboat. First Gigi started us off with these pizza/quiche things that were amazing. Then Gigi made penne with homemade tomato sauce and basil (absolutely delicious but so simple!) and then he brought out a huge bowl of tomatoes and basil and 2 of the biggest balls of fresh mozzarella that i've ever seen. He had made the mozzarella himself earlier that morning and it was the freshest and best cheese i've ever had in my life! and if that wasn't enough, he brought out a ton of fresh fruit, some cookies and cappuccino. We had to practically roll ourselves back onto the speedboat, we were all soo full! We took the boat back to the dock in Sorrento and took a taxi back to the hotel. Later that night we met back up with Lelo and Mariano to thank them for an awesome day on the boat. We went back to the Irish pub that night. The next morning we had to go back to the hostel to meet up with the bus2alps group so we could take the bus back to Florence.
We stopped in Pompeii on our way back to Florence. We lucked out because it was some culturaly weekend and the admission was free! (usually 11 euro without the tour). we grabbed some maps and some guidebooks for free from the info desk and did the tour ourselves to save some money. The ruins were amazing! I couldnt believe how well preserved some of the arches and pillars were. The theater was beautiful! It was a little scary because they say that mt. vesuvius can erupt at any time. I took some great pics while walking around the ruins. I didn't see everything but I saw enough.
Overall it was an AMAZING weekend with very unexpected surprises! I will honestly remember this trip for the rest of my life, it was so awesome!

On a boring note, I had my first quiz on monday in world religions and it wasn't too bad. Classes are all going pretty well still. I have my first quiz in italian on thursday which is going to be kinda hard because there's so much to remember!

This coming weekend I'm going to Lake Como and Lake Maggiori with Karen and Kelly through one of the school's planned trips. I heard it's gorgeous there as well, and George Clooney even has a villa there! Cross your fingers that i'll see him! Miss you all and love you!!

Ciao! Eliza xoxo