I had the best weekend ever. Chloe and I traveled to the Almafi Coast Thursday night. It was an 8 hour bus ride which was interesting but they played 3 movies in English. It helped pass the time, also, so does girl talk, haha. We met some other kids from Gonzaga which is in Washington state...I'd never heard of it but they're D1. We stopped once at an AutoGrill which is glorified, nicer gas station store...nice stuff though. We got to Sorrento at 2am...somehow we got lucky and were put in the hotel apartments. So five of us girls had our own apartment. It was so sweeet! So we basically just passed out for the night right when we got unpacked and everything because we had to be up pretty early if we wanted to go to the island of Capri.
Friday we got up and got ready to get ourselves to the Ferry by 9:15am. We rode the ferry over and a half an hour later we got to Capri. Capri was very cute once you got off the ferry. The whole city is basically built into the mountain. Our guides told us about this market near where we got off with the best Caprese sandwiches, I can't even explain how amazing they were. It was fresh mozzarella, tomatoes soaked in balsamic vinegar and basil, and also basil leaves. I had them add a little turkey on mine. The flavor was so amazing. Our guides also told us that if we wanted to see the Blue Grotto, guaranteed, it was probably a good idea to do it right away because sometimes the tide can get too high.
We had to make a decision because we originally wanted to do the intense hike up the the top of the island but I couldn't pass up the Blue Grotto. We debated on renting a private boat but we only had 6 girls and it would've been semi expensive. Instead, we took a smaller boat with other tourists and it was a lot cheaper. All of us girls took over the bow of the boat and chilled up there. Chloe and I tanned in between the sights. We boated around the whole island and the boat drove into different grottos. The way the light hits the water in a grotto is amazing. We went through the tunnel of love and before we hit that we drove by this huge boulder rock with a statue of a person waving at us. Our tour guide told us the story goes...to say "Ciao" and you'll make love tonight. I think he just made it up and he really wanted to get laid by one of the six of us. (All the other people on the boat were older...he could be into that though...ha)
As we got closer to the Blue grotto we came across a cave that had two outlets, I immediately asked if we could swim in it. He said "shhhh" and then let us jump in! It was SO amazing. The water was still warm on October 1st and so blue/ green. All 6 of us jumped in and were making a lot of noise, everyone was so excited.
After we climbed back in we headed to the Blue Grotto. We split up and got into small row boats...there were four of us in my boat. It's funny because they have a boat near the small cave entrance that housed 3 men. These men had a table on the boat and were there to charge you 11 euro each to go into the Blue Grotto for about 5 minutes...haha. I didn't care though, I had to see it. My mom and dad have been telling me about how they saw it on their honeymoon.
After we paid, our paddle guy told us the quickly lay down and we slinked are way into the grotto. It seemed like a roomy cave at first but as we road our way in the magic happened. The water was ELECTRIC blue...nothing I've ever seen before. Pictures that I'd seen before made it look cool, but actually being there was unexplainably glorifying. Our guy had a beautiful singing voice and sang us a beautiful italian song. It was perfect. I wanted to swim but there were a lot of those damn pink jellyfish that day. We got back to our big boat and climbed back in...I was all smiles. Everything was perfect. After we got back to the shore, Chloe, Olivia, Emily and I hiked up to the shopping center of Capri. We looked around for an afternoon snack since we ate a huge sandwich at 10am. We found a cute caffe with homemade goodies. We also found a limoncello store that gave out free samples, that was fun. At the caffe I had my first cannoli since I've been abroad. It was very yummy. Chloe and I bought some postcards and the four of us window shopped. We headed back down the island to take the ferry back to Sorrento. We hung out with the little time we had left and bought some touristy t-shirts that said Capri on them. The ferry was relaxing and gave us time to rest our legs. We found an amazing seafood restaurant that our guides recommended and went to dinner there. I had 'fish soup' which was actually a bunch of steamed seafood with seasoning and olive oil...the freshest seafood. I even was able to have squid! I loved it, and the prices weren't terrible. Dinner with the girls was a lot of fun. Olivia ordered crawfish which she didn't know how to eat (they were shelled).
Later on, we met everyone at the Old English Pub down the street which the tour company got us drink specials at. The bar was in a rooftop garden. Drinks were good and hanging with friends was fun but the DJ sucked. Seriously sucked. Other than that it was a good time. The four of us took a taxi home and our taxi drived played Lady Gaga's Alejandro for us...when we were singing he told us "No, no, no...we're in Italy...Alessandro!" So we were all singing that, it was hilarious. Then 'we no speak americano' came on and that beat pumped us up, ahhhh good memories. We all came back to Chloe and my apartment. We sat on the step with some wine and nutella (random but good). It was a good night.
Saturday, we got up a little later and took a taxi to the bus station. The taxi rolls up to pick us up and it's a Mercedes van. We get to the bus station and he tells us he'll give us a deal to take us privately to Positano, that was an obvious yes. The drive was super windy but really pretty. When we got there we had sandwiches for breakfast again and I had my favorite cannoli so far. By far, much better than the day before. The taxi had to drop us off at the top of the island which meant we literally walked down hill for about 30 minutes just to get to the beach. It gave us a chance to see a lot of Positano I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise, so in all it wasn't a bad thing.
Once we finally got down there we met my friend Kelly and joined a group of people from the SUF program. We rented a private boat, 17 of us. We went out on the water and pretty much immediately went cliff diving (that's a story in itself). When we got to the cliff jumping spot, I hopped off the boat right away... I was so pumped. I went right up the the 40 ft cliff. They told me to make sure I did a pencil dive. I had that in my head but got to the edge and realized there was a ledge about 10 feet below me that if I didn't make sure my jump was far enough out, I could hit it. So now my mind was all on the ledge and making sure I jumped out far enough instead of the damn pencil dive. A guy behind me said, "Sometimes in life you just have to jump" and I just jumped. I remember feeling this rush of free falling which was amazing and at the same time trying to catch myself because it was my natural instinct. As I fell towards the water, my butt and legs slammed against the water. Hitting water from 40 feet up is basically like hitting concrete. I couldn't move my legs and used my arms to pull me towards shore. A couple of my girlfriends pulled me the rest of the way. I got on the boat and my legs were bright red. I was pissed. I wasn't pissed that I did it, I was just pissed at how much pain I was in. I sat there for about 15 minutes and then every one got back on the boat. We drove over to a beautiful grotto and I jumped back into the water. I wasn't going to let the cliff jumping scare me away. I swam through the grotto and then broke off from the group with 3 other girls and explored a grotto around the corner. We got "Gino" our cute boat driver to come in the water with us and he took us into an even smaller cave, it was amazing. To be in that tiny cave and look out at the huge sea rushing in, I will never forget.
The four of us and Gino got back into the boat. We hung out and talked for a bit before we picked up the rest of our friends while yelling 'Ciao' to them as we drove by like we were gonna leave them. We went to the next grotto which I quickly took my cover up off to jump in the water. I was the only one in the water and I was yelling to everyone to get in the water!! They finally got in and we same into this small cave that was FREEZING cold. I told myself to just deal with it because it was probably beautiful inside and it really was. Everyone was screaming in excitement of the cold water and the water was this gem colored blue green. It was really unique once inside because warm water was mixed with the freezing cold water. We stayed in there for a good few minutes. Everyone loaded the boat but I went to go check out this little opening I saw. I found a secret cave and swam in it for a minute. It was one of the coolest experiences ever because I didn't know what I was going to find inside.
When I got back on the boat Gino, the boat driver wanted me to drive the boat. Once I dried off I came over and sat next to him. I drove his boat ;) He told me, "You are a great captain, and you're very beautiful." I blushed, haha. We talked for a little bit while I drove us back to the shore. When we got to the dock, I was the last one off and he took my hand, said "Ciao Alex" and kissed both my cheeks. It was adorable, a perfect ending to a perfect day :-)
Once we got back on shore, I broke off from the group and bought a bathing suit. I also got some yummy gelato and went back to lay on the beach with Kelly. She left with her tour group at 5...Olivia, Emily, Chloe, and I left on the Ferry around 5:30. It felt so good to sit down...my legs were starting to bruise at this point. We stopped for dinner once we were back in Sorrento and had fresh pizza. A tourist was taking a picture of the Italian waiters and then randomly took a picture of the four of us girls. It was pretty weird but we all laughed...he was older and there with his wife, lol.
We bought a couple bottles of wine after dinner and were planning on playing cards back at the bungalows. Chloe and I went back to the apartment to take a 'nap'....that nap ended up not ending until 7am the next morning. I slept so well and was so rested for Pompeii....which ended up being a good thing because we had an adventure there as well, omg.
We got up pretty early to spend the day in the ancient city of Pompeii. We had to be back at the hotel by 4pm so we could hit the road and get back to Firenze. We got off the very rough and uncomfy train to Pompeii. I popped four advil because my legs and butt were killing me.
The tour company we traveled with told us the day before that we should grab a sandwich and fresh squeezed orange juice right outside the gates of the ancient city. We did that and I was obsessed with the orange juice. I want orange juice like that everrrrrry day!
Pompeii was SO vast and spread out. I've never really seen any type of ancient ruin so I was pretty overwhelmed by the beauty. After a couple hours, we found a fresco of the Goddess of Love, Aphrodites. I was really happy we found it because
1. I didn't know it's home was Pompeii
2. We had just talked about that Goddess and that fresco in my Classical Mythology Class
Later on we tried the find the brothels and horror houses. We had no idea where they were so I went up and asked a tour guide. He told me the directions. Afterwards, I realized how crazy of a question that must of seemed to him, hahaha. We ended up somehow follow a legit yellow brick road and left the ancient city. We still don't know how...
Anyways, we got lost in the residential side of Pompeii and the 'young' city. We had to slink our way down tiny streets and the locals kept beeping at us...scaring me many times. At first I didn't mind the detour but after a half an hour of walking my legs were starting to hurt from the bruising. I was not happy. I was determined to get back to the train station so we stopped people to help us with directions. Probably another 45 min. later we finally found the train station.
First thing was first, we needed water. After we got hydrated we stopped again for another fresh orange juice and amazing sandwich. We caught the train back to Sorrento with plenty of time to spare. When we got back to Sorrento we found a taxi to take us back to the hotel. We get in, he starts driving and I'm thinking "where the hell is he going?"
I let him drive for a few minutes and then I ask him where he thinks we're going, our hotel is the other way. He goes "Oh, Mama Mia. I see the pretty girls, and I go the wrong way." I just said, "You're not charging us for this." Hilarious now but he was an idiot.
We got back around 11:30pm, safe and sound. I uploaded the pictures right away because I loved the weekend so much.
Tonight I'm going to a play with Holly and my host mama...I'll write more later, need to get dressed!!
<3<3
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