Yay for stealing the neighbor's wireless

I spent the first 2 hours of my day totally stressing out. Classes only go Monday through Thursday but my Michelangelo class has two meetings on Fridays during the semester and this morning was our first Friday class. We were to meet at Casa Buonarroti (as in Michelangelo Buonarroti for you non-artsy/totally non conscious people)… oh ok. Right. Casa Buonarroti … and this would be where?!? I asked my host fam and they said it was a quick walk from the Duomo. Oh ok, a quick walk…

So this morning I leave the house at 8:50 to go catch the 9:00 bus (yes, Tera took public transportation all by herself this morning); I was sposed to meet my class at 9:25 and I figured that 25 minutes would be plenty to get myself downtown. WELL. When the bus showed up 18 (yes, it was exactly 18) minutes LATE I started to panic. The entire way to the Duomo I had my phone out watching the minutes quickly tick by… I ended up getting to the Duomo around 9:40. THEN came the challenge of navigating myself to the Casa.

I have never felt like a bigger tourist. I had my map out and was power-limping (yes, my foot is STILL broken and walking is STILL painful) through the crowded streets like a mad woman frantically looking for the Casa. Short walk. My ass. Even if I had two good feet, it was still a good 15 minute walk from the Duomo. After asking 4 different people for directions and finding an old man to WALK me directly to the door I finally met up with my class… 40 minutes late. Ok, I am NEVER late. Being late, in my opinion, is the worst thing you can ever do. To make matters worse, I’ve been coming down with a cold for the past few days now and as soon as I met up with my class I broke out in crazy coughing fits… AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Anyways, Casa Buonarroti was really cool. It is a museum in a huge house that Michelangelo actually lived in during the 1500’s. We got to look at and discuss pieces such as Madonna on the Stairs, The Battle of the Centaurs, a model he made for the façade of San Lorenzo… how cool is that. Rather than learning from slides and pictures, I am in a class where we get to stand in front of the REAL pieces MADE by Michelangelo!!!

After a few hours at Casa Buonarroti a some friends from my class and I went and grabbed some lunch at a little café… can I just say right now that I LOVE LOVE LOVE “l’acqua frizzante,” (aka water with bubbles)?!? Cuz I really do.

After our little break our class met up again at Borgello to look at more Mike pieces (this time the Bacchus, and the Tondo). Loved it.

Around 2ish Marilena and I met up and spent the evening shopping around Firenze. We went to the Ponte Vecchio and talked about how when we’re older we’re going to make our rich husbands take us here to buy jewelry (EVERY store on the Ponte Vecchio was a jewelry store), then stopped and got some gelato, then bargained with some African purse people who tried to tell us that the purse we liked was REALLY Gucci and that it was worth 80 euro (right dude…), then we came across THE best market in Firenze: Piazza San Lorenzo.

Ok, ANYONE that comes to Firenze NEEDS to go to Piazza San Lorenzo. Marilena and I were so overwhelmed about the billions of stores and stands that we had to call it a day in order to go home and sort out in our minds the millions of things that we wanted to buy. I bought some presents for some of my favorite people soooooo, if you’re one of my favorite people be excited!!!

On our 2 mile walk home from San Lorenzo Marilena and I decided to stop in a grocery store to check it out… I mean, why not? It was pretty cool. Firstly, the cheese isle was liek the BIGGEST isle in the entire store; wait no, I lied… the pasta isle was the biggest isle. Really though, if you ever got trapped in a grocery store in Italy I hope that you like cheese and pasta cuz seriously that’s ALL you’re going to be eating. Hahahaha.

On a side note: Amelia is funny cuz today she called me from Oktoberfest to tell me that she was standing in a Starbucks with a coffee in one hand and a beer in another hand – haha, I love that girl. We discussed plans for our trip to Amsterdam this December… wooooo, so excited for that already!

Finally Marilena and I made it home and ACTUALLY got to doing homework; I know, what? Homework on a Friday afternoon? We’re such good students :)

Tonight we enjoyed dinner with Manual (who was wearing a sweater that he prolly owned when he was 8 years old… it was yellow and red and blue and the sleeves were about 5 inches too short). He speaks as much English and we do Italian sooooo it was pretty entertaining. We spent the evening talking about good clubs/bars to go to, toga parties, school, how me and Marilena look nothing but American, politics… yea.

It was disturbing to hear what he had to say about the whole September 11 fiasco. HIS take on it was that the whole thing wasn’t a terrorist attack at all and that it was Bush that set up the whole thing. He’s convinced that our president likes killing his own people and used Bush’s sending troops to war in the Middle East as evidence.

Whoa whoa whoa. Ok, Manuel. I know our president is retarded. And I’m sure there were ways he prolly could have prevented things with 911. And I know that he is pushing for war. BUT I’m pretty sure that he isn’t an American-citizen-killing-machine. It worries me to think that the whole world might think like this… what if the whole world thinks that we live in this place under a president that kills his own people??? Wow, that’s bad. Interesting to think about though.

Anyways, I’m back to homework. Tomorrow is going to be a looooonng day cuz we’re off to Ravenna! No clue what there is to see in Ravenna, but hey, who cares?!

So i thought this was kinda funny

This is an e-mail that i got from my TA in my Michelangelo class... it just shows that it's too fabulous here in Firenze to take spend time taking school seriously:

Hi Michelangelo folks,

Just a few things about our Friday site visit tomorrow:

--Meet at Casa Buonarroti, on via Ghibellina, (*not* school) at 9:25 a.m.

--Please bring your museum pass card. We'll need it for the Bargello entrance during the second half of the visit.

Also, after class on Tuesday there were at least six water bottles in the classroom. Out of courtesy to myself, Prof. Hatfield, and the Villa Rossa cleaning staff, pick up your trash before you leave the room and if you bring in coffee cups, return them to the bar.

As a final reminder, I can see your computer screens from the back of the classroom-- please don't make travel plans or send e-mails during class time.

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

--Anne

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... ciao!

Ho perso la voce!

Yesterday evening started at 5PM and ended at 4AM… I woke up this morning 30 minutes before class with a big headache and no voice but I’m not going to complain because last night was so worth it.

It all started at the mandatory lecture that we had to attend yesterday evening. For some reason, Marilena and I decided it would be a good idea to enjoy a little cocktail during it. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not alcoholics or anything it’s just that the prospect of having to sit in a hot room packed with Syracuse students and teachers to listen to some old guy lecture about his research on gender and the Italian family in contemporary Italy for two hours sounded too painful to endure!

So, after our last classes Marilena and I walked about two miles around school in search of a little store to buy wine at… It’s funny to me that our school is literally in the only part of the country where there are ZERO places to purchase alcohol; coincidence?? Hm. Anyways... after finally finding a place we each paid our 3 euros and shoved our bottles into our backpacks and headed back to school…

Once at school we realized that Syracuse prolly wasn’t going to be down with the two of us taking swigs out of a bottle of wine at THE inaugural lecture of this fall’s lecture series that half the school and teachers were going to attend SO we got creative. After buying two cans of Coke Light we locked ourselves in the school bathroom and spent 15 minutes chugging/emptying our sodas down the drain, opening one of our wine bottles with Marilena’s mini swiss army knife, then pouring the entire contests of the bottle into the two coke cans (I took a video on my camera; the entire time I was cracking up… were we REALLY in the bathroom doing this?!?!).

It was brilliant: two girls sitting in a school lecture sipping wine out of coke cans… no one suspected a thing (except our friends after who noticed we were wasted, haha)!!!

The lecture was less painful than I thought it was going to be though. Paul Ginsborg, a little British man that’s liek THE master of gender studies, was a fantastic speaker. He was very clear and funny and smart… too bad I could care less about gender in contemporary Italy. :)

After our drunken stroll home with my fabulously gay friend Adam and his roommate, and after more wine and dinner with the host fam Marilena and I hopped in a cab and headed down to the Duomo to meet the crew at Robin Hood’s.

A pub crawl was stopped there and the hot Australian guys that were leading it gave us stickers to tag along (it’s crazy how I really don’t pay for anything at nighttime around here). Several drinks and bars later we ended up at a discotek called, “Dolce Zucchero.” God I love dancing!!! Our SCU/Syracuse friends we were with decided to leave around 1ish but Marilena and I weren’t ready to go soooooo we decided to rough it on our own.

Then we ran into Eddy. Eddy is the guy I talked to on our first night out in Firenze that spoke only Italian and gave me his phone number (yea right that I’d ever actually call him). He turned into a total creeper AND WOULDN’T LEAVE US ALONE! Finally these two Canadian guys saw us trying to get rid of him and came to our rescue.

The Canadians turned out to be really cool; we left Dolce Zucchero with them and headed back to Robin Hood’s and were there for so long drinking and chatting that the people that worked there had to kick us out cuz they were closing!

By the time Marilena and I finally got home it was four in the morning… class this morning was painful to say the least. I didn’t open my mouth once (well, halfly cuz nothing would come out anyway since I have a frog voice right now) which prolly wasn’t good considering I was in Italian class… During our break I layed down on the couch outside the room and fell asleep!!! Yay for the weekend -- I can’t believe that it’s already Thursday! Maaan this week went by fast.

Ah – something else to remember: last night in her drunkenness Marilena decided to name her future daughter “Tera Lynn;” hahahahaha, I’m not sure if I should be more disturbed about the fact that she already knows what she wants to name her kids OR the fact that it’s getting named after me! God I love my roomie!

La Finestra Di Fronte

First of all: I GOT MY FIRST LETTER TODAY! I was getting worried for a while because I’ve given my address out to literally 20 people and I’ve been here for almost a month now and haven’t gotten anything!!! XO Grandma; thank you for my letter!!!

Anyways… last night our host fam had friends over for dinner and for the first time since I’ve been here I really really really disliked the food they made us. I’m ashamed to say that later I found out that the courses they prepared were very traditionally Florentine… ahhhh!

The prima piatte (first course) was a macaroni-esque pasta which i really liked (and fortunately felt full after eating); the seconda piatte (the meat course) was steak and mashed potatoes... sounds normal right? Well, I’m not really a big steak fan to begin with but I was willing to put on a good face for our host fam… too bad my steak was basically raw. I’m not kidding; it wasn’t juicing, it was liek still bleeding! I ate the edges of it (that were sorta cooked) and left the pink squishy stuff on my plate – our host fam then took the opportunity to point out to me that I looked totally retarded because as I looked around the table to see how much everyone else had eaten I saw that they did the complete opposite and ate the pink squish but left the cooked parts on their plate (even their guests son that was 10 years old did that)… Apparently Italians are vampires and I’m not quite ready to make that commitment yet… OOPS!

Then we had desert – psh, I’m the desert goddess and I was ready to eat anything that Susana prepared for us! So out comes this platter with a giant chocolaty, fruity, tart-like-thing on it… um yes please, Kike, I’d LOVE a big fat piece! The second I put it in my mouth I almost started gagging. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that the raisins had fat seeds in them (all the grapes here have seeds, making it inevitable that the raisins have them too) or if it was the ridiculously strong black licorice flavor I didn’t like, but there was no way that I was planning on putting anymore of it in my mouth. After a few minutes of moving it around my plate and pretending to eat it but not daring to eat anymore Kike caught on and embarresed me by pointing out my plate (which by then had a gigantic pile of brown goop on it) to the whole table. YES I AM AN AMERICAN AND DO NOT HAVE A SOPHISTICATED ENOUGH PALETTE TO ENJOY YOUR FOOD. There, I said it. :)

Today in Italian our class we (and all the other Italian 3 classes; 12 out of the 20 people in the room were SCUers) got to enjoy a movie on the big screen… We watched “La Finestra Di Fronte.” It was interesting… the story was about a gay, Jewish, Italian, pastry chef with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that almost convinces a girl to leave her husband and two children in order to run off with the rich banker (aka Clark Kent’s twin) across the way that’s been peeping on her through the window… It was actually a really good movie (lots of beautiful actors and actresses in it). Notgonnalie though the ongoing commentary that Bravo and I had throughout the whole thing made it even better.

My printmaking class was cancelled this afternoon cuz we’re moving into a brand new studio (!!!) which, unfortunately, wasn’t ready for us today. Oh well, I have some HW to catch up on today so it’s nice to have some downtime. Later I have to go to listen to this guy that specializes in gender studies lecture… BARF. Marilena and I have already planned to buy 2 bottles of wine before it… meeh, why not? Maybe we won’t be so bored… tonights going to be one of “those” nights (esp if we can convince our host brother to take us out); YAY! Hopefully I’ll have some fun stories to spice this blog up tomorrow…

Una Primavera a Firenze???

I can’t help but feel a little bit bitter that Steph is throwing a “rockstar party” at our house at SCU without me; last year we spent hours and hours trying to convince the boys at Peach to throw one and even had our twin (we always dress like twins at theme parties…) outfits all picked out!!! AH Steph! How could you do this to meeee?!?!? Whatever; not gonna let it get me down because hey! I’m in ITALY – an experience 1000x better than any “rockstar party” ever could be.

Tuesdays = class all day long for 8 hours. Aaaahhh… hm, what to say. I’m not enjoying my classes here as much as I thought I would. The subjects are all really interesting and my teachers are really interesting people BUT there’s a disconnect between the two. None of my teachers are very good at teaching… I sit in class and spend most of my time talking to the people next to me or drawing cartoons. A written conversation between Brittany and I today in Michelangelo went like this:
Me: “The only thing keeping me awake right now is the fact that all of my 20 bug bites are really really itchy right now.”
Brittany: “The only thing keeping ME awake right now is the fact that we’re sitting in the front row.”

A new development has come up recently: the prospect of staying in Italy for spring semester (!!!). I’ve been working on a “To Stay” and a “Not To Stay” list, then gave each reason a ‘significance score’ (1 = a thought, 2 = a pretty significant thought, 3 = a really really really important thought)… yea, I know, tera = dork, but so far I’ve come up with the following:

“To Stay”
1) I LOVE it here… love love love it; often times I feel a little bit happier/content with myself than I do at home or school. <3>
2) I have more than enough credits to be on track/graduate on time. <1>
3) Huge opportunities for my potential art career; if I stay I can get a really great art internship next quarter; I wanted one this semester but decided against it because it would have taken up a lot of my “traveling” time. <3>
4) All the kids that study abroad are usually pretty cool and it’d be nice to meet new people. <1>
5) Caitlin Sullivan’s gonna be here in the spring too. <1>
6) I am healthier here than at home; my diabetes is better, I’m thinner, I eat better, etc. <2>
7) I wake up excited about different things that I have to do EVERYDAY! <2>
Total -- 13

“Not To Stay”
1) I LOVE SCU (well, college in general)! I only have two years left and the thought of missing an entire one makes me really sad. <3>
2) I’ll miss Christmas with my family, New Years (one of my favorite holidays), AND my own 21st birthday… <3>
3) All SCU kids are leaving this quarter and none are going to be here next quarter… it’d be nice to meet new people but at the same time, maybe the fact that a lot of people from school are here is partly why my experience here has been so great already? <3>
4) It’s expensive and I know the money I earned this summer is only going to last me til the end of this semester. <1>
5) This may sound lame but I feel like I’d miss things about Alpha Phi; being here I’ve gotten close to a lot of the girls in my house and together we’ve all gotten really pumped up about all the things we get to do together when we get back. <1>
Total – 11

It’s close… Applications for next quarter are due first week of October which means I have a little bit over a week to decide – AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

mellow rainy day

I woke up exhausted this morning but it felt good to wake up in my own bed! Italian Class was cancelled today so I wasn’t due at school til 1:00 for printmaking. Today our printmaking class hopped on a bus and went on a little field trip to a hardcore printmaking school in Firenze. It was called “Il Bisonte.”

My printmaking teacher is an incredibly interesting person. His name is Swietlan Kraczyna. “Il Bisonte,” is one of the most prestigious printmaking schools in the world and people from all over go to it to study… and Kraczyna is one of the founders of the school! In the studio there is a framed picture of him on the wall! He pointed at a framed print next to it and was like, “oh this is a copy of one of my prints that’s hanging in the Uffizi…” WHAT?! It was very impressive, to say the least.

After our tour I hopped on the bus with friends from my class and headed back to school. It’s funny cuz on the bus there were some local kids playing music, only it wasn’t Italian music… they were listening to liek, Linkin Park, Shakira, Chiara…??? Hm. To be honest I’m really sad that they listen to so much American music around here; literally that’s all that I hear everywhere. If you have good Italian pop music, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send it my way! THANKS!

It’s raining today and I like it. It feels very peaceful. This evening I’m staying in and catching up on homework since I didn’t do ANY this whole weekend… :D ciao!

Firenze Sweet Firenze

Sunday began at 7AM when I awoke to the sound of a rooster “cock-a-doodle-doo-ing.” Yes, that’s how far out in the middle of nowhere our hostel was.

The hostel’s complimentary breakfast included cappuccinos (that tasted like beef jerky?) and a croissant (that I really didn’t like… I actually really don’t like the Euro version of croissants because they are waaaay too sweet; I’ll take my butter American croissants over the Euro ones any day).

At breakfast there was a girl sitting next to us that looked EXACTLY like Heather Davidson. I had to double take to make sure it wasn’t her! Ah, I miss my home friends so much and love love love them because they’ve all been sending me really nice facebook messages and e-mails. XO.

We checked out of our hostel at 10 then walked into town to start our trek back to Firenze. On the way Tamara and Michelle stopped and got sandals made for them (something that Capri is known for) and I was really jealous and wish that I didn’t run out of money!

After buying bus tickets we stood in a line/mob, in the blazing sun, with rude people (that thought I was Dutch… yay! That’s the first non-american origin that I’ve gotten!) that were all pushing and shoving even though there weren’t any buses coming. Oh yea. Did I mention that? As we were in line we found out that they CLOSED OFF THE STREETS TO ALL CARS TEMPORARILY. There was a race that day and we had to wait. Until. Every. Single. Runner. In. The. Race. Went. By.

About one hour later (literally) we finally managed to squish onto a bus into Marina Grande where boats left for Napoli. Other than Tamara almost flying to the ground when the bus screeched to a stop (on the steep roads of death) it was a pretty uneventful ride. The boat into Napoli was as beautiful as our boat ride to Capri and we all enjoyed it.

Napoli was still disappointing and gross when we finally arrived and after walking around the dock for, liek, 10 minutes looking for the trolly stop we arrived (with help from locals on the trolly) at the train station. At station we bought tickets (and was relieved to be on the same train as Michelle and Tamara) then got McDonald’s for lunch. Ok… I haven’t had McDonald’s in forever and it tasted fantastic!!! Best chicken Mcnuggets ever. I was very satisfied. Italian McD’s is funny: They had prosciutto burgers on the menu; they looked gnarly too.

After lunch we still had about 1 ½ hours til our train was due to leave so we looked at the schedule and went and parked ourselves on a bench near the track it was sposed to leave from… ok. IF YOU EVER TAKE A TRAIN MAKE SURE THAT THE SCHEDULE IS RIGHT AND THAT THEY DIDN’T CHANGE THE TRACK. We realized our train hadn’t pulled into the station yet and started to get confused because the time was 5 minutes AFTER the train was sposed to have left… Well, we realized there had been a track change in time to see our train pulling OUT of the station WITHOUT US ON IT.

After paying the difference for new train tickets (our original tickets were for the cheapest and slowest train to Firenze) we bought a bottle of wine and spent the next hour drinking and watching the stray dogs, that were running around the Napoli train station, fight with each other and pee all over signs and billboards in the station. It was really entertaining actually.

Our train was super nice but it was one of those days where the second things starts going great something goes wrong. Since we bought our tickets so late all of our designated seats were all separated from each other. We were the FIRST people on the train and decided to sit together anyways and hoped that it wouldn’t fill up… well the first people that came into our car (which was empty except for us) had tickets for our seats. At that point Marilena and I just got up and moved the 5 cars down where our seats were because we were so over dealing with problems.

BEWARE: On Sunday nights, the Rome Station is PACKED full of creepers, smokers, travelers, and beautiful people kissing beautiful people goodbye. Italians have no fear about PDA and for some reason when they do it, it looks very romantic, liek, I want to stop and watch rather then turn to my friends and talk about how rude that is.

On my walk to the train my foot was run over by wheely bags about 10 times and I was so anxious to get home to Firenze that I almost didn’t notice. On the train I was sitting next to Frotto (okay, it wasn’t Frotto, but I swear this guy looked EXACTLY like him) and by the we finally got back I was ready to pass out.

We left our hostel that morning at 10:30AM and I walked through my front door of my apartment in Firenze at 11:30PM. No joke. Longest, most frustrating day of traveling ever.

Overall though, it was a fabulous trip and I am so happy that I was able to go! It’s been a LOOOOONNNGGGG time since I’ve done a “girls weekend” like this and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Everyone was so much fun and down to earth that it made the trip very worthwhile.

At the same time though, it feels REALLY good to be back home in Firenze.

Capri e Anacapri

On Saturday morning I woke up to 8 million mosquito bites, 10 huge ant trails eating the dead bugs on our floor, and our beautiful ocean view… :) Ok so the ants and the bug bites were really gross but I still recommend our hostel to anyone going to Positano! Breakfast was included with our stay and it was fantastic; on the hostel patio we were treated to croissants and Nutella, yogurt, fruit, rolls, and espresso (which I literally drank about 7 shots of because I was really thirsty and drank it as if it was American coffee).

After breakfast we had an emotional goodbye with our “host family.” The four of us were really sad to leave them because they were such welcoming people. Now that I think about it, I’m a little bit sad that we didn’t take pictures with them… maaaan!

Then we trekked back down to the beach where to boats to Capri were docked. Tamara and Marilena both get seasick so we settled on one of the faster boats there (I wanted to take the fastest one because in the picture of it, it literally looked like it was airborne!).

The boat was awesome… seriously, the wind in the hair/beautiful view/perfect weather was breathtaking. I spent most of my time spying on the young Italian couple sitting in front of us. They were totally Dolce and Gabana’d out; D&G jeans, D&G belts, D&G shirts, D&G glasses… PLUS they were both beautiful; I felt like I was looking at a walking D&G ad.

On our way to Capri, Tamara got a phone call from her sister’s husband who had some sort of work involved with hotels and he said that he was friends with a guy that ran one of the 5 star hotels on Capri and that he was going to see if he could get us a room for the night… WHAT?!? We were all freaking out! Unfortunately it didn’t work out because the hotel was totally booked (and I’m not surprised of that in the slightest since the entire island was JAM PACKED with rich tourists). Tamara and Michelle walked to check it out (I stayed behind cuz of my foot) and they said that it was incredibly beautiful; oh well, maybe next time?!

After arriving at Capri we congregated in a little dark ally to discuss our plans for the day. We decided on shopping (Capri is known for its fantastic little boutiques). Unfortunately everything costed bank and since I didn’t have an infinite amount of money to spend all I was able to afford was a 5 euro Italia hat from a souvenir store… hahahaha, i love love love my new hat though and wore it all day!!!

In order to get up to the part of the island with all the shops you had to take the “funiculare,” (basically a tram/elevator that moves people up and down since the island is very cliffy and hilly). The line/mob to get on the funiculare was ridiculous and fortunately Michelle made friends with the people standing in line in front of us and the 6 of us decided to share a cab up to the shopping area.

All the cabs on Capri were convertibles. HOW COOL IS THAT?! The streets in Capri were no different than the streets on the Amalfi Coast and again I felt like we were all going to get flung over the mini barriers on the side of the road and thrown over the cliffs into the ocean; fortunately we survived.

The people we shared the cab with were middle-aged, from Chicago, and had two daughters that had just gotten out of college. The husband was hilarious. At the top of the hill he ended up paying for the whole ride – he was telling us about how his daughters, right out of college, were broke and I think that he felt bad for us since in a few years we’re all going to be broke too. Sad thought, but we were thrilled to have gotten a free ride!

Being in Capri made me feel like I was at Disneyland. Billions of people were everywhere, everyone spoke a different language, the streets were packed, everyone was taking pictures… only difference was that every tourist there looked really wealthy. I found out from my friends that Capri is one of the most expensive places in all of Italia and after being there, I’m definitely not going to argue. At first I was really nervous about being pickpocketed or robbed since it was so crowded and everything I brought for that weekend I was carrying in my backpack on my back, but Marilena pointed out that someone would have to be retarted to rob us… based on the look of all the people there, the four of us were prolly traveling with the least valued things/amount of money. Sure enough, we were fine.

After window shopping for about 3 hours (and not buying one thing?!) we grabbed lunch at a restaurant where the waiters were very Paolo-esque again then headed to the bus that took us to our hostel on the other side of the island called Anacapri.

In line for the buses I noticed two signs for other buses that went to “Marina Grande,” and “Marina Piccola,” which reminded me of my sister and cousin (of some sort) – AHHH I miss my big sister; I took a picture :)

Once off the bus in Anacapri we started to walk to our hostel; I have officially decided that I will never backpack through Europe. Each of us packed all the stuff we needed for the weekend in our backpacks and had been carrying them around virtually all weekend… by Saturday afternoon my back and shoulders were hurting almost more than my broken foot!

Our walk to our hostel turned out to be about 2 miles. Seriously. We were all pissed. We had been walking all day long; the website said that the hostel was only .2 km outside of the center of Anacapri; my foot was throbbing; we got totally lost on the way there because we were walking down streets literally big enough for 1 vespa to fit down… I fell so far behind the group that I pulled out my camera and spent my walk taking pictures of local gatti italiani that were sunbathing on the warm cobblestones (I literally took about 10 pictures).

FINALLY we arrived at our hostel which was so far in the middle of nowhere that they had sheep in the backyard. After throwing all of our stuff in our room we went to use their internet to buy our train tickets for the next day… it was the most frustrating internet session of our lives. A combination of the laptop sucking, trenitalia.com being retarded, the Italian keyboard being confusing, the internet going in and out, and the computer blocking cookies (whatever that means) on top of the fact that we were a 20 minute walk outside the center of town with a girl with a broken foot made us all want to cry. OH! AND while we were dealing with this stupid internet BS I was bit about 6 times by a mosquito IN MY ARMPIT! I seriously looked like a monkey when I would scratch them; atleast it was my armpit and not my ass like Tamara. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

In the end we were able to buy 2 out of 4 tickets; I was one of the 2 without a ticket and was so annoyed about it that I even called my mom and dad at home too see if they could order it for me!!!

After a quick group pow-wow we decided to shower and enjoy the nightlife of Anacapri. Our hostel shower was literally 1ftx1ft wide and the towel I used after to dry myself off was hard and crunchy. Ew, I don’t even want to think too hard about that.

For dinner we trekked into downtown Anacapri and ate at a restaurant called “Barabosa.” It was about 10 levels down from our beloved “Tre Sorelle” from the night before and every single waiter was a really gross, WAY more forward “Paolo;” unfortunately our wallets were starting to empty out and we had to settle with that.

Our waiter thought he was really funny and actually reminded me a lot of “tray boy” (a dorky kid that has seats near us at Dodger Games always wears his soda try on his head as a hat – I think my mom might be the only person who knows who that is) and kept walking by singing, “Ooo baby baby! Baby baby!” He was so gross. None of us would make eye contact with him because every time we did he’d wink at us. He also gave us “free” entry cards into a discotek (that turned out didn’t even have a cover charge). We were hoping that we’d be able to milk him for free wine and food and stuff but he turned out to be so creepy that we were too scared to act too nice to him. In the end we did get free limoncello though… greeeaaaatt… give us the nasty stuff that we all gag on for free… thaaaaanks a looooot. Haha, we’re so spoiled.

For desert, Marilena and I really wanted to stop at a little store we’d passed by earlier where they were making crepes. While we were waiting for our crepe, the entire population of Italian pre-teens living on Capri (well, not the entire population, but a whole bunch of them) flooded the shop. They were loud and obnoxious and I couldn’t help but give them all really dirty looks (especially “Harry Potter” that would not leave us alone). It was a good thing that our crepe (which had only Nutella in it) tasted absolutely incredible otherwise I would have gone back and started beating up all those little Italian tweens.

The discotek we went to was called Underground, and was pretty much the only disco in Anacapri. It was really gross and all the people there were Americans kids studying abroad in different programs and vacationing in Anacapri that night. Being the snooty SCU girls that we are we sat down and spent about 45 minutes laughing at all the people that sucked at dancing. There was the girl in the pink tank top that thought she was hot but definitely was not, there was the girl on E next to us dancing/playing with her hair/biting her nails/doing weird things, and the guy with the poofy right butt cheek (we took pictures of the latter two).

After getting bored of the people in the disco we decided to call it a night. On our long long long walk back through the mini allies without streetlights we met a guy from Los Angeles that was studying abroad in Rome and knew a lot of the SCU kids in his program (seriously SCU is all over freakin Europe; people must hate us).

I also made friends with a fat cat on the way and named it “Fat Chow Mein” cuz he really did look like a fat version of Chow. Somehow I got him to follow me all the way back to our hostel!

That night I fell asleep and thanks to Tamara had dreams that I was covered in centipedes. I WASN’T, which was good, but I did wake up with like 5 more mosquito bites… AAAHHHH! What a day.

Positano

Our trip down South began around 5:30AM. Marilena, Michelle, Tamara, and I decided to meet at the train station at 7AM to buy tickets/catch a train at 7:53; of course the train was full and we had to stand and wait in the train station for an hour… we were all really excited and pumped about the trip so the waiting wasn’t that bad (people kept coming up to us asking for directions around the station; ha, did they seriously think that we knew anything?!).

Our first train was to Roma and it was really nice and not crowded at all. Even though we were all assigned seats apart from each other we got to sit in a little square together. The ride was beautiful – last time I came to italy with my family I always fell asleep on the train and totally missed out on seeing the country so this time I made sure to try to stay awake!

Our second train from Roma to Napoli was really nice also only waaaay more crowded. Of course our assigned seats weren’t next to each other but we sat together anyways… unfortunately it got so crowded that we had to move to our real seats and it figures that a mother and her young son were sitting in my real seat and I was the annoying person that had to make them separate from each other. “um, this is my seat…” …blank stare… figures that she didn’t speak English. I felt so bad. It turned out to be a beautiful ride again (even though I DID end up falling asleep! Man…).

Then we got to Napoli… Ok, before I came to Italy I asked everyone and anyone that had ever been to Italy for any advice they had to give me and one thing that rings out in my mind is Katie Krim’s description of “Nappy Napoli.” Yea. She was DEAD ON. Napoli was gross and dirty. The buildings were ugly, the streets were dirty, the train station was sketchy, trash was everywhere, people were creepers, boys were sharks (meaning they would, like, swarm and circle around us and we’d have to keeping moving so as not to be attacked)… the four of us were freaking out and were grateful for our train to finally show up (figures that it was 15 minutes late!).

The train was, liek, and inner-city train. It was so gross. We changed seats about 3 times because there was always something wrong with where we were sitting (broken blinds on the window, window wouldn’t open, sketchballs sitting next to us)… Other than seeing Mt. Vesuvius (!!) the view from the train really sucked. If you can avoid Napoli, do it. The city is just very industrial and run down… as a tourist it’s really disappointing.

Around 1ish, we finally got to our final destination: it was a totally random stop (I actually just had to pull out my old train ticket to see what it was called…): Vietri S. Mare-Ama, which is prolly an abbreviation for something but I can’t remember what it was sposed to mean. The stop was completely deserted other than one lonely conductor man that worked at the stop. We asked him for directions to the bus then got stuck talking to him for about 10 minutes. Poor guy… The view was incredible (we were on a cliff that overlooked the Mediterranean!) and after taking pictures we headed out.

After limping down 5 flights of huge cobblestone steps (yes, my foot is still broken and hurting), and almost getting run over crossing the street, we found a tourist office, bought bus tickets and hopped on the bus to the Amalfi Coast. Seriously, we were on the bus ride of death. The coast is all cliffs and all the roads and cities are smashed up and down the cliffs. We were literally on a (two-way) road wide enough to fit one and a half cars, with such sharp turns that mirrors were installed at every corner to let the driver see on coming cars… AND our driver was literally accelerating the entire time! I thought we were going be thrown over the cliffs and was thrilled to finally arrive in Amalfi. The view, of course, was incredible and I spent most of my time watching the wind surfers (which made me think of my dad, which made me laugh… haha, love you dad!).

In Amalfi we decided that we were starving and spent about 20 minutes walking around looking for a place to eat… we ended up at a little bar that had the best panini, gelato, and fizzy water ever (well, maybe it wasn’t the best BUT I was so hungry that at the time it really did taste fantastic). For the rest of the afternoon we shopped and took pictures around the city’s duomo, which was really beautiful.

Then we hopped on a bus to Positano (it took us about 10 minutes to decide whether or not we were on the right bus…). The second bus ride was even scarier than the first! Seriously, the roads were skinner, the cliffs were higher, the traffic was thicker, AND we even had to back up a few times because we wouldn’t be able to fit passed other tour buses going the other way!

Positano was so worth it though. The city was built up a steep cliff and from the bus stop we could see the entire thing! More pictures and more walking in the wrong direction and being totally confused and lost… Finally Tamara called the hostel (our Italian rep since she speaks Italian) asking for directions and after an intense conversation, the people at the hostel told us that they’d come pick us up cuz apparently it was a 2km walk and they felt bad when they heard we were traveling with a girl that had a broken foot (aka me).

So along comes Giuseppe: a really really really jolly, skinny, old man in a really really really midget sized car. After cramming the 4 of us and our backpacks in the car we trekked back on the twisty roads of death to our hostel. We love Giuseppe; he was so excited to talk to us and when he laughed he literally went “Ha ha ha ha,” …liek, he said ‘ha.’ It was freakin hilarious.

Ok so if you ever go to Positano (which I recommend that everyone does if they have the opportunity) stay at “Gilda’s.” It was hardly a hostel. Our room was like a small apartment with two bedrooms, a kitchen with an oven, mini fridge, sink, dining table, bathroom, and two incredible ocean views! AND we decided that the family that ran the hostel (Giuseppe, Gilda, and their lesbian daughter) were our adopted host family and even starting referring to them as our “host family.” After settling down they fixed us espressos and lemonade and we sat out on the patio and watched the sun set over the ocean.

Our adopted host family was freaking hilarious. They had a cat and told us that a rich German guy had stayed there once and left them his cat and a toothbrush for it. They also said that the cat had a computer chip in its neck and that they monitor where it is on the internet… haha, what?!

After our evening coffee we spent a little while getting beautiful and then headed into town for dinner. Our host family felt bad for me because of my foot so they had their crazy lesbian daughter drive us into town. The main street through the town is a one-way street so she had to drive us all the way around it to get us to the beach where we wanted to have dinner; it took about 20 minutes! We felt bad that the chick had to drive us but grateful (especially me!) at the same time. The walk from where she dropped us off was about 5 minutes downhill (which killed my foot) past some of the greatest shopping I had ever seen and was so so so excited to return the next morning when everything was open!

Then we got bombarded by paparazzi deerintheheadlights style. It’s too complicated to explain but even as I’m writing this I can’t help but laugh.

We ended up sitting down for dinner at the “Tre Sorelle.” It was a fabulous restaurant ON the beach! The food was incredible and, thanks to the fact that our waiter Paolo had a huge crush on Marilena and offered to drive her home on his scooter, we got tons of free stuff! For 95euro we got 1 ½ bottles of wine, bruschetta, prosciutto e melone (which is my new favorite thing), shrimp, 4 pasta entrees, pizza breadsticks, and 4 shots of limoncello (which tastes like vodka with a splash of Starbursts and you’re sposed to take a shot of it after you eat to help you digest; it was really really gross). Because of Paolo, we all refer to Italians that are creeping on us as “Paolo.”

I absolutely loved chatting with Marilena, Tamara, and Michelle at dinner. We mostly chatted about Alpha Phi and all the politics and corruption and gossip within it. I learned some things that I had no idea about! I can’t wait to get back to school and start up Alpha Phi again; during my time here in Italia I feel like I have literally “bonded” (how cheesy does that sound???) with my sisters and have a bigger appreciation for the whole thing.

Feeling buzzed after dinner, we decided to stroll along the beach and check out the local discoteks. Creepy waiters at all the restaurants we passed by pointed us in the direction of “Music On The Rocks,” so we decided to check it out. The bar was incredible… it was designed to look like you were in a cave and it had loud music and pink and purple lights BUT it was near empty and the people that WERE there were tourists that were literally about 40 years old. We stuck around for about 15 minutes then decided to peace out (it was about midnight anyways and we had been up and traveling since 6 in the morning and were all totally exhausted). On our way up for a taxi a local guy told us that it didn’t really get going until about 1 but we were so dead that we weren’t about to sit around until then.

So we hopped in a taxi, headed back to Gilda’s, and passed out, so excited about our next day in Capri!