Amalfi Trip!!

Last weekend I went on an Awesome trip!! Me and two friends went to the Amalfi coast! We went down there with EuroAdventures which is a company that plans out these trips and offers them to the students here. We left Thursday night for Sorrento, which was where we stayed in "private bungaloos" which reminded me of little cabins in the north woods, except for the random orange and lemon trees. On the Friday we went to the island of Capri. When we got there, we went on a hike up the mountain to the town of Capri. It was quite a hike!! We got some fresh seafood up there too! Once we hiked back down to the harbor, we went on a boat tour of the island, we saw where the Blue Grotto was (one of the natural wonders of the world, big cave with amazingly blue water) sadly though, we couldn't go in because the tide was way to high for the boat to get into the cave. Then we saw the Green Grotto and the White Grotto. It was so much fun to be riding around on the ocean and the water was so amazingly blue! After the boat ride, we returned to the harbor where me and my friends Gio and Cesar and I got some Gellato :D and coined a new phrase. When asked what we wanted to do next, Cesar replied "Anything...We could steal a Donkey and ride off into the sunset if we wanted to!" Instead of stealing a donkey, we just walked around a bit more until we had to catch the later ferry back to Sorrento. Saturday morning we got up and Gio and Cesar had breakfast of oranges out of the tree next to our bungaloo. We then caught a bus and went to Positanno where we layed on the beach and went swimming in the ocean! Positanno is a beautiful city! Very much an on the side of a mountain city though, the whole thing is on a very steep mountain side. When we finally made our way down to the beach we layed out for a bit and then Gio and me went swimming in the ocean, it was freezing! But worth it! When we finally decided to leave, we went up to the bus stop about 45 minutes before the bus left because we wanted to make sure we got a seat this time instead of having to stand for the whole 40 minute bus ride. Well there was already a HUGE line of people. It was a holiday weekend there apparently and because of that, there was less busses going because everyone was on vacation, however this also meant there was more people trying to get on the bus. The bus that finally showed up had already stopped in the town of Amalfi so it was pretty much already full, we didn't have the chance to get on that bus. And then I learned that there is a phrase you don't say to Cesar when you are traveling with him, "It could be worse". So I blame him for everything else that happened. Another bus came an hour later. We couldn't get on that one either. Then another one came, we didn't get on that one either. At this point the locals were complaining to the police, so they came and brought in another empty bus and we finally all got on that one and was on our way back to Sorrento! Then we get into Sorrento and we are supposed to be dropped off at the train station. Well I see the train station one road over, but we keep going straight, and we keep going....and going....and we almost went out of Sorrento I think, apparently to get to the train station we have to go out of town and around, not sure why. At this point, me and Gio were telling Cesar that he should just go to sleep and it was all his fault (jokingly), thought the second he closed his eyes we turn in the direction we were supposed to, a few minutes later we were behind the train station, and then we were stopping in the main piazza and jumping off the bus, so now we do believe it was his fault, hahaha. After all of that, all we wanted was Pizza! The Amalfi area is where pizza was invented, so we had to have some Sorrento pizza! We found this amazing take away place and we got a HUGE family style pizza and some wine. That pizza was so amazing!!! Possibly partically due to the fact that we had just had a very long trip home and was starving, but it was really good! Then on Sunday morning, we got up and packed up to check out. We left our luggage in the storage of the place we were staying at and went to Pompeii! That travel experience was soo much better than with positano. Shorter train ride, got a seat, and Gio and I refused to let Cesar be in charge of the ride home. When we got to Pompeii we found the area of the ancient ruins and went walking around in there. It is so BIG!! I always thought it was a small city, what we would consider a village now, a few main roads....NO! This thing was actually a City, and a good sized one even by our standards today! We just wandered around in there taking pictures of the ruins, some of the mosaics that were still there, however we didn't have time to see the museum to see the preserved bodies. After our ride home from Positanno we wanted to leave with plenty of time to get back to Sorrento for our 4pm bus ride home to Florence. We left Pompeii at about 2ish, that ride went very smooth, and we went to find some pizza to take home with us. Sadly our take away place from the night before was closed (everything is closed on Sundays here) and ended up having to take pizza away from a restuarant, not as good as the night before, but still not bad. After a 6 hour bus ride home we finally arrived in Florence and then went straight to bed! It was such an amazing weekend! I had so much fun!

Now it is finals week though, so wish me luck!!