Post-Sorrento/Capri

Ciao!

I have returned from our weekend trip to Sorrento and Capri. It was by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life and was so eye-opening and different when contrasted with Roma. The rugged, city streets of Roma were lost in Sorrento and Capri to the boat docks and beachy atmosphere of these port towns. They are gorgeous and I highly advise anyone and everyone to visit at some point in a lifetime.

We woke up early on Friday morning and Ashley, Tiffany and Laura met us at our apartment. We all traveled to the Roma Termini train station together and took TrenItalia to get to Napoli. There, we had to take a 50 minute, scorching hot subway to Sorrento. The subways and most other public transportation has an odor like no other. Italians do not have a bathing schedule as we Americans do and the smell in the public transportation is sometimes devastating, especially early in the morning. However, I have a great tendency, 9 times out of 10, to fall asleep on public transportation (usually just the trains), therefore leaving me unharmed by the awful odors coming from the natives. Napoli, from what we saw and what I have learned since living in Italia, has a huge garbage problem lately and resembles the South Bronx area of New York. It's somewhere that you go as a middleman to get to the place that is your destination. Some of our friends spent the weekend on a school sponsored trip to Pompei and spent some time in Napoli - they did not speak very highly of it, either.

When we arrived in Sorrento, I was still going mad because (if you have not heard) I was 99% sure I had lost my Citizen's Bank debit/ATM card. This is huge because a large chunk of my money for this trip was on that card. I woke my mom up in a panic at I believe 4am (SORRY MOM!!) needing her help. Thankfully, she was able to help me as always. (Your help never goes unnoticed.) I was looking for an ATM in Sorrento and of course there is only one in the town. However, this was shocking to me because Sorrento is such a touristy place. Many cruise ships dock there and it's very beachy and something that would appeal to many travelers who were taking cruise through Europe. We spent some time just taking in the beautiful sights and taking photos then we decided to get lunch. We ate at this small pizzeria which apparently wasn't serving pizze (that's how pizza is written in Italia) anymore. We settled for a roll with salami and mozzarella...see my photographs for a visual of this sandwich. It was awful so we needed to get gelati afterwards to fill us up. After this we found Peter's Beach, this rinky-dink beach near a port in Sorrento. Me, being the explorer I am, decided to walk farther and in front of the group, finding Leonelli's Beach. WHAT A GREAT FIND! This beach was everything we wanted. The beach itself was tiny but it had piers where we laid out for awhile in the hot afternoon sun and just hung around and talked. There we also took about a million pictures and just enjoyed the great weather. We really lucked out on the weather-front this weekend; it was supposed to rain but thankfully it didn't even sprinkle. It was great!

After awhile on the piers, we decided to take the bus to our stop at San Angelo, a bit outside of Sorrento - where our hostel was located. Pretty much, we came upon the Youth Hostel. It looked very shanty and I was not nervous about staying there, but more expected something similar to our trip in Pisa. This was nothing like Pisa. It was a dreary, dark building and for some reason fluorescent green lights were inside. It was an experience all in all and wasn’t the cleanest of places but it did the trick and for 20 Euro a night, who could complain? We settled in and then decided to venture out into San Angelo. As we walked down the long and winding roads (shout out to the Beatles) from the hostel to the main “town” of San Angelo, there were bats. There were not ANY bats. These bats came so close to your head that you honestly thought they were going to attack you. They would swoop down from 50 feet above you and almost land in your hair. Surprisingly, if this gives you any inclination of some of the girls that I am traveling with, I took it the best in not freaking out every time a bat kamikaze dove down at my head. I needed to just mention that quickly to prove a point (haha).

We made it to San Angelo and found this great pizzeria (everything in Italia pretty much is a pizzeria) called Moonlight. I ordered a great broccoli and mozzarella pizza and we just had a very relaxing dinner and then made our way back to our hostel later that night. We were all exhausted from our day of traveling and exploring so we called it an early night.

We woke up the next morning to a rooster, honest to God. Apparently there are quite a few farms in San Angelo and every time we opened the window to our room it suddenly smelled like we were living in a barn, but I digress. We woke up early in a venture to Capri. We took the complimentary shuttle from our hostel to the docks at Sorrento and then bought our ferry pass to Capri. When we got to Capri it was like nothing I had ever seen in Europe before. Granted I have only been to Portugal aside from this trip, but it was like a Caribbean island. The water was clear, blue and turquoise and was glistening in the hot Italian sun. We stepped off of the ferry (also, on the ferry, I saw an anemic boy pass out and then people were trying to revive him…it was disturbing and made a couple of us cry. It was very sad and I really feel horrible for people who get that ill so frequently.) Furthermore, in Capri we got a 10 Euro boat tour around the island and a trip to the Blue Grotto, as well. It was by far the best 10 Euro we have spent on this trip since we got here. My pictures from the Blue Grotto do not do it justice and as a matter of fact my pictures from this entire trip do not do anything justice. The beauty of the water and of the trip is incomprehensible for a person just looking at the photos. I will try and do a better job explaining all of this when I return to the States.

Capri was gorgeous and after our boat tour around the island (most of which was in Italian – I am getting much better at translating things in my head, but still speaking is difficult having such a knowledge of Spanish) we decided to head to the beach for the remainder of the day. We swam around in the crystal clear water (just like Narragansett…kidding!) and lounged on the rocks. The beaches in Capri have sand few and far between but after awhile of hurting your body on the rocks, you get used to it. We shopped around in the town by the port for awhile and I got a really pretty, large beaded bracelet and an Italia zip-up jacket. These were the first things I have actually bought for myself since being here. It’s strange when you study somewhere for a somewhat significant amount of time you forget you are a tourist. The funny thing about this phenomenon is that YOU forget you are a tourist, but NATIVES do not. Natives can pick you out from a group of 1,000. It’s quite strange and sometimes surreal.

We ate lunch at by far the best place since I have been in Italia. I am so upset with myself that I did not take pictures or even remember the name. I got a Margherita pizza (your standard tomato sauce and mozzarella) and it was the best meal since I have been here. After lunch we caught our 18:00 ferry back to Sorrento. Sadly, 18:00 is the last time they send a ferry back to the mainland. I actually would not have been too upset about getting stuck in Capri for the night, except we had already paid for the hostel. Also, I have become accustomed to speaking/reading/writing in military time due to it being the standard way of Italian living. Nothing is 6pm, it is always 18:00.

When we got back to Sorrento we hopped on the C bus and met some other study abroad students who were studying in Florence but were spending the weekend in Sorrento/Capri as well. They were from a very small college in the Sacramento, California area and were our age. Among them was Alex, Jesse, Balvene, Candice, and Taylor and we actually found out they were staying at our hostel that night and for the rest of the weekend. They came out with us to the American Bar (yes, that was the name of the bar/club in Sorrento) and they will be in Roma in a couple of weeks so we are going to meet up with them for dinner and probably a night at Campo dei Fiori. They were really interesting people and I’m really happy that we met them. Balvene, an Indian girl who was also a student at this Sacramento college, talked to me for awhile about India, etc. Basically, I shared with her my idea to travel to India at some point next year…we will see how that turns out but I am absolutely dying to do some work in New Delhi. After the American Bar we returned to our hostel around 1:30 and immediately hit the sheets. We had a long day of traveling ahead of us and we wanted to be well rested.

We awoke at 8:00 and got ready and packed up camp. We did the essential check out process then we went to the piers at Leonelli’s Beach for a little while until we had to catch our train back to Napoli and then to Roma Termini. The day was a great beach day and we all soaked up the sun. We got back onto the subway to Napoli, where I actually did not fall asleep (shocking) and then transferred over to our train from Napoli to Roma. We all immediately fell asleep on the scorching hot train back to Roma and it was great. I felt so well rested when we got back to Roma, however I was on the verge of being severely dehydrated, which put a damper on the rest of my night and sent me to sleep at 22:30 (10:30pm). I slept for a solid 12 and a half hours before I woke up this morning at 11:00.

That is where the story of my weekend ends and today begins. I went to class today and then went down to Piazza Venezia with AJ and Jon to do some shopping. Tomorrow I am waking up at 6:00 with Vanessa to meet AJ and Jon at their apartment to venture out to the Vatican before we have class at 13:00. We are going to do some sightseeing and hopefully beat the Vatican chaos as well as get our Mass tickets for church with the Pope on Wednesday morning before class. I am really excited about this and will be sure to write tomorrow when I get a chance and relay my adventures.

Ciao for now!
Xo,
Kristen