CIAO!!
So I have been extreeemely busy, and I apologize for the lack of updating. The past two weeks have been filled with papers, oral presentations, magic berries (and a little procrastinating…).
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| Sup Sorrento? |
But now I am in a small break. So I will update you about my life (if you are still interested…).
So where did we leave off? Ah yes, the weekend of March 30th to April 1st. This was the weekend a portion of my school went on the optional trip to Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, and Naples. We were supposed to leave at an ungodly hour on Friday morning. My plan was to get there early so I could get a window seat. Come that Friday morning my roommate Julia and I got a phone call asking where we were. WE HAD OVERSLEPT! The rest of the bus was waiting for us. I basically panicked and threw whatever I had into a bag, and we ran to where we were supposed to meet- a half hour late. I felt terrible (the applause after I stepped onto the bus wasn’t too reassuring…). And I didn’t exactly get my window seat either….
But things picked up after that (and don’t worry, everyone seemed pretty forgiving...). After the long bus ride we arrived at our first stop- Pompeii. This was the biggest reason why I wanted to go on this trip. All my life I had heard about this place, so I was so excited to be able to finally see this historically famous town. It was crazy. The tour was cool. It was so interesting to see how this incredibly advanced civilization had been completely wiped out by a volcano- marking the beginning of the Dark Ages. It was crazy to see the plaster casts of some people still in situ . Overall Pompeii was amazing, and I can check it off my bucket list.
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Mt. Vesuvius (pretty B.A)
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| So cool |
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| Pompeii's version of a McDonald's. Only Classier. |
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Me in Pompeii with Mt Vesuvius in the background. No biggie.
(yes, i know i look frazzled- remember how i had to run to the bus stop??) |
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| crazy huh? |
After that, we took the bus to Sorrento- where we staying for the next two nights. The trip there was great. The breath-taking views of the Amalfi Coast combined with my playlist consisting of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and ‘Call Me Maybe’ by Carly Rae Jepson made for an amazing bus ride. Once we arrived we took a short nap (much needed by me…), and then went for a walk around town. Sorrento was ugh, so amaaaazing. After being land-locked for a few months, it was great to be able to just look at the water (Tyrrhenian Sea). We put our feet in the water, I contemplated just jumping in -in my clothes, or makeshift bathing suit (I know my friend Liz would be proud). But I decided against it. Now that I think about it though, I really wish I did (I mean, I was convinced to try the salt water, not sure why I didn’t just swim in it). Anywho, after that we walked back to the hotel and had dinner there. I had fish; it was great to have sea food again too.
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| Hello coast, how i've missed you so... |
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| I should have jumped in... |
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| Che bella!! |
The next day we went to Capri. I am in love with Capri, if I could marry it I would. The pictures don’t even do it justice. Anyway, we took a ferry over to the island. We had all day to walk around. The first thing we did was take another ferry around the island to the famous “Blue Grotto,” which Capri is most famous for (though I could argue that the names for ‘Capri Sun’ and Capri pants can come pretty close). The ride was fun, my friends and I did photoshoots with our hair blowing in the wind (though I had a braid, so it wasn’t as cool), and searched constantly for George Clooney’s house (apparently he lives around there). My friend Erin and I decided that we were both going to purchase a house on the cliffs. We then realized, that combined we only had 90 euro, which would probably only us get a chair in a hotel lobby for a few minutes.
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| Almost to the Blue Grotto |
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| On the row boat |
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| Inside... ridiculous |
After that we walked around the island for a while- and went on a beach. Ah, to feel sand again! We spent a good amount of time there just lying in the sand and collecting sea glass. At one point a small Italian boy came over to us and starting to help look for sea glass. I thought that he was collecting them for himself- but once he got a good pile, he would hand them to us! It easily made my day.
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| Collecting sea glass. That boy was so nice! |
After much reluctance, we decided to leave the beach and walk around more to look for lunch. It was only then that we realized that we weren’t even in the city center. So we decided to walk there. It was after we made it I came to the conclusion that flat land must not exist in Italy. It was stairs after more stairs. And then some more, if you were wondering. But it was worth it. The views were priceless. We got some sandwiches and sat on some steps overlooking the city. After, we walked back down and got back on the ferry back to Sorrento.
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| On top- in the city center. Ok that's it, Capri we are getting married. |
After dinner, my friends and I walked around the city. We stumbled upon this place that lead us up stairs to a roof were people were looking through telescopes. Turns out, Venus was making quite the appearance, so they let us take a look at it. It was really cool. We talked to them about astronomy for a bit (my friends kept insisting that I was an expert in it because of my major- meteorology, but I don’t think they realized that meteo is only the study of weather…). After we went back and watched Freaky Friday- ugh I love that movie.
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| Freaky Friday!!! (Ok, this was the best picture I could get from that night...) |
On Sunday, we departed Sorrento and took a guided bus tour to Naples. We learned all about the city (apparently it’s quite the city of crime). When we arrived we were allotted a few hours to walk around (being told to avoid any of the back alleys, because we would run the risk of getting shot). But we had only one goal in mind- pizza! Pizza originated in Naples- they are the true founders. So if you are going to get Pizza anywhere in Italy- it must be Naples. We found this one place- and I had a wonderful buffalo mozzarella pizza. I will truly miss that stuff. After that we regretfully boarded the bus back to Perugia.
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| Naples!!! |
The following week was pretty tough on me (ok, I know… as tough as it can get when you are studying abroad in Italy). I had a big paper and oral presentation. So I focused a lot of my efforts on that (hence the lack of blog updates). On Wednesday I had a cheese workshop. All I can say is, yum. You might want to avoid having wine and cheese with me in the future (I have a feeling my pretentious side might come out).
The next weekend was Easter weekend. Diana and I decided to rent a car and go to the region of Abruzzo (on the Adriatic side of Italy). Diana was the sole driver because she was the only one who could drive stick. So we took the mini metro down to the car rental place and picked up the car. Unbeknownst to me, she hadn’t really driven in a while. So I kind of freaked out when we couldn’t figure out how to turn the car on, or reverse, or go into first gear without stalling. But after asking, she was able to figure it out, and was great throughout the whole trip. I should never have doubted her (though there was a tow truck involved, but I’ll get to that later).
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| Cruisin'! |
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| I wasn't scared... |
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| On the road!!! |
Anyways, so after getting lost a few times (you kind of had to expect this with no GPS and me as the navigator...) we finally made it to our Bed & Breakfast agriturismo. We decided to keep Friday as a low-key day, so we just went to the beach. I went swimming (I was the only one- I swear it wasn’t that cold)! We followed that with a nice dinner on the boardwalk, and then went to bed early (I was extremely tired).
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| We made it!!! |
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| Outside the agriturismo- che bello!! |
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| Our room!! |
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| The beach, oh yea I went swimming. |
So I suppose I should explain why we were in Abruzzo of all places. Well Diana has family there. Now im not talking direct family exactly, I’m talking 3rd cousins here. They also would have no idea that we were coming because we didn’t have their phone number- we only had their address, which hasn’t been updated since 1997 (Diana’s grandpa wrote a book on her family including all their addresses, but unfortunately he died three years ago). But Diana really wanted to meet them because they were really good friends with her grandpa. So our plan of attack was to Mapquest their address, drive to their house, knock on the door and go from there.
So we follow the directions from Mapquest and are led to a gas station (where we accidentally stalled trying to pull in- terrifyingly funny and scary simultaneously). At that point our spirits were low, but we decided to go back to the hotel to try and people search them on the computer. But we were unsuccessful, couldn’t find their names online anywhere. Then Diana decided to Google Map the address, and we were lead to a different place nearby. We checked what it looked like on StreetView and drove back. We tried to find the number (102), but we couldn’t find it on the street anywhere, but luckily we checked streetview. I remember seeing a place on the street that looked just like it. So we walked over to the area, but still couldn’t find 102. With spirits at an all time low, we decided to check a random house (since they had the names of the inhabitants on their doorbell). And what do you know-it was them!
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| The random house |
So Diana rang the doorbell and a woman answered. She asked if she was Lydia, the woman we were looking for, and she nodded. Then Diana asked if she knew Stephen DiClemete (her grandpa). She shook her head. Then Diana asked if she knew Stefano DiClemente. She nodded. Then Diana explained how she was his granddaughter. She almost passed out, and motioned for us to come in.
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| Diana happily going inside (she almost passed out too) |
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Diana showing her pictures of her family
(ok, i may be a little sneaky with the camera) |
She fed us right away (seafood pasta…yummm), and asked us a bunch of questions- only in Italian. So Diana (who is much further advanced in Italian than I am), and her did most of the talking. I just sat there happily eating my pasta.
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| Seafood pasta (i was pretty happy...) |
At one point, she asked where we were staying. We told her at a Bed and Breakfast. She then generously offered to have us stay there with her. With food like this, heck yes- I was in!! We then went and got our stuff and brought it back to her house. After, we hung out with her 16-year-old daughter for a little while (we watched Italian movies, they were quite interesting- and often left up to my interpretation). That night she took us out to eat at her husband’s hotel where I had amazing gnocchi.
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| View from their house |
The next day was Easter. This was a great day for me because I could finally eat desserts again (and ya know, for all the religious reasons too…)!!! I had cookies and Nutella for breakfast. It was great. After I stuffed myself full of all the delicious breakfast items, she served lunch. There was so much food- including eggplant parmesan, my favorite. Afterwards we went to the center of town, and hung out with her daughter a little more afterwards. I then went by myself to a little church. I asked them in Italian when the next mass was, they looked at me confused when they replied. Apparently they don’t see many young people at church. And when mass started I could see where they were coming from. I was the youngest person attending by about 50 years. But it was really cool to go to Easter mass in Italy. It was one of the other experiences I wanted to check off my bucket list.
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| Easter Lunch! (yes i was trying to be a little unnoticeable with my camera) |
We then had Easter dinner that night; I couldn’t get enough of that eggpant parm. I pretty sure she made a comment about I was eating too much, but I pretending like I didn’t understand (then grabbed for more food).
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| Diana with Lydia and Anastasia |
The next morning we left really early and headed back to Perugia… And here is where the tow truck comes in. So we were supposed to fill the car up with a tank of gas before returning it. We were running on empty, so we had to stop and fill it up around a half hour outside of Perugia. We stop at a self-serve gas station. This was completely self-serve- you had to enter the money into a machine. The actual shop part of it was closed because it was technically a holiday. So we put a 50 in the machine, and look at our selection of nozzles. We strictly remember the car rental woman saying “No diesel!!” So we decided to go with the one that said ‘gasoleo’ instead. Did you know that gasoleo is diesel? Obviously we didn’t. Which is why were so confused when the nozzle didn’t fit correctly into the gas tank thing. It literally took us 20 minutes to get ¾ of the tank. We also had to get back by 10 am, and it was already 9:45. So, after sadly realizing that the machine would not give us change from the 50, we jumped in the car and continued on our way.
Only we didn’t get too far. The car started rumbling until it just came to a full stop. Luckily we were near a little house so we were able to safely pull over there. The guy there looked at the car and was able to determine just by looking through the little gas tank thingy that we had put the wrong fuel in, apparently it was supposed to be benzene. Diana called the rental people, and a tow truck eventually came to pick us up. We shamefully got on the truck, which took us to a train station, where we hopped a train to get back to Perugia.
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I didnt have any pictures from this incident,
so i am providing a happy picture of a tow truck |
But overall, it was a great trip. Hanging out with Italian people and speaking only Italian really enhanced my appreciation of this awesome culture.
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| Magic berries!!!!! |
The following week was even harder than the week before (ok, yes I know…. But it was hard ok??). A lot of things were due. But I was able to pull through it til the end. One memorable moment was during my last foods lecture when got to try these tablets called “Magic Berries” that may or may not be illegal in Italy… But they were so cool. Their purpose was to switch around your taste buds. So things that would normally taste sour would be sweet and vise versa. So we tried it out. Simon had a bunch of sour fruits (lemons, grapefruits, and apples), along with vinegar. I couldn’t get over how good the lemon tasted. It was like fresh lemonade! I saved the box, so I can see if I can try and find it in the United States.
So the following weekend my family came to visit, which I am in the process of writing a blog about! (Ok, I know the majority of my readers are my parents, but im gonna blog about it anyway...)
CIAO!!
Emilia
