Getting ready to pull away
My personal favorite
View from the tower in Siena of their Duomo and the Basilica
Statue of Paul - I imagined him to be skinnier for some reason
It was the oddest thing in southern Italy it was constantly hazy everyday no matter where you were - not ideal for scenery shots
This was once under 20 feet of volcanic ash - crazy huh?
Town of Positano from the beach - I don't think that mountain can hold anything else
Another one from Amalfi
My hostel/cabin in Sorrento - not bad really for 11 euro per night if you ask me
Thursday June 10 - Left for the Amalfi Coast (portion of southern Italy) with my roommate around 5 from Florence and made it to Naples to transfer trains. We decided to get dinner there - glad I didn't stay too long. Naples was not the most pleasant of places in Italy, trash everywhere, dirty clothes covering the streets, little kids playing in piles of cardboard and trash. Needless to say we didn't venture out too far. We got on a train to Sorrento and made it there around 10:30-11pm and found our hostel (which ended up being a cabin in the woods). Now the night gets interesting. We decided to walk around and find a place to sit down and relax for a bit so we found a hotel that had an outdoor sitting area. When we were about to leave, one of the people that worked there asked what we were doing to night. Told him probably going to call it an early night and go to bed but he insisted that we went to the city center with him (where everything is). So I figured "when in Rome (but in this case Sorrento)" and we hopped in the car with him and one of the chefs at the hotel. Roberto turned out to be a real nice guy, we walked around Sorrento (which is really just one street) and met some of his friends, grabbed a late night snack and made our way back to our cabin.
Friday we decided to go to the Island of Capri which was just a short ferry ride from Sorrento. It was a pretty cool place, very expensive, very beautiful, the works. We took a boat tour around the island where we went to the Blue Gratto (major bust in my book). Sure it was cool and all but I wouldn't do it again or advise anyone else to. After that we found a beach, kicked it for a couple hours, then made it back to Sorrento where we spent the night walking around some more and checking out different places in town, ran into some other people in our program who were down there with a tour group from Florence then called it a night. Overall, Capri was great and all - good scenery and famous people live there but it was a bit too expensive for my liking.
Saturday was great. We woke up, grabbed some breakfast on the way to the bus stop, and made our way to Positano (about a half hour bus ride). I'm not going to lie, I don't think there was any kind of straight away the entire 25km. Mad props to the bus driver and everyone who was on board that didn't vom. This place was incredible - warm water, sandy beaches (in contrast to the rocks that have been at all of the other places), great food, the world cup was on, and it wasn't very expensive. We met up with some friends from the tour group and got boat to go swimming through caves and cliff jumping - it was cheaper if there was more people so we figured why not. First stop, cliff jumping. We pull up and our driver tells us to get out and go up - so we did. 4 of us ended up jumping off the taller one and let me tell you, 35 feet looks a whole lot like 100 feet when you're toes are hanging over the edge. Next stop, swimming through caves. Same drill - he stops the boat and tells us to go out. It was really cool until we noticed jelly fish were everywhere so I sped it up a little bit and got to the boat as soon as I could. Last bus back to Sorrento was at 6:30 so me and my roommate hung around the beach, watched a little bit of the world cup, then made our way back. USA vs. England was on tonight and the tour guides from Florence rented out a patio and a couple of projection screens so we tagged along with them. The game was intense - especially when there are 75 Americans and 1 guy from London (the tour guide) watching it. Needless to say he went nuts when they put one away right at the start. After the game I got some fish and chips, walked around, checked out a few places, then made my way back to the cabin.
Sunday: We decided to go to Pompeii to check out the ruins and climb Mt. Vesuvius but had to make sure we were in Naples by 6:50 for the last train to Florence. It was a really cool town. We didn't go to the city just the ruins of the ancient city that was buried in 79AD after Mt. Vesuvius erupted. Covered in 7 meters of ash it wasn't excavated until a couple hundred years ago. So there's some history for you. We walked around the Ruins for a couple of hours which was really cool to see. I think they said that 3/5 of the town is uncovered and it's neat because you can see them work at it and the parts that haven't been dug up. We just missed a bus going to the volcano so the next one wasn't for 20 minutes which would put us in a tight spot with trains to Naples (by tight spot I mean we would miss the last one there that would put us there on time). So we decided to do it anyway and "figure it out later" which became the theme for me the rest of the week. We get to the transfer spot on the mountain where we hop into a truck that takes us a little higher where from there you can walk to the rim. This is also the place where you pay at. My roommate didn't have any money on him - literally not a single euro. So he went back down and figured that would be best for him anyway since he was now guaranteed a train to Naples and I told him that I'll go on up and try to meet him in Naples at the train station. So I go up knowing that I won't be able to be back down in time to make a train if I stay with the group that took us. So I ditched them. Walking around the volcano I saw some people who weren't with us and asked them how they got there. Apparently there is a parking lot on the other side of the mouth of the volcano where people can come on their own with their cars. Now up until now, plan A was to get a train to Rome, find some Americans at a bar or something and try and crash at their place, then catch an early train to Florence in time for class Monday morning. Plan A was quickly changed to getting a ride with someone who drove up here themselves to the closest train station. Made my way to the parking lot and found a taxi who was waiting for a group to come back from the volcano and take them to the train station in some town I hadn't heard of nor remember the name of so I tagged along with them (thankfully there was one extra seat in the van). Made it to the train station, already had a ticket, 20 minutes later I was at the Naples train station, ran into my roommate at the ticket line and had 25 minutes to spare. Somehow everything worked out. From there we went straight to Florence and got back to the hotel around 10:30.
Monday, June 14 (my birthday mind you): had class where one of my professors had some kind of cake because he remembered that it was someone's birthday but confessed he didn't know who. After class and lunch a group of us went to a town called Siena which was like an hour away. It was a neat, smaller, town with a few cool churches, a duomo, a tower you can climb to see a view of the whole city, and an huge plaza in the middle with places to eat and whatnot. It was a quick and fun trip to a place that I wanted to go to since we got here (since we learned about Catherine of Siena in our history class - I try to make things relevant). Got back just in time to find a place to watch the Italy vs. Paraguay match. There were probably 500-600 people at this park right on the river watching it on a huge projection. It was incredible. When Italy scored you would have thought they won the entire tournament. People screaming and jumping and throwing anything they had in their hands at the time. It was a blast. After the game some of us ended up at a kabab place and that was where I had my birthday dinner (very memorable let me tell you - reheated fries and a kabab). In all seriousness thought it was pretty good. Now I'm 22.
Tuesday: I had my history final today which wasn't anything too much to worry about. I tried not to let schoolwork get in the way of things I wanted to do and I think it worked out. Still don't know what I got but it's whatever. Then I decided to go walk around a bit through the markets which is always a treat. Walked through the city for a little while then some of us had dinner outside of the Piazza De'll Republica - mainly because there was someone playing live music in the square. Dinner took a while (a common theme in Italy) then I went back to a cafe next to our hotel to watch the second half of the Brazil game/attempt 1 at studying for my politics final. Called it a really early night because I wasn't feeling too hot (sore throat, head ache, hot flashes, the works).
Wednesday: Woke up around 9 to study (test at 11:30) and felt a little better. After a shower I was ready to go so I set up camp at a cafe near our school and looked over my notes a few times while people watching. One thing I miss about America is being able to understand people talking around me. Took the test, finished relatively quickly, and caught a 2:30 train to Modena which was about an hour away. From there I took a 15 minutes bus ride to Maranello where the Galleria Ferrari is. This town was crazy - Ferraris and Lamborghinis everywhere, on display, people driving them around, people test driving them. It was an exotic car fantasy world and I was in heaven. I walked through the museum for about an hour and a half - looked through every car about 5 times and even got to sit in some of them. It was sweet because there were no ropes or glass panels to keep people away or anything like that. Just Ferraris everywhere. Found out the last bus that I could take bake to the Modena train station was going to come by around 7:45. 7:56 rolls around and so does the bus (punctuality is not stressed here - other than situations such as this it really works for my advantage). The bus ended up taking me to the Modena bus station which was 2 miles from the train station. It's 8:17 and the train leaves at 8:34 (this is the last one to Florence for the night). A bus to the train station isn't coming for another 15 minutes so I book it. Strap my backpack to me while holding my phone in my hand with the map app opened so I know where to go (that thing saved my life many times this trip). I get the the train station with 3 minutes to spare, buy my ticket, find my platform and hop on 45 seconds before the doors close. The train connected in Bologna and I was sitting in my chair sweating profusely for that 25 minute ride (I feel bad for whoever sat there next because I don't think they get cleaned too often). Make it back to the hotel around 10 and I'm good to go. Realized I hadn't eaten dinner yet so I go out for a while and grab something to eat. A bunch of us ended up at this really cool outdoor place that someone had free admission passes (to avoid the cover) and hang out there for a while. Dinner always tastes good when you're really hungry and that was happening more and more often.
Thursday: Last day for a lot of people. I went to all of the places, churches, and museums that I hadn't been to yet (Santa Croce, The Uffizi, Mercato Centrale, and The Bargello. Turned out it was a good day for museums because it poured down rain all day (at one point it was hailing). As much as I like museums I think it would have been a better idea to spread these out more throughout the month but oh well, can't do anything about it now. We had dinner at our hotel as a program which was really nice - I'm talking 5 course meal. That lasted a pretty long time with the food, the stories, toasts, updates, and "remember whens". Then the professors hung out with us for another few hours which is always a lot of fun getting to just hang out with them and not talk about school, class, homework, readings, or tests - reminds you that they enjoy teaching abroad just as much as we enjoy studying abroad (it also helps that they are getting paid to do it). People laughed, people cried, I had another kabab. All in all it was a great last night with the whole program.
