Capri- Pompeii- Almafi Coast
Trip Start
Sep 24, 2005
1
4
9
Trip End
Dec 20, 2005
Southern Italy, Italy
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Friday: Joey's original plans where to fly to Rome, and stay there for the weekend, and then come down to Florence for the week and travel around and meet up with us GIF kids at some point. When we would go to Rome the following weekend he was going to go somewhere else, but if you asked Joey he would say he had no clue, as that is the way he is, just kind of play it by year and "chhiiilllll". We (Kerry and I) convinced him, via email and death threats, to come with us to Capri, stay the week, and then accompany us to Rome where he would fly out that Sunday morning to go back to London. The only problem was he booked his flight INTO Rome to after the last Train had left for Florence on Thursday Night. So he would catch the earliest train to Florence, (at 5 am), for a 7 am departure for Napols/ Capri. Now if any of you are familiar with the Roman Transport, you know that whenever you NEED to be somewhere, the bus/train is usually late for some reason. Am I right Dutli? Joey didn't leave Rome until 5:15ish, to make a long story short he didn't make it to the steps of the bus until 7:30.
Okay to fill you in on what happened between 6:45 and 7:30 as I waited for him: Walking to the Train Station to catch the bus, I was confident that Joey would make it on the train, but I had a feeling that his train would be delayed at least a minimum of 15 minutes. As it got closer to 7 am, I started to look at my watch more and more. Still no show. Peter (the GIF Weekend Guide, who I had not met until this day) was yelling at me to get on the bus and telling me that Joey is on his own since he wasn't on here at 7 am. I told him that I couldn't and that I had to go to the bathroom. I self appointed myself to go sweep through McDonalds for any staggelers who where buying breakfast still. I stalled as best as I could, but still no show. After Father Gary and a Student Life Coordinator also did one final check of McDonalds, I had no choice, as it was 7:25 but to ask them what train I had to take and such to meet them in Sorrento in the evening. What was worse was I had to take my bag off the bus and stand at the curb watching all my "classmates' stare back at me and wonder "What the hell is Cal doing standing on the sidewalk?" Every time that I went into the train station hoping for a gangly hairy guy that answers to Joey to come through the entrance I thought I would come out to find the three buses gone, but no they were still there. I sat and watched two out of the three buses pull away. When I came back out from my "visual sweep" of the main entrance I turned around to low and behold, Edwin "Joey" Litteneker. I about shit my pants in excitement. Without hesitation I ran 5 feet to the bus and demanded to be let on, ( I don't think that that was really necessary, but oh well). As Joey explained later, the train was late, and he ended up coming out the side of the train station, and saw Father Gary on the bus as it was pulling away randomly. Father Gary told Joey that Cal was in the station and that if you couldn't find him then "you two" would be training it down to Sorrento. Thankfully Joey decided to make an entrance that didn't entail us spending 100 euro to get down to meet the rest of everyone.
The bus ride down to Sorrento was a good 6 hours or so. Joey and I spent most of it bullshiting, and talking about our semesters to this point. When we finally got to the campsite that was described to us as "Bungalows on the beach" we arranged into groups and were given rooms. Let me be the first to tell you that what was described to us was far from what was ever imagined, but it was a roof over our head so I couldn't complain. Our cabin wasn't as bad as what others had. There was definitely no beach, but the view if you sat in one spot on our porch you could see threw the brush and just barely catch the edge of Sorrento. Our first day in Sorrento consisted of going into town for a nice bite of food and wandering around until the evening sunset at which point Cole, Myself, and Joey stocked up at the local grocery store with booze, chips, and chocolate for the evening on our porch overlooking European brush.
For the next 4 hours I sat purched on the corner of our porch talking to anyone that would "Sit A Spell" with me. After I think the whole program came to our bungalow and made their way to the "party bungalow" (which was just yonder our place) we headed over for what was described as "the coolest party ever" by some random girl...the verdict is still out on that bold statement as if that is the case I was definitely at the wrong place. The "bungalow party" I was at consisted of one portable Ipod speaker set, 5 people dancing or so, and people sitting around eating pasta and talking.
Saturday:
The sun seeped through the wooden shutters at some ridiculous time. Thankfully we had an "included in the cost breakfast" to look foreward too. Two Roll, one cup of tea or coffee and jelly. I guess it is more than what we get for breakfast in our Pensione's. We took a ferry to the Island Di Capri. The Ferry on the inside reminded you of an airplane. Just bigger and no seatbelts. Once on the island the rest of the day was ours to wander around and partake in "Shinanigans". Part of the group went hiking, others went to the beach, while others walked around all day. After Elba I decided that a hike wasn't for me this week. Instead I went with Joey, Kathrin, and Kerry and company, to find the Blue Grotto. After only being on the island for not even a half hour I got separated from Joey until we were getting back on the ferry to go back to Sorrento. A majority of our day consisted of walking to the Blue Grotto, as the group didn't want to pay 1.77 euro for a bus ticket. So instead we walked "just down the hill" for almost 2 hours. A majority of it consisted of walking with Kerry who complained the whole time, and threatened to get in the next bus that came. Okay not really, but I had to put that in there as that was the joke for a good half of the journey. When we finally made it down to the Grotto with the rest of our waiting party we were greeted by "oh its closed today". A bit disheartened, I decided to look for myself as I didn't walk 2 hours to come so close but not see it. Fortunately, the Grotto wasn't closed, boats just weren't allowed in as the chop was rough that day. So doing what any American would do with the "No swimming allowed" sign posted in plain view: I jumped in, not once, but twice. It was beautiful, so blue. Almost like potion you would see in the movies, only I was swimming it. On the first time coming out of the cave, I scrapped my foot on the reef. It didn't bleed to bad, it just hurt enough for me to feel it all day. Liz thankfully let me use her sandals as I had only brought shoes with me. Thanks again Liz, you saved me a lot of pain. The remainder of the day was spent lounging on the beach asleep. Exhausted from the weeks of traveling, I bunched up my jacket as a pillow and fell asleep using the big ol' rocks as my soft mattress pillow top. Waiting for the ferry, the rest of the GIF program began to appear and recount their experiences on the Island. No major injuries where reported, only minor scrapes from the Grotto.
Upon our return from the island we were able to catch the tail end of the Fish Festival. It was quite delicious. I ended up eating Swordfish and Calamari. I got one of the last plates of Swordfish at one of the stands. It was vicious trying to get it, Italians kept coming in and speaking "Italian" and becoming buddy-buddy with the holder of the Swordfish. Well hahaha Italy I finally got one, so there! Joey and I had plans on making it back into town to go "Clubbing" (no club seen in Sorrento), but never made it back. I opened my first beer at 8:00, and I poured the same beer out at 11:30 after a night of babysitting it and nursing it...for a friend. (hahaha). I enjoyed a leisure night on our porch and was entertained all night by the most RANDOM Company which wasn't limited to another Study Abroad Program which consisted of 5 crazy people. One of which was this young lady who only had about 2 weeks of Italian, keep trying to have fluent conversations, she was nuts, I mean me speak good Italian? I introduced her to Amanda and ran away.)
Sunday: Pompeii
To get to Pompeii at a reasonable hour we had to get up earlier than the day before. Our Bungalow was slow getting up for reasons that could only be cited do to the "weather". As always we were rationed our two rolls, and cup of juice at the mess hall, today I actually snuck an extra roll, shh don't tell anyone! When we were all gathered at the main entrance ready to walk and gather at the train station in the center of town, we realized that we had left the key at the bungalow. Since my foot was "suddenly hurting" from yesterdays swimming accident I unanimously nominated Joey to go run back to the Bungalow. He wasn't happy, but oh well. Sometimes it pays to be late, as we took the bus right to the steps of the station. We passed the group walking in town, it was a great feeling knowing that I didn't have to walk with my hiking backpack on. When the early birds finally made it to the station we were given our tickets and packed onto the train to head to Pompeii. The train was decorated in festive "tag" that represented the youth culture of Southern Italy. After about 40 minutes of traveling via the train we got off at Pompeii. It was surreal walking through Pompeii, as I had seen so many episodes on the Discovery Channel and such about it, to be there was amazing. The whole time I was there it was hard to believe that the city went covered for centuries, and to this day part of it is still covered in ash. The tour went on f-o-r-e-v-e-r. It was very beneficial. The tour guide did a good job at recreating what "was" Pompeii. There are a few houses that are still relatively preserved, or have been almost fully restored. The coolest part of the tour was seeing paintings that where still on the walls. From the Pompeii Tour we were going to go to the Coliseum, but it was to far for us to go and still catch the earliest train back to Fl0-town. So I will have to save that for my next visit. I think I was going to homework on the train, BUT, of course I didn't.. I think a month after I went to Pompeii I still have the same "book report" to do.
We were the fortunate group to make it back early. The next train was full so a majority of the GIF kids didn't get back until almost 10 pm. Since Joey and I made it back early we wandered over to Fiddlers Elbow for the game of the week.
