Sunday, May 6, 2012

Amalfi Coast

Hi. I hope everyone had a lovely Cuatro and Cinco de Mayo. I saw a rookie horse won the Derby. Pretty good odds, I hope Steven bet on him. My nights here were nothing too crazy. Elaine and Eliza's Australian friends they met in Portugal are here so we just hung out with them. Their accents are so thick! It's pretty hard to understand. Today I met up with Ellie from soccer. She's taking a travel course for May and was passing through Florence on her way back from Rome so I met up with her and gave her and another girl a basic tour of Florence. It started to rain though so we came back to my apt and I'm really sleeping since I only got four hours of sleep so I sent them off to some wine bar near the train station. The other girl, btw, is taking the Holocaust class and seeing all the concentration camps. I freaked out a little when I heard her say that. From what I could tell, she wasn't worthy of such an amazing course. Anywhooo, here I am. Today is a very grey and rainy day so I decided it would be good to update you of my weekend in Amalfi Coast.

I think I have mentioned before about the Bus2Alps program. It's where you buy this package and it includes transportation via bus and hostel and some tours to places. One of my roommates, Cierra, did a trip like every weekend. She literally rode a bus to Prague, Greece, and Spain. Wayyy too long of bus rides for me. And then for your trip you are surrounded by other American students the entire time and they mainly are just big drinking parties. It's just an easy way to travel, I guess. Versus our trips where we do everything on our own and stumble upon amazing things. Which I obviously like way better. But for the trip to the Amalfi Coast we decided to book it with Bus2Alps. We figured cost wise it was actually better because we would have to take a train to Naples, which was already more expensive than the bus plus hostel and transportation to all the different spots. So we were hesitant, but it ended up being just fine.

The first day we had a boat tour around the island of Capri and to the Blue Grotto. Which might be one of the 7 wonders or something, I don't know. It was weird. So once upon a time it was the private swimming pool of King Tiberius. It can only be entered by this tinyyy hole when the tide is low. So we were on these gondolas and to get in we all had to lay down and the gondolier had to lay down last minute as we went through. And it was this little cave that was extremely blue. It was pretty but for 12 euro I expected a huge cave and you literally went in turned around the boat and went out. I think it was a scam from the Mafia. Anywhoo so after that and the rest of our tour we went to the island of Capri and Annacapri. We took this janky chairlift contraption to the top of the island and saw the most beautiful views. We were on the very top of the island on a cliff just overlooking the ocean and Sorrento, it was really pretty.

The next day was a beach day at Positano. The public beach was a little baby section of rocks so our crew of 200 or so Americans took over the place. We laid out and went on a little boat of 8 people, (one who went to freaking Westlake High School, so crazy.) We went to this sand bar and climbed up the side of a little cliff to go cliff jumping. I fell on my way up and cut my leg, naturally. But didn't stop me from cliff jumping. Then we headed to a cave and were dropped off on one end and picked up on the other. It was so beautiful, just swimming through a cave off the coast of Italy, no biggie. Then went back for some more tanning and got fried. Super shitty!

Sunday we packed up and headed to Pompeii. Now this place actually is pretty much known to be run by the Mafia. The entry fees don't even go to the state and the place isn't being kept up well. I guess a big ruin crumbled recently. But we do as tourists do and still go and pay the 10 euro entry fee and 5 euro for the tour guide. Who was legittt. He was all dressed up and so funny. Everyone knew him and would say good morning when we passed by. (Probably a mafia boss.) haha. But Pompeii was cool. A lot of ruins. The body casts of people weren't in the streets but in some storage rooms kind of. I think the main attraction was the brothel with the paintings of sex positions so customers just pointed at what position they wanted as a way of overcoming any language barrier problems.

And that was pretty much that. The weather was so nice. The places were beautiful. We met a group of guys from Rome that were really fun. It was nice. I don't have any crazy random stories to tell cause my trip was all sketched out but I think it was necessary cause I don't know how we would have gotten from place to place. It was good. A successful last trip. :(   But I'm not going to talk about that anymore cause it's depressing.

So pictures!



Pics from out boat tour to start off the trip.




I think these are famous rocks. The tunnel one is the Tunnel of Love...naturally.



The entrance to the Blue Grotto aka the that little hole.


Blue Grotto

There's a jelly!

View from Capri.




Chairlift




The view from Annacapri. All the way up toppp






View of Positano.


Rocky beach.

Me being all sorts of awkward.


Jumpin off the little baby cliff.



And Pompeii.





Entrance to the brothel. Cue penis..







Mafia boss.

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