Spring Break through Italia

"This is my moment 

I waited all my life, I can tell it's time... 

Drifting away I'm one with the sunsets, I have become alive.  

I wish that I could have this moment for life, for life, for life... 

Cause in this moment, I just feel so alive, alive, alive..."

I haven't updated my blog in a while but I can assure you it's not because there hasn't been much going on here - just the opposite, there's been an overwhelming amount of stuff going on here and I just haven't had the chance to sit down and write about it.  April is/was such a whirlwind of a month and I am happy to say that most of it was spent outside of the classroom.  Between our cuisine field trip and spring break, we were/are in class for only two weeks in April... definitely doesn't feel like real life but I'm not complaining :)

Our spring break in a nutshell was nothing short of amazing.  A quick rundown of our travels across Italy (literally, up and down, left to right across... we covered the entire country):  we started off in Venice, took a 10 hr overnight train to Naples, had lunch in Naples, took a train to Sant Agnello (a city right outside of Sorrento), stayed there for 3 nights, then flew to Catania for 3 nights (eastern coast of Sicily) and while there we did day trips to Taormina and Siracusa.  But to leave the description of our spring break to that is to do a huge disservice to the incredible experience that it actually was.  I can't even put into words the experience we had while traversing Italy for 8 days.  It was unlike anything I've ever experienced and totally different from the usual weekend trips we've taken.  While we've seen many beautiful and moving cities during those precious weekends, I realized that there was nothing quite like leaving for a weeklong trip across Italy with your best friends.  While I've taken many vacations in my life, I've never done anything exactly like this before either... usually, I'll take a short vacation or I'll stay in the same place for a week or I'm traveling with my family... either way, I'm not trekking across a country with three other 20 year olds for a week during what is arguably the most beautiful and pleasant time to travel Italy. 

Not sure where to start... maybe with the fact that my final count of pictures was 485 and that was just my camera?  We had 4+ cameras going throughout the trip so combined we must have taken a thousand pictures and still none of them could capture the experience we had or the feelings and thoughts and conversations that came up.  Being so completely out of your element and being exposed to things so different from what you know as "normal" makes you question things you might not normally question or consider things you might not normally consider.  Whether you actually change your future behavior because of what you experience may be impossible to determine but regardless, stretching your mind to new depths and dimensions strikes me as only a positive thing for you as a person.  If nothing else, it helps you figure out where you stand, who you are, and who you want to be.

--

Venice- we arrived Saturday morning and spent the day sight-seeing and shopping.  Of all the cities we visited, we definitely spent the most money in Venice.  There was so much shopping and the city was full of great gifts we could buy for our friends back home.  Plus we did the whole gondola ride thing which was expensive but really fun, especially when our gondolier thought it would be fun to tip the boat dangerously close to the water!  I'm not sure what he enjoyed more- watching our death-defying screams and horrified looks or the reactions of the passing gondolas/gondoliers.  Either way, he got a kick out of it but he didn’t sing for us and instead spent a few minutes fooling around on his iPhone... haha welcome to the new generation of gondoliers ladies and gentlemen!  While in Venice we also took full advantage of the outdoor wine bars that dotted the city.

Venice was far and away the coolest city I've ever visited... the idea of the city being surrounded by water was unimaginable to me before I saw it.  Water is literally everywhere you look... instead of crossing streets via crosswalks, you cross via bridges; instead of taking a taxi, you take a water taxi; cars aren't allowed on the island and after walking around it you can see why- the streets are miniscule at best and are crowded enough with just people walking on them; everything is done via the water, it's such a different way of living than we’re used to.  When my family comes to visit Italy, we are spending a few days in Venice and I'm really excited for them to see it.  I got some great pictures there and will probably upload all of my pictures to an online album eventually but here are a few of my favorites.

Linds, Me, Jen, and Kasia on the gondola!

Jen and me at lunch

All of us on the Rialto Bridge

One of the outdoor wine bars

Doing what we do best- eating!

--

Sunday night - we boarded our 10 hr overnight train to Naples and looked like we were preparing for battle, with boxed wine in hand.  Our arms were full of bags, luggage, and snacks galore and our expressions were ones of eager anticipation mixed with fear and anxiety...10 hours, on a train, overnight, with God knows who sitting next to us (we had four seats together but didn't know how many seats were in a cabin), and add in the fact that we had no idea how the set up was going to be... would we have room to sleep, where would our luggage go, would we sleep, would the lights be on, what if we couldn't sleep, and the questions continued.  We approached our train car, passing the sleeper cabins complete with full length beds and wondered maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad idea... No, we're in our 20's and we want to rough it for this once in a lifetime experience right? Right.  

Okay so we find our cabin and surprise surprise, gypsies are in our seats.  I'm not sure if they were gypsies or not but that's what we called them.  They tried arguing with us and saying that since our last names weren't written on the outside of the cabin, they weren't our seats.  Their argument was a silly one and I think everyone knew that and soon after, they relinquished the seats to their rightful owners.  Now the fun part begins, lifting our luggage up above the seats!  We didn't know it then but we found out later that each of our suitcases was about 17-21 kgs (about 37-46 lbs) which made for an interesting attempt on our part to store them above our seats.  Kasia takes the lead since she's the tallest and we start to hand her a suitcase.  Struggling ensues as we try to muscle the suitcases up and a sympathetic older American dad sees this and stops to help us.  Grateful for his help, we glance down at the man, who we later nicknamed Shrek, sitting in one of the seats in our cabin who is literally sitting there the ENTIRE time this struggle-fest is happening and doesn't so much as glance towards us.  And we have to spend 10 hours with this guy? Great.  We settle into our seats and begin to talk but it's 11:30 at night and after a short while, we try and drift off to sleep.  

Ready for the train ride

Where we had to put our luggage - the two pieces on the right were Shrek's of course

Kasia and Jen had the window seats, Linds and I had the middle seats (the best seats), and Shrek was occupying the seat next to Linds/the one against the other wall of our cabin while the seat next to me was left unoccupied so far.  We tried closing the cabin door but for whatever reason, Shrek said not yet.  The ticket guy came around eventually so we assumed that was why.  Anyway, I desperately tried to sleep in the most uncomfortable sleeping set up of my life (mind you, I'm the person who never gets any sleep on airplanes so I clearly have high hopes for this train) but I ended up sleeping for two hour periods throughout the night thankfully.  There was a time before I discovered a semi-comfortable position that I was actually worried about what I would do the entire time-- I wasn't asleep yet but it was almost pitch black because they turned off the lights.  That's when I knew I should gravel at the feet of the Apple iPod makers for saving me.  My little pink iPod got me through that train ride for sure.  

Eventually, I discovered that propping my carry-on bag on the arm rest between me and Kasia would provide the best pillow possible and leaning on that was what allowed me to catch some shut eye.  I would wake up intermittently throughout the night and seemingly in two hour intervals.  During one of those times, I realized there was a guy sitting next to me.  He seemed harmless and by 8AM the next morning when I woke up kind of for good, he struck up a conversation with me and he told me he was a DJ.  It was the funniest situation... we have 4 American girls, Shrek, and a 40 year old DJ sharing a cabin on an overnight train to Naples.  The whole situation was so random but we realized it actually worked out well having the two older guys there closest to the door... not that we ever felt unsafe but it made us feel better having them there, especially because the overnight trains have separate cabins as well as individual seats right outside the cabins and there were a few times when I'd wake up and see some weird people sitting outside our cabin.  You get all types on those trains and we were lucky that the two in our cabin were normal, relatively speaking.  So DJ and I are talking, he speaks little English and I'm completely out of it so the conversation is simple and minimal but it turns out he is a really nice guy.  I learn random things like that he has DJ-ed in Miami, he's from Southern Italy, and he's fascinated by my Kindle.  He also gives me his Facebook information because Italians are obsessed with Facebook I have come to learn haha.  Around 9AM, he notices me trying to unsuccessfully nap one last time and Linds struggling to sleep (she struggled the whole night and he was sort of making fun of her the whole time which was amusing) so he starts talking to Shrek outside of our cabin so that I can stretch across both seats and sleep more comfortably.  He even showed me how to extend my seat a little bit, it was so nice of him!  We finally arrived in Naples and, noticing us struggling with getting our luggage down, he helped us with our luggage too.  Not only did he take them down for us but he carried them out of the train as well.  A great start to the day, especially when we looked about as bad as we felt! Haha, we felt so gross but Naples was kind of a garbage pit so we felt like we fit right in.  

Now I know all of the travel books say that everyone hates on Naples and that it's really not that bad, etc. but from our 2 hour stay in the city, I am confident that the mafia is actually paying all of these books to say those things because Naples was completely gross.  Maybe we didn't spend enough time there or maybe we were already in not-so-good moods because of our train ride, but walking through the city was utterly disgusting... garbage lined the streets as did street vendors and it's definitely the most unsafe I've felt while traveling abroad.  We walked around a bit and then decided to have the pizza there because how can you not have pizza from Naples?  We went to Antica Pizzeria da Michele which is where they filmed Julia Roberts eating pizza in Eat, Pray, Love!  It was absolutely phenomenal pizza and it was so cool eating where she ate in the movie- they have numerous pictures of her around the place, too.  It was kind of a hole in the wall place and when we first got there, we were questioning whether our travel book mixed up the name of the place or not.  But, everything turned out well and after our lunch, we couldn't get out of Naples fast enough.

After the 10 hr train ride at the famous pizza place in Naples - you can see one of the Julia Roberts picture in the background!

We took the metro/train from Naples to Sant Agnello which was around 30 stops as I remember?  Because we hadn't traveled enough, what’s another 30 stops right? haha we passed the time slowly but surely and finally made it to our hostel which was hands down the nicest hostel I've ever stayed in and was probably nicer than some hotels I've stayed in as well.  The place was gorgeous and our private room with a bathroom- nicknamed the penthouse because it was separate from everyone else and because we have a penthouse here in Milan- was unbelievable.  We put our stuff down, changed, and went outside to the rooftop terrace to sunbathe for the last few hours of sunlight we had in the day.  It was utter bliss... finally reaching a destination, relaxing in the sun, and being in a place where we'd be staying for more than one night :)

View from our terrace the first afternoon

The terrace

On the terrace, we met some other guys... 2 were Americans who study at Bocconi Unversity, the business university in Milan, and 2 were Australians who work in London.  Thus commenced the initial talk of renting scooters and scootering to and around the Amalfi Coast.  The 2 Aussys and one of the Americans, Varun, were all about renting scooters the following day and seeing the Amalfi Coast that way and we said as long as we weren't driving, we were totally in.  I don't think any of us were 100% sure it would happen... in fact Varun didn't think we were actually going to do it with them until the next morning when one of the Australians, Ben, saw us at breakfast and told Varun to get up because the girls were ready haha Kasia, Linds, and I were so nervous and it didn't help that it was kind of cold outside in the morning.  At one point we were shaking/shivering and we weren't sure whether it was because we were nervous or cold!  Regardless, we decided to change out of dresses and get sweaters, a decision we were unbelievably grateful for later on in the day.

We started scooting around 11am and thus began one of the most perfect days of my life.  The nerves wore off very quickly and I think that scooting through the city of Sorrento was almost harder than scooting along the coast because there was less traffic along the coast.  We stopped every 10 minutes it seemed like to take pictures because every view was incredible and now you can begin to understand the high number of 485 pictures on my camera.  Getting on a vespa/scooter was high up on our bucket list for studying abroad so finally being able to do it was amazing.  Not to mention, we had great company and absolutely incredible views.  Add it all together and you can begin to imagine why I said this was such a perfect day.  We felt pretty cool scootering past the busses, cars, and people... all 6 of us scooting in tandem down the Sorrentine Peninsula from Sorrento all the way down through Positano, the Amalfi Coast, and eventually Ravello.  It felt so right, a group of 20 somethings scootering down the coast without a care in the world, everyone being struck by the awesome scene in front of us, and all of us knowing that something like this was truly a once in a lifetime experience.  What was even more incredible was that we hadn't known each other for more than a day and here we were.  We also realized that all the scootering pairs had almost identical conversations because whenever we'd pause for pictures, someone would say something and everyone would chime in saying they had talked about that too.  Our favorite comment was when someone said "It looks a lot like Greece" and everyone agreed "Yeah that's what we thought too" and then came a pause and someone said "wait has anyone been to Greece before?"  and we came to realize that not one of us had in fact been to Greece before. haha we also noticed ourselves trying to come up with different words to say because all we could say was how beautiful, amazing, unreal, etc. it all was but we felt so redundant using the same words!  We tried getting creative and then we decided that we were just speechless from there on out.  

It took us about 3 hours to finally make it to Amalfi (it should have taken us about 40 mins to an hour) and we parked the scooters and had lunch.  At lunch, the guys realized one of the benefits of traveling with girls: finishing their meals!  Lunch worked out well for the guys... we only ate half of our pizzas so instead of ordering another pizza like they had considered doing, they merely polished off the rest of our food :)  After lunch we laid on the "beach" for an hour and a half or so while the guys attempted to brave the water.  They said that it wasn't that cold but we have pictures that say otherwise.  The "beach" was funny too, the supposed sand was more like little rocks that made it painful to walk down to the water and back.  Definitely not the soft granules that most people are used to but it didn't really matter... all we wanted to do was soak up some rays and enjoy every second the day had to offer us.  Around 5:30, we decided that we should probably start heading back... and by heading back we meant go to the town just past Amalfi, Ravello, which supposedly had a great view of the coast, and then head back.  As we were starting up our scooters, Ben and Kasia discovered that their scooter had run out of gas and thus began Kasia and Varun's hour long search for gas.  The rest of us hung out along the water until they returned and we finally made it to that last town.

The view was pretty spectacular, as were all the views we saw that day and when we finished taking our pictures, we went to a gas station and the guys filled up the scooters.  On the way back down the coast, Varun decided to stop at a fruit stand along the road and get an orange.  The rest of us were really confused at first as to why we were stopping at a fruit stand but then the guys realized a second benefit that traveling with girls had: the girls could peel the oranges and feed them to them as they drove!  It was ridiculous but we all loved it... the oranges were actually really good and it was so so fun to be scooting around and just toss the peel to the road (the fruit stand man said that's what we should do) and eat the orange and feed the guys.  And thus came into being what we began calling ourselves: "The Orange Brigade".

Driving back to Sorrento during the sunset was utterly and completely moving.  Despite how cold I was, I couldn't help but be amazed at the scene in front of and behind me the entire ride home.  I'll never forget turning one of the corners of the cliffside and seeing the the cliffs ahead silhouetted against a pink sky, the ocean pink from the reflection of the sky, and the yellow lights of the towns dotting the cliffside.  It was a moment in time that I'll take with me wherever I go as far as I go.  I almost don't want to upload the pictures because they don't do it justice (and because it takes a pretty sophisticated camera to properly capture this kind of night scene).  But this memory was something special that the 6 of us, no matter if we see each other again or not, will always have.

The day in it's entirety was something so unreal that we all found ourselves checking to make sure we weren't dreaming.  Everything from the wind in our hair, to taking the entire place in with all of our senses, to standing on the coast and thinking that we'd never seen something this beautiful ever before, to relaxing on the beach without a care in the world, to our biggest worry being the slight soreness in our butts or the slight chill we'd feel every so often, to making new friends who made this incredible experience possible (there was no way us girls were about to drive those scooters alongside Italian drivers), to knowing that the day would eventually have to end because that was the deal but being so unequivocally happy and grateful that we were able to experience something so special.  It reminded me of a lot of things, songs and quotes in particular, and I know that the couple of songs that kept playing in my head the entire time will forever be associated with that day and evening especially.  One quote I liked in particular...

"I never asked for anything to end; but then again, I never asked for anything to begin. That is the way it is with life: as some of the most beautiful days come completely by chance and even the most beautiful days eventually have their sunsets."

=

Me, Kasia, and Linds ready to start scooting!

Me and my lovely "hog" driver, Tom, making our way through Sorrento

Kasia and Ben

The whole group... Varun, Ben, Tom, Me, Linds, and Kasia

View of Positano

Varun and Linds, cute face Lindsss

Finally made it to Amalfi! A view of the Church

The "beach"

The guys... freezing

Kasia and me!

View from the beach

Me and Tom! Leaving Amalfi for Ravello

Pictures of the Amalfi Coast as we waited for Kasia and Varun to return with more gas

On our way to Ravello

Still climbin

View from Ravello

Guys filling up the scooters for the trek home

Feelin gooood

Scooting back

--

As incredible as that day was, it made the following day pretty hard to enjoy fully.  It's like the day after Christmas minus the anticipation (because we hadn't planned it) and plus the emotional intensity.  The 2 Aussys were heading out the next day and we knew that it would be nearly impossible to top that kind of day and that nothing would really be the same.  We also had to switch rooms because the penthouse was booked the following night; we ended up getting two double rooms and I had a room all to myself which was again, nicer than some hotel rooms I've stayed in.  The following day we went to Capri and it was kind of a process getting there (they don't make it very easy - for example, closing the slow ferry for the requisite 2 hour Italian lunch break).  But, we made it, and checked "having Caprese salads in Capri" off our bucket lists.

I had stayed in Capri for a few days with my family when I was younger but I didn't remember it being as touristy and intense as we found it.  I think it was because we stayed down by the port mostly this time and not up in the town like we did with my family but we found it pretty obnoxious at first because as soon as we got off the boat, we were hounded by people trying to sell us this, get us to eat here, or go for a ride on their boat.  It was just way more intense than I was expecting/would have wanted but once we sorted through everything, we had our lunch and then picked one of the boat guys to take us around the island.  The boat ride was perfect as well; it was me, Kasia, Linds, Varun from the day before, his friend Matt from Milan, and 2 other girls they had met.  It was only 20 euro each for the private boat to take us around the island for 2 hours and it was really really nice.  Our boat driver was funny; he liked to dance, played some good music, gave us some history about the things we saw, and took us into some really cool caves.

Unfortunately, the Blue Grotto was closed by the time we got there so we couldn't go in but we did see it from the outside and were able to see some of the electric waters elsewhere around the island.  The cliffsides, the caves, and the waters were absolutely beautiful and stunning; it's the kind of stuff you really can't see anywhere else, or at least anywhere close to home or on an average basis.  I think we all knew what we were seeing was unbelievable and as many pictures as we took, we still made sure to enjoy it and take it all in.  Sometimes taking pictures can be distracting to a point where you're so busy taking pictures that you forget to enjoy the experience... this happened to us on our gondola ride!  We took pictures for what seemed like the whole time and, though it was a short ride, we realized at the end that we didn't really feel the experience like we should have.  A good learning experience for sure; we got it right on the boat ride and it helped that we had an hour and 40 minutes longer on the boat than the gondola.  The boat ride was epic and I think had it not been for our amazing experience the previous day, we would have thought it was even more amazing than it was!

Heading to the port in Sorrento on our way to Capri

Ferry ride from Sorrento to Capri

Capri!

Us on our boat!

 

tre ragazze<3

Me and Varun

One of the caves our boat driver brought us into

Electric blue water

 

<3

Blue Grotto on the bottom left!  So sad it was closed :(

As close as we could get to it 

Leaving Capri :(

That night for dinner, we felt total princess-status... the hostel guy asked us if we were going to have dinner at the hostel again (we had eaten there two nights straight- I'm telling you, this hostel was legit!) and we said we were trying to go out somewhere but were tired and didn't feel like walking very far.  He made a call to a restaurant and it was closed because it was Wednesday- not kidding!  Then he tried another restaurant and they were closed as well because it was Wednesday.  Not sure what Sorrentines have against Wednesday but they are all about taking that day off apparently haha so, hostel guy called yet another place and they were open and, like the other closed restaurants, they offered a free shuttle service to and from the restaurant for free!  Never have I ever seen this done before but as the hostel guy explained to us, it's a deal some restaurants do with hostels there and I am all about it.  A shuttle van picked us up within 10 minutes, took us to the restaurant which was in the heart of Sorrento, and we were greeted by the maitre d' and he sat us at our table.  The food we had was easily the best meal we had all of spring break and cost less than our lunch in Capri.  I had Gnocchi alla Sorrentina which was absolutely incredible!!  It was just what we needed after our long day out in the sun.  The maitre d' came up to us at the end of our meal and started talking to us and actually guessed I was Italian and from the Calabria region of Italy, which was pretty cool.  He also gave us his Facebook information because, like I said, they love Facebook here!  Our shuttle van was outside when we finished and took us back to our hostel- what a great way to end the day :)

We left for Catania the next day and stayed at a bed and breakfast there that Linds' Italian teacher, who's from Catania, recommended.  This, by the way, was our idea of roughing it for a week: suitcases and staying in an apartment, hostel/penthouse of the hostel, and a B&B haha the guys just laughed at us and made fun of our private this and private that while they had huge "I'm backpacking through Europe" backpacks and stayed in the 10-person mixed room that looked like a jail with a shared/common bathroom.

Catania was an interesting city, definitely not what we were expecting and we kind of spent most of the time outside of the city.  It had good nightlife but was kind of weird during the day... it was kind of dirty, there were a lot of vendors, and the people especially around the train station were sketchy.  It was nowhere near as bad as Naples but it definitely made us appreciate the cleanliness and style of the north.  Our first day trip was to Taormina and though it was a bit of a struggle getting there, it was the cutest town with a spectacular view.  It's famous for its Greek Theater which still holds performances and where Kasia, one of our own, sang on a whim and with MUCH encouragement from me and Linds.  It was so cool and I was so happy for her; here's the YouTube link: Kasia Singing .  She really didn't want to do it but we made her and she got quite an applause from the audience for it.  She sang until one of the security guards came around haha she also now has an Israeli fan club!  They were among the many in the stands and absolutely loved her performance.  One guy got it on tape, another asked her to sing happy birthday to him, and many others commented on her beautiful voice.  It was something else and we actually ran into them again in Catania on Easter Sunday, small world.  The second day trip we took was to Siracusa and its island Ortigia.  It was a quaint little place and the Duomo was really cool- it used to be a Greek temple when they turned it into a Duomo and the Greek influence was very evident, which was unique especially since I think I've seen more Duomos than I can count since being here!

Lunch in Taormina

Taormina

Taormina Greek Theater

Street art in Taormina

Siracusa - crossing into the island Ortigia

Waters off the island of Ortigia

The Duomo

Inside the Duomo

Further down the coastline of Ortigia

Strange sport that we couldn't discern- water polo but with kayaks instead?

The second half of spring break was pretty chill and while Sicily wasn't my favorite place to visit, I'm glad we got to see it and it was definitely interesting to see the differences between northern and southern Italy.  My mom had always told me about how there was a big difference between the two but it didn't really ring true until I lived in the north and then visited the south.  The differences are pretty astounding and it's easy to see how the north looked down on the south.  I think it's interesting how a majority of Americans with Italian descent came from the south because it was very poor way back and the American dream was what those Italians were looking for.  It made me appreciate everyone who came before me and who made the scary and unknown trek across the Atlantic to America.  I wish the first immigrants of my family could see what their brave journey turned into and where their family is now.  Things seem to have come full circle now, with me here... life is funny like that.  I doubt my great grandparents and great great grandparents could have imagined what became of their future generations, how far everyone has come.  That's why studying in abroad in Italy has a different meaning to me than most, or at least some.  To me it's not just Italy with those crazy Italians and their great food... it really explains where I came from and why my family does certain things and why we have certain influences.  It explains the Sunday pasta dinners with homemade sauce every Sunday, the emphasis on food, the emotion, the passion, the explosiveness, the style, the physical features, the sense of family, everything.  Well, maybe not everything, but it explains a lot and provides an understanding I didn't expect to achieve while here.

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I have about 3 weeks until my program ends and the family comes to visit and then another two weeks left in Italy with them until I finally make my re-entry back into the good ol U.S. of A.  I already know these next few weeks will be a whirlwind- there's so much to do and fit in within that time and I'm not looking forward to some of it because I know my emotions will be up and down and every which way but that's all part of the experience.  I'm really happy and grateful that my family is going to visit and that I get to spend another two weeks over here.  While it does feel right that this is coming to an end, I know I'll miss this place and this experience more than anything once it's over so I'll take all the time I can get.  Looks like we're staying in Milan for the next couple of weekends until the program ends and I think we're all happy about that.  As fun as traveling is, it is tiring and at the end of the day, Milan is our home.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." 

- On the Road, Jack Kerouac