I've Got Brains AND Smarts

Back for round two: the Amalfi Coast! This past weekend was the best weekend to end my trip on. Bryn, Kim and I went to Capri, Positano, Sorrento, and Pompei with our new roommates Joanna and Darcy. It was about time for us to get to know our new roommates and this was the perfect opportunity.  We left on a six hour bus ride on Thursday night and arrived in Sorrento around one oclock. The hotel we were staying at was not too bad but was definitely not the best. We didn't care because it was just somewhere to lay our heads.

Friday, we woke up to a breakfast of a croissant and a roll that was as hard as a rock, which we later found out would be our breakfast every morning. We then walked down to a ferry that took us to the Isle of Capri. Capri is literally a tall, large rock stuck in the middle of the sea. It was absolutely gorgeous. We took a boat trip around the island where they took us to the incredible blue grotto and showed us many famous people's houses like Georgio Armani. The blue grotto was inside a small cave that we went into by boat. We had to lay down in the boat just to get inside the cave. But inside it was absolutely gorgeous. The water was such a beautiful blue and it was very cool inside. You aren't supposed to jump in the blue grotto but if you coax your boat driver a bit, he will let you. That truthfully means if you tip your boat driver he will let you jump in. I was "girl-on-a-budget" again this weekend so I was content staying in the boat. During the rest of the tour around the island, we made friends with our tour guides who are also from America but northern or western America. This is where the taunting of our southern accents began. The entire rest of the trip we heard "I reckon y'all can do that" or "what are y'all'ss doing?" By the end of it, I was sick of the taunting but we let them have their fun because they are just unaware of how great we have it in the south. :) The rest of the day in Capri we went to the beach where the water was crystal clear and the beach was rocky which took some getting used to. The water was so salty that we could literally float on top, which made for great tanning ha. When we made it back to the hotel, we had dinner, took some showers and decided that we were too exhausted to do anything else. Our other friends came into our room and we just sat and got to know each other better.

Sorrento in the morning

Kim, Myself,  Joanna, Meriwether, and Bryn on the boat

Capri

Capri

Boats around the Blue Grotto 

Inside the Blue Grotto

Capri

Boats anchored in the bay of Capri

Capri beach

Saturday was our chill day. They drove us to Positano which is a cute beach town on the Amalfi coast. The sand here was a grayish-black color and our tour guide warned us that the sand was so hot that it would literally take off the soles of your feet. Sounds fun right? The ground made it so hot that we had to take many breaks from laying out to jump into the water. After a bit of sun, we grabbed some lunch and bought your average "mini-keg" of Heineken beer. I've decided that I straight-up do not like Heineken but because all of us were drinking, it was the most logical drink to get. If you could have seen us, you would have laughed. We were just sitting in a circle around the keg, taking drinks and singing angry girl 90's music to ourselves. As the day went on, I ran into my friend Isabelle and her parents who were vacationing on the Amalfi coast for the weekend. It is always great to see them. After having laid out for a while and getting lots of sun, we headed back to Sorrento to repeat the activities of the night before, except this time we were upstairs with the rest of the group. We bought a few bottles of wine from the restaurant in the hotel and played a card game called "King's Cup" which I call "Captiain...", for those of you who know what I'm talking about.

Positano, Italia

Bride and Groom taking pictures on the beach

Bryn and Joanna with our baby

Good Times

On Sunday, we woke up to our final breakfast of strictly carbs and headed to Pompei. The ruins of Pompei were incredible to see. We had a tour guide that took us through the old Roman town, showing us where the ancient shops and homes of Pompei had been before the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius so many years ago. The saddest part of the tour was him taking us through a room that they just discovered in the last couple hundred years. It was a prostitution house where there were paintings on the walls which was technically an "erotic menu." We were told that going to this brothel for a man was the same price as buying a glass of wine. It was very sad to see and think about. We then went to see the plaster casts of people that were killed by the lava. Pompei was very interesting to see.

Pompei 

Brothel Bed

The Whole Crew 

Plaster cast of someone crouching and crying

While we were at Pompei, we saw a few stray dogs running around the ruins. Our tour guide told us that because of the falling economy in Italy, people have begun leaving their dogs because they can't afford them. This hurt my heart so much to see. It was the first effect I had seen of Italy's falling economy and it hurt me that I couldn't help them.

After we left Pompei, the bus took us half way up Mount Vesuvius where we then hiked to the top. There had been another bus with us and it broke down on the way up, which was quite unfortunate. It put everyone on edge a bit. One of my roommates friend's, Meriwether, had come on the trip with us and on our walk up the volcano, we discovered that we both are involved with Young Life. I didn't even notice how hard the hike was because Meriwether and I were in deep conversation about Young Life the whole way. I always love meeting someone else who has as much of a passion for Young Life as I do. When we got to the top of the volcano, I was surprised to see that the hole was strictly rock. Maybe that was stupid to say but when you walk to the top of a volcano, that wasn't the site I was expecting. We were able to see steam coming from the volcano though which was a bit eery. The view from the top of the mountain over the coast was absolutely gorgeous. It's scenes like that that immediately remind me of how great God is.

the hike up

the inside of the volcano

Kim, Myself, Meriwether, and Darcy withe the coast line in the background

We finally got back onto our buses and were headed home. Every time I return to Florence, I am so happy to be back. It is really strange that this was my last weekend in Florence, seeing as I leave this coming Saturday. The more I think about coming home, the more excited I get.

P.S. I forgot to mention in my last post that I finally helped the pastry chef for my school with that cake. Truthfully, what I had been expecting from him was for me to kind of be the apprentice but what really happened was he pretty much just gave the cake and said go. The cake had to be a book, which first of all is my least favorite thing to draw at Emileigh's. My boss can tell you that's true. I made fresh buttercream and worked with what I had to work with. It was not my favorite cake that I had done but I was happy to do it for the chef.

I'm luckily in Italy at the perfect time because the second week in July is the biggest time of the year for sales. Therefore, tomorrow this girl is going shopping. I have not shopped since I have been here so that means I deserve some good shopping time, right? Well, for now, I hope all is well with everyone at home. Ciao!