Itchy Itchy Feet

My feet are getting restless, so I have decided it is time to take them somewhere new again.

My plan is to go to London. I have not figured out all the details, such as maybe flying into Paris and hanging out there for a few days before heading across the Channel, or maybe playing in Scotland for a few days, but I know the dates I would like to go: leave Friday evening October 5 and return Sunday October 14. That would give me a full week to play.  This way I can also take advantage of Columbus day and only take off 4 days from work. I'm also planning on using my tax return to buy my plan tickets.

I am thinking of reading the following books to prepare me for my journey:

I have no idea why I am suddenly obsessed with London. It might have something to do with the fact that it is far away, but they still speak English, so it feels accessible but not too normal. 

The plan right now is to travel with my friend Ami. I am slightly concerned as she wants her boyfriend to come too, and like Katherine Heigel's character in 27 Dresses, I don't know how to say no. It's not that I don't like him, but it would be cheaper if it were the 2 of us and we split the cost of hotel rooms instead of me having to get my own room and the two of them splitting. I also really don't want to be the 3rd wheel. I know they wouldn't consciously put me in that position, but come on, when traveling with a couple you are kind of thrust into it whether it is meant or not. In any case, I'm not going to worry about that just yet. Instead, I am going to get excited, read up on London, and get ready for my first trip in far too long. 

Patience, restless feet, you will be traveling soon!

Accounting for my travels

1992- Australia (visit dad)

1994- Hawaii (uncle's wedding)

1996- Paris and London (visit dad)

1998- Florida (Disney World), Washington, DC (with dad)

2000- Australia (marching band)

2004- Israel (birthright)

2006- Italy (ucsb study abroad)

2007- Mexico (spring break cruise)

2009- Italy (georgetown study abroad)

No real reason to post this now; it was just a thought in my head, so here it is.

Southern Italy

I suppose it is time to finally write about my last couple days in Italy. I kind of feel like once I write this it will all be over, so that is why I have been procrastinating. Time to move on though, so here we go.

We arrived in Napoli as state in an earlier post, and from there, had to get to Sorrento where our hotel was. To do this, we had to take the Circumvesuviana Train, which, predictably, goes somewhat around Vesuvius. So we dragged our luggage over to the train station, somewhat connected but not really to Napoli Centrale. Sadly, after we bought our tickets, we realized that we had to go down many steps. Why is this sad? Because we had heavy, heavy luggage. LC even had two large suitcases. Lucky for her though, throughout our journey from Florence to Sorrento and back to Rome, she managed to have someone help her with her with one of her suitcases about 60% of the time, if not more. Maybe it’s the short blonde thing, lol. In any case, we lugged our luggage down 2 separate flights of stairs to the platform, dragged ourselves onto the Circumvesuviana, and nowhere to sit. So we stood for the first 20 minutes, worried we were on the wrong train as the final destination listed in the car was not Sorrento. Luckily, we were on the right train, and we found seats for the last 45 minutes of the journey.

After the uneventful train ride, we arrived in Sorrento. Unfortunately, we did not really print out directions on how to get to the hotel, so we kind of wandered (with out ridiculously heavy bags) and asked multiple people how to get there. Finally, 20 min later, we found it. Luckily, it had an elevator (it was on the 3rd floor), and our room was on the third floor as well. We got into our room, so happy to change (it was a hot and sweaty journey) and leave again for dinner.

Piazza Tasso (I think it was) is the local hangout in Sorrento, and there is a corner with 3 restaurants right next to each other. Needless to say, this is where we ate dinner for our three nights in Sorrento. After our yummy dinner, it was time to explore Sorrento a bit, and then go to bed so we could be wide-awake in Positano the next day

To get to Positano from Sorrento one can take a bus or the train. We chose to take the bus because half of the fun when it comes to the Almafi coast is the drive getting there. I actually thought it was going to be a bigger scare than it was, but I was caught up in the scenery, so that might be why it didn't phase me. LC on the other hand, thought it was kind of scary. Also fun (to me at least) was that the driver honked the horn for every turn, just in case another car was coming. The road is kind of narrow, so it was necessary to make the presence of a bus known to drivers coming the other way. There were actually parts of the drive where someone had to back up to let us through. I also saw a cyclist and immediately thought of dad. The road was twisty, turny, steep, high, narrow, and not really conducive to cycling I thought. Still, that was only the first rider I saw that day, as I think I saw a total of about 6. Good for them. Anyway, back to the drive. The scenery was fantastic. I probably took too many pictures, and I only posted my favorites, so they are not all posted. But it was that pretty, so it’s all good.

Anyway, we arrived in Positano (after some confusion as to where to get off the bus) and were promptly awed by the town. It is such a cute town crawling up the hill/mountain-side. It is so quaint and there are so many pretty scenes. So we walked down to the beach, bought a beach towel, paid to use the umbrellas for the day (got a discount for being form CA), and relaxed. It was a nice day after our time traveling the day before. Pretty much all we did was sit, relax, swim, eat, relax some more, and repeat. After a couple hours (ok, maybe more than a couple), we packed up and got some gelato, as no trip is complete without trying the gelato. Sadly, this was probably my least favorite gelato of the trip. In any case, we dragged ourselves up the hill to the bus stop and were greeted by a line of people. I wasn’t sure we would make it on the bus, but we did. Granted, we didn’t have seats, but at least we were on the bus.

So the ride starts back to Sorrento, and yeah, it kind of sucks to be standing, but no biggie right? At least that was what I thought until I literally fell into someone’s lap as the driver slammed on the breaks to avoid crashing head on into another bus coming the other way. So that was fun. We finally got seats about half way through the trip, but gave them up to some elderly women. So the rest of the ride was a nice arm work out holding ourselves up, and was otherwise uneventful.

After we arrived back in Sorrento we noticed our sunburns, didn't really care, changed, and went to our second of the three restaurants in the Piazza.

The following day was our day in Capri. For this, we left the hotel early, and took a ferry out to the island. I don’t know why, but in my mind Capri was more like Santorini: beachy and such. In fact, Capri is not like that at all. It is instead very mountainous and foresty. Its still amazing though, and I took no shortage of pictures.

The first thing we did was buy tickets for a boat tour of the island. We got in a long line, and decided to take the next boat so we cold actually have seats. We were then told that we couldn’t wait in line itself, and to come back at 11 for the 1125 boat tour. So we went to an Internet cafe for 20 min, came back out, and there was a long line. Needless to say, I was mad because we were told not to wait in line. In fact, that we actually weren’t allowed to. So, I was mad, but we dealt with it, and got pretty good seats anyway. The funny part was that some people tried to cut us in line and the Italian family behind us started yelling at them. They ended up moving to the back of the line, which made me really happy.

So the boat ride was amazing. We got to see the blue grotto, green grotto, white grotto, and go completely around the island. The blue grotto was an interesting experience. We got off the tour boat and into a canoe. Two girls from NY asked if we wanted to ride in the canoe with them (it was 4 to a canoe), probably because there seemed to be quite a few overweight people on our boat and we seemed pretty normal. So we hopped in, well, squeezed in might be more appropriate, paid ten euro, and looked around for the blue grotto. We didn’t see an opening in the rock and were a bit confused. Then, as we got closer to the rock wall, the canoe guy waited for a wave, told us to lean back, grabbed a chain from nowhere, and pulled us into a hole that magically appeared. At first, it was just a black cave we seemed to be in, I was enjoying the singing that some of the rowers were doing, and I was still a bit surprised by our entrance into the cave. Then, I turned around and saw the blue water around the entrance. It kind of looked like it was glowing and it was super cool. Sadly, you are only supposed to spend about 3 minutes in the Grotto, which is lame because you pay 10 euro to get in. Lucky for us, the girls in our boat wanted to swim. So they each paid 5 euro (ridiculous if you ask me) and jumped in. Well, one of them jumped in, and the other had to be cajoled, which all meant that we got to stay in the Grotto for a bit longer. Getting the girls back into the boat proved fun, as it rocked back and forth so much LC and I thought we would end up in the water too. Nothing happened though, and after our 10 min or so in the Grotto, we headed towards the little hole that was supposed to be our exit. I kind of doubted that we would make it out without any scrapes, and I wondered how we could be sure no one was coming in while we were going out. Still, our rower grabbed the magic chain, we leaned back, and out we went with a wave. At this point, our rower asked for a tip, which we declined to give. He had his back to us, he didn’t talk, he didn’t sign, he wasn’t nice, he didn’t do anything but sit there while other rowers did all the fun stuff. We were some of the last people on the boat, and once we got on, away we went.

The next fun thing we saw was the green grotto. The boat just backed up to this pretty little area, where the water was green and gorgeous and there was a little archway and it was all just nice and picturesque. Next we saw the arch. It was naturally made and supposedly if you kiss a loved one when you go through it, you will be together forever. So the boat made its way through the arch, with some couples kissing, some not, and I personally wasn't sure we would make it through the arch in one piece, but we did. We moved on around the island and saw the white grotto. This grotto is famous for its stalagmites and stalactites (I think those are the correct terms). It is also famous for the rock that looks like the Virgin Mary at the top. I seem to have missed that, but I’m okay with it. We then continued around the island and ended up back at the marina.

I was going to write some more, but I’m a bit tired of writing, so I will write some more later. Ciao for now and look at it this way, the adventure continues :-)

Final Albums

I added my pictures for Venice, Positano, Capri, Pompeii, and Herculaneum. I have yet to add captions for the last two albums, but I will get to them soon.

I will also post about my trips to Positano, Capri, Pompeii, and Herculaneum sometime soon.

Just When I Thought The Adventure Was Over…

Here is the entry I wrote while on the plane...

So this morning I thought everything would be easy with no worries as we were staying in a hotel right near the Rome Airport (FCO). It was not to be.

First, our journey to the hotel. We explored Pompeii and Herculaneum yesterday, and after Herculaneum, we made our way back to Napoli Centrale (the train station). We picked up our bags and bought our tickets for the train to Rome. We had about 40 minutes to spare, so we decided to take advantage of Mc Donalds again, and managed to have our last Italian meal be Micky D’s, so fabulous, I know. In any case, we ate dinner there, caught our train, and had a nice 2 hour ride.

We got to Termini (the main train station in Rome), and had to figure out how to get to the airport so we could get to our hotel. Sadly, we called Marriot, and they said that the last shuttle from the airport was at 920, and as our train got in from Napoli at 920, we figured we were going to miss that one. So I wandered around, bought our tickets, and then found a Leonardo da Vinci express to the airport leaving in less than 15 minutes. We ran with all of our luggage over to the train, with some time to spare. We hauled our luggage up into the car, where there was one other person. Unfortunately, as we waited to gain access to the luggage rack, she stood there fiddling around, doing nothing productive that we could see. Finally, we gave up, pushed our way around her, and got to another luggage rack and some seats. The ride was once again uneventful.

So we arrived in the airport and then had to find a mode of transportation to our hotel. First though, we needed to find an atm. I was out of cash and LC was almost out, so I pulled out 40 euro after searching for a good 10 minutes and finding that maps in the airport lie. We then made our way down to the arrivals, and caught a shuttle to the hotel. We were told it would be 20 or 25 euro for the two of us, but it ended up being 30. In other words, we could have taken a cab and it would have been cheaper, but at that point we were tired and didn’t want to argue, so we let it go and walked into the hotel.

The most amazing thing about the hotel was the ability to shower and wash off all of the volcanic ash and dust that we were covered in from our afternoon in Pompeii and Herculaneum. It was a fabulous shower, probably the best since I have been here, and I promise I appreciated it. Sadly, the designer of the shower miscalculated how much water would spill over and we had a mini flood, but it all worked out. We had to pay 12 euro for internet (thanks dad!), but were able to check in, update the blogs a bit, and take care of some email.

This morning we got up around 820 for our 9am shuttle to the airport (my flight was at 1120). We got downstairs a bit before 9, checked out, and were told the shuttle was gone. We were a bit surprised by this as we were not told we had to be downstairs before 9, and on top of that, we got downstairs before 9 and did not see the shuttle. So that was frustrating, especially as the next shuttle was not supposed to arrive until 940. At this point I was trying to take it in stride, but we couldn’t afford a taxi, as it was 12 euros for the two of us to take the shuttle, and if we counted that plus my change, it would have been about 17 euro. So we sat there hoping to leave early, which thankfully we did (if 930 counts as early).

We arrived at Terminal 5, the new terminal for United, Delta, American, US Airways, and maybe a couple others. The main point is that it is for travel into the US on US carriers. We got in, walked through the first checkpoint where they asked about bags, and then on to check in. This is where LC and split up and the real fun began.

The line was maybe 20 people deep, so while I was concerned about the time (it was 950, boarding was at 1035), I wasn’t too worried. However, as time passed, it was increasingly annoying. The people in front of me had on average 5 pieces of luggage and there were only 2 people doing the check in business. On top of that, another attendant (not sure what else to call her), was helping big groups (who were behind me in line) by printing their boarding passes and taking them up to the front to one of the two check in ladies, making the process even longer.
Finally, I got up to the front around 1010/1015, so excited and sure it would take no time at all to get through the process. I was mistaken. First, my bag was overweight, and as I didn’t have a lot of time to move stuff around, I decided to pay the exorbitant fee and get moving. Then, the machine wouldn’t print the tag for my luggage. The woman sat there and played with it for a couple of minutes before it finally printed it out correctly. Finally, the woman couldn’t figure out the next step in order to charge my credit card. She must have sat there staring at the screen for a good couple of minutes before the light bulb went off and it all worked. No one was in a hurry here, and there were a bunch of people who were on my flight in this line. I swear I have never been in a slower check in line, or a less efficient one. It must just be the Italian way.

In any case, it was on to security, which was quick and easy, no problems. From there you have to hop on a shuttle to take you to the actual terminal you will be leaving from. This is all well and good, except when you are in a rush and they are waiting for the shuttle to fill up before leaving. We finally (finally!) pulled away, and drove over to the terminal. From there, my gate was of course the farthest away, so I rushed over, keeping an eye peeled for a snack shop to pick up some snack and finish up my eruos. It was not to be and I arrived at my gate at 1035, as they announced boarding.

One would think this would mean the adventure has ended, but it hasn’t. They announced boarding would begin in a minute, and proceeded to call individual people to the desk for another 10 minutes. After this delay, they made an announcement that boarding would be delayed another 10 minutes. Then it was the most disorganized boarding ever, as 15 minutes later they let Groups 1, 2, and 3 on together, I guess to speed it up. I was group 2, so I hustled on the plane, got my seat and settled in by 1110, only 10 minutes before we were supposed to take off. Once I was settled, a couple who was split up asked me to switch with one of them so they could sit together. I agreed, deciding it was my mitzvah for the day, and hoping in my head that the plane wouldn’t crash as I am now not in my assigned seat (fingers crossed).

We were all loaded on by 1130, still with no real reason for the delay besides the fact something needed to be taken care of. We taxied forever, and took off at about 12 for our 9 hour flight, only 40 minutes late, for still unspecified reasons.

Alls well that ends well, and as I am on the plane now, I suppose I cant really complain.

Quite the adventure all things considered. I think now I will enjoy my pretzels and coke, and read a book. When I get tired of that, I will work on a post for the past couple of days in Southern Italy.

PS: Flying over Sardenia was super cool :-)

Last Hotel Room...For Now

I am sitting in the hotel Dad got us in Rome, right near the airport, and feeling a mixture of happiness and sadness about coming home.

I will miss Italy a lot, but there are things I wont miss about it as well. I will miss the traveling and new adventures and exploring new cities. I wont miss schleping all of my crap everywhere. I miss the Villa (not just the food and service, but the whole program), but I won't miss everyone who was in the program. I will miss the gelato, but not the ridiculous prices we had to pay for it. I will miss the amazing Italian food and olive oil, but not the smoking that was at every outdoor restaurant we ate at. The other issue is that I am not exactly sure where home is anymore. It could be DC, or it could be SD. So confusing.

In any case, this isn't a very insightful post, just a little bit of thought at 1am.

I will post more about our past couple days in Southern Italy. I don't think I have enough time or functioning brain cells to do it all justice now. Let me just say Sorrento is great, Positano is fabulous (though the drive getting there is a bit of a white-knuckler), Capri is stunning and gorgeous (the Grottos especially), and Pompeii and Herculaneum are interesting and really make one ponder life in 79AD.

So Buona Notte da Italia for the last time, and my next post will be from the US of A.

Looking Back

Well, I am back in the McDonalds in Napoli, attempting to check in online for my flight tomorrow morning. Sadly, it is not going very well, which is why I am typing this brief entry instead of sitting on a train to Pompeii.

We decided to come to Napoli, drop our bags off, go back to Pompeii and Herculaneum, return to Napoli to pick up our bags and get our tickets to Rome, and then head to the hotel. I think it is going to be a very long day. It should be worth it though, especially since I have been thinking about seeing Pompeii and Herculaneum for a very long time. Im such a history nerd. I just find the whole thing fascinating, and I can't wait to learn more.

Sadly, we will never get to Pompeii if this stupid online check in doesn't work. Sigh.

LC and I have also decided that we are going to be watching some Italian or Italy based movies when we get back. So we started up Netflix again and will have Casion Royale( my first Bond movie, lol) and Dangerous Beauty (about a courtesean in Venice) awaiting our return. We also plan on watching the Italian Job and Only You, which I own, and Cinema Paradiso and Il Postino, which we will also get through Netflix.

I will try to update about our time in Sorrento, Positano, and Capri tonight, but no promises.

Now, I am giving up on United.com and heading to Pompeii. History is sometimes so much more exciting than the future.