Honest to blog...: 2009

Words aren’t enough to describe how amazing this weekend was. I’m not even going to bother to really try. We left for Sorrento Thursday night and got to our hostel, 7 Hostel, pretty late, so Thursday we just went to bed. The next morning by 8 AM our bus headed to Pompeii. Here we saw ruins of an entire village that were preserved after being covered in volcanic lava. Shopped around a little, ate, etc. THEN we climbed a volcano! It was rough (especially in gladiator sandals), but completely worth it. The views were nothing short of spectacular and the experience as a whole was so fucking rewarding. Completely worth the bugs I accidentally swallowed while gasping for air, haha. That night we had dinner at this cute little restaurant where I finally had lentil soup (burnt the hell of out my tongue, though) and eggplant stuffed with mozzarella and tomato. Delicious! Went back to the hostel and drank some wine on the roof and I was so exhausted I was asleep by midnight.

Saturday we went to Capri and it was one of the most incredible days of my life. We took a boat to the Blue Grotto where we got in a canoe and went inside the grotto. My camera sort of went a-wall and my pictures don’t do it justice, but it was such an awesome sight to see. The water was NEON. Cooler than any lazers I’ve ever seen, Joe Higgins ;). After that our boat took us to Marina Piccolo in Capri where we shopped around, did some more hiking to check out the incredible views from the island, and I got sandals hand made by this little old man named Salvatore. We walked up a huge hill on the via Krupp to the Giordano Augustus where the views were seriously breath taking. Our boat driver dropped us off on this little remote cliff to wait for the bus, where we just hung around and let the day sink in. When we got back to our hostel at night, we had dinner there…vegetarian burritos! Completely filled my Mexican food void. Then we drank wine on the roof and talked for a few hours. Was in bed by midnight again The perfect end to the perfect day.

Sunday we went to Positano, which is equally as gorgeous as Capri, where we laid on the beach then took out a private boat into the gorgeous ocean. Turner pretty much drove the boat for us, but Erica, Naina and I drove for a little too and it was awesome. We were going to go cliff jumping, but the water was too rough. I was bummed, but just being on the boat was fun enough. Afterwards we had a nice dinner at this nice restaurant on the “beach”. Then the only shitty part of the weekend came -- four hour bus ride back to Roma.

It was really nice to get away from my apartment for the weekend. I genuinely like my roommates (most of the time), but I have a pretty low tolerance for certain personality traits in people, and to say it in the nicest way, I was feeling a little trapped last week.

Since it is mid June a ton of tents and stands are popping up along the edge of the Tiber that are going to open soon as outdoor markets, shops, and bars. I think they open this weekend, or at least I hope so. I was planning on either going to Paris or Florence this weekend, but I’m not sure yet. I have an essay I have to write this weekend, which probably wouldn’t take me long, but I’d rather do it here than traveling. More importantly, this week marks the half way point in my time here, and I’ve only actually stayed in Roma one weekend. I don’t know, it’s a tough decision, we’ll see.

Now I’m off to watch the documentary “Punk Attitude”, which I assume will be like every other documentary or book I’ve read on how “punk” began/the movement in general. Eh, woe is me. Adios.

PS: Katie Gibbons and Colleen MacDonald reunion countdown: 10 days. just sayin'.

I had about 130 pictures from this weekend, so I'm obviously not going to post them all here, but most will be on my facebook if anyone wants to check them out. Also, the pictures are in reverse order from the weekend and I'm a little too lazy to change them...