Italy Volume V

Okay, so Monday was a full day. I went to Ercolano (Herculaneum in
English I think) which is close to Pompeii and has similar excavation
things to see. It is a much smaller city than Pompeii, but it was
also buried by the same volcano, so it's all done up in similar
fashion. I'll send pictures. I only spent the morning there. I had
lunch and went to Caserta to see La Reggia (the Palace). There was a
huge palace built there in the 1800s or something like that and it's
got this backyard fit for a king. It's about 3 or 4 km deep and about
goes from 200 m to nearly a km wide in some places. It's got this
great big fountain at the very top of the hill (which is at the very
end of the back yard, so the furthest from the palace). And then it
had this running manmade river/fountain/pond thing straight down the
middle of the yard with little fishies and waterfalls to make it look
beautiful. I've taken some pictures, but my battery died before I got
to the top. You'll have to look it up online. I headed home to see
my friend Marco at the gelateria and then go to bed. It was a great
day :-)
Tuesday I went to the Amalfi coast, and I can't wait to tell all of
you what a great time I had!
I woke up early enough to pack up things because I had to change rooms
in my hostel. I left all of my luggage in the luggage room for
safekeeping and brought with me a towel, my camera, and some food. I
took the Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento where I got on a bus for
Amalfi. It stopped in Positano along the way. For those of you who
have never experienced the bus ride in the mountains, here is a
detailed explanation. You get on this rather comfortable bus, the
kind that have cushioned chairs for long-distance travel. You're
supposed to purchase the ticket before you get on the bus, or you
can't get on. I'm fortunate to catch the bus immediately as it is
about to depart and we are off...two Italian ragazzacci on the bus ask
him to stop 2 meters after departure to let two girls on the bus. The
girls are British and haven't purchased a ticket yet. The way the
boys said it, I thought they were friends with them, but really, they
just saw them rushing to the bus and thought they were hot, so he
asked to let them get on too. I figured this out because I could hear
their entire conversation all the way to Positano. So, the bus
finally goes and it's literally like a roller coaster ride. We're
riding up the mountain and down the mountain twisting and turning the
whole way. My eyes are glued in front of me as I get very sick very
easily from this type of uncontrolled motion. Now this seems crazy
enough as it is, but most of you are pucturing large spacious roads
that we're driving on becuse you're in America where they exist. No.
These roads are probably as big as an alley-way one-way road in
America, but there are cars parked on at least one side or sometimes
both and there are cars going both ways. So the bus got stuck a
million times and honked its horn the whole way to warn others that it
was coming around a tight corner and of course the bus has to take
wide turns...when the wide turn doesn't exist, you fear you'll just go
over the edge. nearly 2 hours later I arrive in Amalfi and kiss the
ground upon exit from the vehicle. I immediately head for the beach
as I am very excited to start catchin some rays and swim around with
my under-water capable camera. :-)
So, I'm on the beach and it's SO full of people...I've got pictures,
don't worry. I walk all the way to the other side of the beach to
climb on the rocks and swim around to a rocky grotto around a bend.
There I meet this guy from Holland with a mask and snorkel that he
lets me borrow because he is intrigued by my camera. :-) So, I have a
blast for about an hour swimming around taking underwater pictures and
just above the water pictures (I'll share soon). Anyway, so this guy
tells me that I should take the metro del mare (metro of the sea) to
get back instead of the crazy bus because the trip back is worse. So,
I do. And what a beautiful trip that was! All along the Amalfi coast
I was on a boat and I got front-row seats right by the edge. My
camera's battery ran out before I could get all the pictures that I
wanted, but it was beautiful just the same. I got home close to 10
because my travels ended in a long walk to the train station because I
went the wrong way (oops) and walked to a whole new town to catch the
train. So, I was definitely tired by the end of the day.
The next day I went to Vico Erquense to find a beach there.
Apparently it's called Turtle Beach (like Myrtle Beach only different)
or something like that (spiaggia della tortaruga in Italian). But I
don't think I found it...I just found a beach nearby and enjoyed the
sun and surf...well, no surfing for me...I don't know where the
surfing beaches are in Italy if there are any, so I'm content with my
little swimming beach coves. I'm getting much needed sun and enjoying
the relaxation that it offers me. In the evening I went to my
favorite gelateria and Marco and I planned an afternoon/evening in
Naples eating a pizza and checking out lungomare and other sights in
downtown Naples.
Thursday, I went to the beach in the morning (just the one near the
hostel) to catch some rays and then in the afternoon I met Marco and
we went to his house where I met his mother and had some fresh
squeezed lemonade from their garden. They are the coolest people!
Marco's sister is visiting Japan right now, but they offered to let me
stay with them any time I ever come back to Italy...for free! I love
napoletani! Anyway, then we went to Napoli Centro to see lungomare
and eat a pizza. We had a blast chatting about all kinds of crazy
things. I couldn't get enough Italian. I felt Italian. I was
walking around chatting in Italian for the first time I didn't feel
like everyone was looking at me thinking I don't speak Italian. It
was very cool. We were out until close to midnight and had to take
the late buses home which took nearly 45 minutes to actually come.
Marco's took longer. He called me at 1:00 to tell me that the bus
finally came.
So, I got to bed late, and even later in the night this crazy drunk
guy comes into our room being all loud and obnoxious the ENTIRE night!
He wouldn't stop grumbling to himself and making noise with all his
stuff. Then he left the room and came back about 20 minutes later
with some people that had to lead him back to his room. I was very
groggy because I just about fell asleep again. Anyway, I was up most
of the night from his grumbling and snoring louder than anyone Iàve
ever met in my life! (even people in my family...so that's pretty
bad!) Now I'm off to nap on the beach and catch more rays.
Hope you all are having fun in your parts of the world!
Ciao for now,

Italy Volume IV

Let's just start where we left off. :-)
On Wednesday after I got burned at the beach all day, I went to get a
gelato at the greatest gelateria I've found in Italy! It's just
around the corner from my hostel, so it's even more perfect! I came
back to the hostel eating my ice cream cone and I saw a large group of
people sitting and chatting so I thought I'd say hi:
"Have you guys tasted the gelato here in Italy yet?" I interject.
"Yes, we had some earlier this evening," One says.
"I had nutella flavor," says another.
"Well, good," I reply, "because you CAN'T come to Italy without at
least once tasting the gelato, and I just found the most delicious
gelateria around the corner and I had to share."
"You're adorable...come sit with us!" Michelle says (I later found out
that was her name).
So I did :-) And we had the best week!
They were all Australian...two couples, one lone girl, and one group
of three girls all met each other at the same hostel that day and
decided to enjoy the evening together. And then me...the American
with a love for gelato. We chatted until the wee hours and then went
to bed. The next day I toured Naples downtown alone and had a good
time. I pretty much just walked around the city and saw all of the
buildings and things that you can see on a walk. I got back early
enough to find my new Australian friends (though one couple left
already) getting ready to go to dinner, and they invited me along.
So, we went on an walk in hopes of finding something open, and we
found this pizzeria in the middle of nowhere that we decide to try.
It was very inexpensive and absolutely enjoyable. Of the 7 of us, we
paid 38 Euro for the entire meal. Isn't that amazing! I love obscure
random pizzerie in the middle of small towns! I only paid about 5
Euro myself. And we each had our own pizza and a drink :-)
Afterward, of course, we went to the gelateria I went to the night
before and had dessert.
There's this guy who works at the gelateria named Marco, and he is
hilarious. He thinks I'm funny too because when I came in the night
before, I looked a little mesmerized and probably slightly confused.
He could tell I was American and I hadn't said anything yet, so he
tried to speak in English to me, but he really wasn't very good. I
then responded in Italian asking what a certain flavor was. It's
called 'puffo' (pronounced poof-oh) and it's this blue color. Puffo
is the Italian name for the Smurfs :-). So they had Smurf flavored
ice cream, and I thought that was silly, so I wanted to see if he
would describe to me what a puffo is. He was first shocked that I
spoke Italian, so he asked me how I learned it and we instantly became
friends. I brough him back to the topic at hand after we introduced
each other, and he proceeded to describe a puffo...Hilarious! He kept
trying to make his hands real small and eventually sang 'lalalalalala'
to see if i recognized the puffo song. I love Italians!
The next day I was invited to see Pompeii with my good Australian
friends, and I ended up seeing it with Michelle most of the time. She
is this beautiful dark-haired Australian/Italian who has been on
vacation for 6 weeks and still has 7 weeks left. She's been to
Budapest and Greece and all these fantastic places. I'm very jealous.
One day I'm going to spend an entire summer in Europe backpacking
around like them...what fun! Pompeii was impressive and amazing and
my camera's battery died before I could get all the pictures that I
wanted...it was very sad. Fortunately, I did get pictures! After
Pompeii, we came back to clean our dirty feet and then go out to
dinner. They're such a fun group of people, and now my english accent
has turned Australian for a bit...(and here I'm trying to become
Italian!)
Anyway, I became expecially good friends with Michelle who invited me
to the Pompeii museum downtown the next day and to see them off at the
train station, so I accepted.
The next day we had a great day at the museum. For lunch we went to a
small pizzeria to get a pizza and though it was full of about 20
people and the oven was still fired up for pizza making, they looked
at us (obviously looking like tourists) and said, "siamo chiusi."
Now, if this hadn't happened to me the other night at a different
pizzeria, I would have thought differently, but it was obviously they
were not closed they just didn't want to serve us. So, in my best
Italian I said "Bravi...noi siamo pronti a pagarli per la vostra pizza
ma voi pansate che non possiamo communicare con voi, allor ci date uno
schiafo sulla guancia con le menzogne senza ne'anche chiederci se
parliamo la vostro lingua. Non siamo idioti. Siete tutti
maleducati...davvero!" Translated for you non-italians:
"Great...we're ready to pay you for your pizza, but you think we can't
communicate with you, so you slap us in the face with your lies
without even asking us if we speak your language. We're not idiots.
You are all bad-mannered! Seriously!" Then we walked out, and I told
my australian friends what happened. The people inside were yelling
back at us, but they knew I was right. I have to admit that the
people in Naples downtown are not nearly as friendly as the people in
the outer cities...nor the people in Rome. It's very sad...they're
very selfish and unaccomodating to people who do not speak their
language. I was upset for my friends.
Anyway, I saw my new friends off at the train station and went back to
the hostel to have dinner and prepare for Sunday. EVERYTHING is
closed on Sunday, so I wanted to get something to eat in the morning
before I starved ;-) I'll probably end up at the beach for most of
the day after I try to visit friends at church.
Alla prossima,

Italy Volume III

Here it is, the third installment of my Italy trip:
On Sunday I was able to go to church in the morning so that I could
try and get more phone numbers of people that I knew here in Italy.
I've almost found everyone I wanted to find...just one more person.
Actually, on Saturday, I went to the mission home to see who was there
and if they could help me. Every phone number they gave me except one
ended up not working, so on Sunday I was able to get two more phone
numbers. I wasn't feeling well at all on Saturday, so I didn't do
much. I had a horrible sinus headache and a cough. The cough remains
of course, but the headache went away by the next day fortunately.
Anyway, I left Sunday afternoon for Naples and arrived that evening at
the most amazing Hostel I've ever seen. It's only 15 Euro a night and
has a Club/Bar attached where they make food and offer music and
dancing every night. The rooms are newly rennovated so they're very
cozy, and best of all, I have free internet access. I just hook my
laptop up and I'm connected! :-) I decided to relax on Sunday and
enjoy my new surroundings and call people that I had phone numbers
for.
Gaia and Fabiana were the first to be contacted. They live in Caserta
which is about a 25-30 minute train ride north from Naples. I planned
to meet them at around 1:00 on Monday. So, Sunday I went to the
grocery store and paid next to nothing for a water, a yogurt, and a
peach for breakfast...I love being out of the tourist trap costs of
Rome.
My day in Caserta on Monday was so great! I met Gaia and Fabiana at
the train station and we went back to their apt for lunch where I met
their parents and had a lovely little pasta meal with friends chatting
about nothing important, but loving the opportunity to speak no
English. It was so great...suddenly, my Italian is coming back to me
as if I never left. In fact, (sidetrack) this morning I walked into a
pastry shop for a chocolate crescent and I couldn't think of the name
in Italian, when the barrista asked me what I would like, it just came
out...just like that. I LOVE being here. When I'm rich, I'm buying a
summer home in Italy so I can come here every summer! (return) We
chatted about old times and caught each other up on each other's
lives. After lunch we went to visit Allessandro and his new wife
Sara. They were married in New York in June. I didn't know they were
there, or I could have come to their reception. We chatted tons more
about all kinds of things. After that we went to the mall in Caserta
(which is very small), and shopped for a few things for Gaia and
Fabiana. They are going to England at the end of this week for a week
long vacation there. By the time they get back, I'll be back in Rome,
so they're going to come visit me there once they fly in :-)
Today is fer'agosto (August holiday) so absolutely nothing is open
except beaches and the cafes and bars near them. I went to the beach
this morning and got some sun. I came back for lunch and to write
this little e-mail, and I'll go back and do some swimming this
afternoon. I'm definitely on vacation. For those of you who are
jealous, I hope you get to have a vacation as wonderful as this one
some time soon because this is seriously so great!
All right, I'm off to enjoy more of the beach. Have a great day everyone!

Italy Volume II

Okay, so here it goes:
I've had a very different second half of the week. Starting on
Tuesday, I sorta had a sore throat coming on, so I went to the
pharmacy and got some cough drops. By Friday my sinuses were crazy
though the cough never really got too bad. Today I have the worst
sinus headache ever. So, I'm finding plenty of time to sit and write
because I don't feel like doing anything at all. For those of you who
worry about my health and safety, I'm fine...seriously. It's only a
minor set back and today is the first day I've felt bad enough that I
didn't want to go do anything. Having said that, here is the rest of
my week for your reading pleasure.
On Wednesday, we (meaning Mark and I - and yes I'm still hanging out
with him EVERY day...he's like a little lost puppy) decided to go to
Piazza del Popolo and then to Villa Borghese. It was such a pleasant
day. Admittedly, Mark hasn't been that bad to hang out with. At my
mom's request I've decided to be nice since "he meant well." This I
realize is true. For his own benefit of the doubt, he just finished
redoing his kitchen and it took him a whole month and he really needed
a vacation, and he saw this as his opportunity to have a great tour
guide and enjoy Italy. So, I'm seeing a lot of things I would have
seen anyway and I have someone else to see them with which isn't all
bad, and though he is quite intolerable to liten to sometimes, I've
become very good at tuning him out and doing my own thing all the
while pretending I'm enjoying his company while really just enjoying
Italy and projecting that enjoyment onto him as though it were his
doing. I think I'll get struck by lightning for this, but at least
I'm enjoying my vacation finally.
The Villa Borghese gardens were beautiful! It's like a really large
park and it used to be this huge villa owned by the overly rich
Borghese family. Their villa is now a museum and their gardens are
now overrun by the homeless, the tourists, and now me, so eat that
Borghese snobs! It feels good to stick it to the rich folk
sometimes...maybe one day centuries in the future random people will
be squatters in every one of Donald Trump's huge sky-rise riverfront
properties.
I remember several years ago I used to poke fun at the 'ragazzcci'
that's Italian literally for 'bad boys' or in other words 'punk kids.'
They used to all have the same haircut and clothing style...really
tight jeans that would umbrella at the bottom just enough to slightly
covere their huge-soled sneakers (I'm talking 6-8 cm high) and a tight
fitting florescent-colored shirt (usually pink, orange, or yellow).
Their hair was ALWAYS buzzed pretty much all over except right in the
front where about a 4-5 cm by 1 cm block of hair remained and they
would spike it up with hair glue. Nowadays things haven't changed
much. The shoes (grazie a Dio) have normal soles, but the pants are
still fairly tight and umbrella at the bottom. However, the hairdo is
this new thing termed the fauxhawk: faux- being french for fake and
-hawk being short for mohawk. What this is, and I'm sure you've all
seen it before is this attempt at a mohawk yet far more subtle. The
hair is generally very short on the sides and in the back and tapers
up to the top of the head where the hair is gelled or hairglued into
an attempted mohawk. On some this actually looks quite flattering and
fortunately the tight shirts are no longer florescent though still
fairly tight. But on many of the childish, obnoxious, skinny
teenagers it looks absolutely ridiculous...oh, and it's not exclusive
to the males unfortunately. Ah ragazzacci, where do you come up with
these ideas that you look good?
I needed to go to the bathroom and the McDonalds near Piazza di Spagna
(the Spanish Steps) is the most famous in Rome since it was the first
one, so I figured why not try here? It has amazing marble floors and
walls and interior decorations to match an ancient Roman emperor's
palace. It's also completely packed like crazy with all kinds of
people. Hello? You're in Italy...please tell me you want to pay 6
Euro for a Value Meal instead of 2 Euro for an authentic, delicious
pizza.
On Thursday we toured these ancient excavated Roman ruins that were
not open when I was here 6 years ago. They were fantastic and
fascinating and I took a ton of pictures. I think I'm going to get
some sort of website to post random pictures, but it may have to wait
until I have free internet access down in Naples. I leave for Naples
on Sun afternoon.
We also went inside St. Peter's Cathedral at the Vatican which is
always fascinating. I stopped for a moment at John Paul II tomb which
was surrounded by mourning and praying Catholics. He was a great man
and even in his palsied, feeble state before his death, he was
constantly seen out and about traveling the world. Do the Catholics
have a new pope? I don't even remember his name...well, maybe their
trying to keep a low profile these days.
Friday was a day in Florence. What an absolutely beautiful city! I
took more pictures here than anywhere...I LOVE digital cameras! We
saw the David (this was my second time). When I went before I was
allowed to take pictures and walk right up to the statue, however,
this time around the statue was blocked off with this short glass wall
about 4 square meters in area and photography was forbidden. I didn't
even have my flash on and this women came up to me scared to death
that I was shooting photographs...she couldn't get her English and
Italian straight, so I confused her with French in reply.
Hahaha...I'm so evil! It's very fun to pretend you speak another
language...you get away with so much more ;-)
We saw several different buildings and piazzas all over Florence and
everything was pretty much within walking distance. We met this guy
from Mississippi while standing in line to see David and he came with
us most of the day to tour the city. Our final stop ended up the hill
on the other side of the river with a spectacular view of the city (I
took tons of pictures again).
On the train ride home, I met a couple on their honeymoon from Long
Island. The husband was a high school teacher teaching music and his
wife was an art historian from Spain. A very nice couple whom I will
probably meet again in my future career in NYC.
So, now I'm off to send this e-mail. I love aranciata!
Alla prossima,

Italy Volume 1

Okay, so maybe this is a long time coming for some of you, and maybe
this is completely unexpected for others, but I've decided to write an
e-mail periodically documenting my trip to Italy. (This is very long,
so if you don't have time to read it you may want to save it for
later)
Since I'll be here for nearly a month, expect at least one or two a
week. If you're on this list and do not want to be or would like it
to go to a different e-mail address, please e-mail me and let me know.
So, first things first...the Euro is AWFUL!! Everything is so
expensive here. My exchange rate was 70 cents Euro per 1 American
dollar (feel free to tell me I got a bad deal, I'm over it now), but
everything you find costs about the same as you would see in the
states. So because I paid American dollars to get it, now I'm paying
even more to get it here. Enough whining about that.
The flight was long. I got off the 7 1/2 hour plane ride to Milan
(from NYC) and suddenly realized that everyone spoke Italian, and I
needed to switch over the language in my head. It actually took me a
few hours during the layover to remember to say 'mi scusi' instead of
excuse me or 'grazie.' I was a little jet lagged, so that could be
why. Fortunately, on the flight to Rome I sat next to a large French
woman with horrifying B.O. Who also happened to be extremely chatty
when she discovered that I spoke French. So, for nearly two hours I
spoke French after just getting used to Italian, and I guess sitting
so close to her the whole time either triggered my B.O. Or hers rubbed
off because I was READY for a shower right away! Fortunately I had a
30 minute train ride to wait another half an hour for because I missed
the train by seconds...literally. They closed the doors right in
front of me. That was fine because I was hungry and there was a
pizzeria right there for my hunger.
I arrived at my hostel which is wonderfully cozy! I have random
roommates every night, but I also have a locker to lock my stuff in
and the room locks as well, so it feels very secure. I have a pool
and a little bar/café to buy European chocolate and sip aranciata so
I'm in heaven. Except, the internet is down indefinitely...and it was
supposed to be free. So, once that gets up, I'll be able to e-mail
more frequently. It costs 2 Euro an hour at this one place near
Termini (Center of Rome), but I don't like hanging out around there
because it's too tourist-filled and the food is too expensive. Well,
it's not that expensive, but today I went by my old tromping grounds
in Centocelle and enjoyed the open market and a pizzeria that cost me
exactly 2,70 Euro for two slices of delicious pizza and an aranciata
(that's orange soda...my favorite!)
Okay, so now to the part I'm sure some of you are wondering about. My
friend from Philly is in Rome until next Thursday. His name is Mark.
When he found out I was coming to Rome he bought a ticket here so I
could be his tour guide for his first time in Italy. I may have
mentioned that if he came to Italy I'd certainly take him to see the
sights, but I never thought he'd actually come...you know, one of
those crazy foot-in-your-mouth situations. Not only does he come, but
he expects me to stay with him at his hotel so I can save money since
he loves to travel and he knows I could use the break. VERY tempting
I might add, but then what? I'm stuck dragging tail with him the
whole time...no thank you. I came here promising that I wouldn't
speak a word of English and he will NOT completely ruined that for me.
And I'm too nice to tell him to go home because he deserves to enjoy
Italy, he just doesn't have to enjoy it all with me...that's not too
selfish, right? So, I am staying at the hostel which he thinks is
absolutely insane because "who knows what I could catch there or who
could steal my stuff." First off, I'm not touching any of these
people and my bed sheets are clean and were issued to me the day I
arrived. There is laundry on the premises, and I brought febreeze,
lysol, and hand disinfectant. And, as I said before, I'm all locked
up, and my travel/property insurance covers theft and damage even
while I'm in Italy. Seriously...I'm not a child, nor am I incapable.
Anyway, I am going to Naples on Sunday, so I won't have to hang out
with him the whole time he is here, and I have to admit, that the past
two days have been kinda fun. I met him at Termini yesterday and we
went to literally every major sight I could think of including the
Vatican, the Colosseum, Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain, Spnish Steps,
etc. I'm going to get some sorta blog website with picture posting
ability once the free internet is up and runnign so I can show you all
the pictures I've taken. He just wanted to see anything and take
pictures. Today I made him follow me to where I used to live when I
was here in '99 and he thought it was so great until everything
suddenly shut down or closed up at 1300 for 'riposo' (that's like the
Spanish siesta and usually lasts until about 1500 or 1530). It was
very nostalgic for me. Unfortunately, the missionaries do not live in
the same apartment I did, so I couldn't ask anyone about the Church
here with anyone. Tonight should have been English class, but I went
all the way out to the church and there was no one there, so I'll have
to hope to get lucky this week or just wait until Sunday to see
anyone. Anyway, I wrote this while I was sitting at my computer, and
now I'm about to send it out. Hope everyone is well :-)
Until next time,
Dan the Italian lovin' man!