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,