Ciao ciao ciao!!!! Come stateeeee???? Sto bene...yadada yada yada I am done with my Italian class! It was very good and I learned a lot and now I can successfully get myself around in Torino with the use of my broken version of the language and lots of hand gestures (none foul, i promise!) Let's seeeee where I left off we had gotten back from Nice and Montecarlo! Trying to think back that far and see what has happened! School has been good as always, am trying to maintain a steady balance between school and fun! The weekend after France we stayed in Torino which is always fun and exciting. It was nice to catch up on school and relax for a little. Thursday night we went out with our Italian friends which is always fun, and then Friday we had a visit to the Accorsi Foundation and Pietro Accorsi was an art collector a very long time ago who collected a lot of Rococo pieces and now they are all in a big building that is a remake of his house--pretty cool. Saturday night our Italian friends made us dinner to show us how it is done. (The previous weekend Micki and Katherine had made gnocchi for them and although they swore it was great they wanted to show all of us a 'real italian meal'). They made HUGE plates of purple risotto which we thought was dinner, then they brought out homemade lasagna and I have to say it was the best lasagna ever! One of Micki's friends from Chico who lives in downtown came by for dinner and he literally kept coming back for more, eventually going back for fourths it was so good (he swears he hasnt been full since being here haha). We told them we would switch off every week cooking dinners for eachother, but they insisted that they will cook the italian dinners, as long as we make cookies. Seems like a fair trade! The school week after that was pretty slow EXCEPT i got SO SICK one night! At first I thought it might have been food poisoning but I think it was a bug. I got up in the middle of the night to yack and then yacked on the sidewalk on the way to school--nasty! So decided I should opt out of the quiz I had that day. Went to one of the many 'farmacia's' nearby and got some medicine (for future reference: Ho Vamitato means I threw up!) but the medicine didnt really work. Didnt really have an appetite for the rest of the week, it was great!!! KIDDING! Then on Thursday night it was off to Naples, Sorrento and Capri! Thursday night we took the night train to Naples and bought the tickets all together so the 6 of us could get our tickets at the same time and all sit together in the train. The guy who sold it to us spoke english so the plan was to leave thursday night, see Naples for a couple of hours and have some pizza (it was invented there and the best pizza is in Naples), then head to Sorrento for Friday night and go to Capri for Saturday night, take the night train back on Sunday. So Thursday night we took the night train to Naples. Night trains sure are an experience! You can buy beds but they are more expensive, but at the same time it is a little scary when you're sharing a car with somebody you don't know and you're sleeping. So we were lucky to all be together. We get on the train and get situated, BUT unfortunately the guy didn't seat us all together!!! We figured it would be fine because whenever someone came up we would just show them where 4 of us were supposed to sit and they could just sit there. Little did we know we would get the grumpiest old italian ladies in Torino! They show up to the car and start yelling in Italian that we're in there place. My roommate Micki goes "oh wait, sorry it's okay we'll figure it out. do you speak english?" --"NO! NON CAPISCO! QUOI. QUOI. ANDIAMO. QUOI." Which is "NO! I DON'T UNDERSTAND. HERE. HERE. LET'S GO, HERE." and we kept trying to show them that there were 4 seats in the car RIGHT NEXT TO US and even when the train workers explained it they were still debbie downers but the train attendees were nice enough to move us to another car, which was more comfy and spacious so THERE OLD LADIES! The seats in the car fold down into makeshift beds, but it still wasn't very comfy haha I did bring my plush soft blanket (thanks maaaam) so I was able to use that as a pillow when I got sore. But it was definitely better than wasting a day in a train for 12 hours and it's a lot more soothing and comfortable than a flight. I had my ipod so it was allllll goooood. We got to Naples and it is CRAZY there! We had all been told by numerous people to watch our stuff before we got there, it is the biggest place for crime and theft in Italy. But we definitely didn't realize how racous and crazy it is. Cars driving crazier than in Torino and chaos and dirt and grime everywhere. Although I'm sure there are nicer parts, we weren't in Naples to mess around--we had a mission. Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, numerous friends, family, and even Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, all swear by "Antica Pizzeria da Michele," the best pizza in Naples. After walking around in circles for a while, we found it! They were just opening when we got there and were so friendly--they even had a picture of Julia Roberts in the restaurant, which I just found out is from when she was filming the movie Eat Pray Love. So we go and we order the infamous margherita pizza and it was yummy! In Italy it is rude not to finish everything on your plate, plus if I am doing my math right a.) The best pizza in the world is in Italy b.) the best pizza in Italy is in Naples c.) The best pizza in Naples is at Pizzeria da Michele d.) the best pizza at pizzeria da Michele is the margherita pizza = e.) I am eating the best pizza in the world. But try as hard as I could, I was not worthy and the pizza ended up winning, some of the girls cleaned their plates though! I knew my boy cousins would be disappointed, they probably would have gotten 3! Now that that's out of the way, we made our way back to the train station to take the tram to Sorrento, only an hour away. We all had our bags and backpacks, making us 10,000x more paranoid at the fact that we were magnets for pick pocketing. Well, we're walking to the train station and I look to my left and a man had his hands in Micki's backpack! I turned and looked and he said "sorry, her bag was open and I tried to close it." But it had been closed he was obviously trying to take something but he didn't succeed! They do it so delicately, just fiddle there fingers around for awhile so you can't feel a thing--jerks!! But oooh well, off to Sorrento we went! We got there and the town is so cute! Lemon and Kiwi trees everywhere, right on the water, and such nice people! The day started out a little bit muggy but cleared up quickly, the town is just so cute I can't get over it. The hostel we stayed at was a cute little b&b that was family owned. Since it's still the off-season for the amalfi coast only some of the shops were open, but it was really fun to explore the town and see the water and walk around and immerse myself in SORRENTO. We went back to the hotel kind of early since we were pretty tired from all of the travel but we did get to meet a couple of Brazilians while we were out and hang out with them for a while. At dinner we heard the table in front of us speaking in English, in American accents nonetheless! We finally gathered up the courage to ask them where they were from, and LOW AND BEHOLD they were with USAC (the same program as me), but from the other location, Viterbo! Not only were they from America and USAC, 2 of them went to Chico, and 1 girl was in MY ITALIAN CLASS, AND HER NAME IS CAITLIN! So is that what it means when they say "it's a small world after all??" I guess so! SO WEIRD! we also saw them in Capri the next day too! So Saturday morning we took the ferry to Capri, the new love of my life! (Venice is still very pretty but really touristy, and Nice is still amazing and I could still live there because Capri is tiny, and my view might be skewed if I went in May or June when it is tourist season). SO we took the ferry to Capri. The ferry ride was gorgeous and there was a soccer team on the boat who were obviously obsessed not by anything else besides the fact that we are american girls so they definitely made the ride entertaining! They offered to let us go to their game for free (oooh la laaaaaaaaaaaaa) but we ended up not making it because we were too busy in PARADISE!!!! I don't know how to explain how beautiful the place is. It feels like Hawaii, Italy and Greece had a lovechild that resulted in the magnificent island of Capri. We walk up to our hotel, and it is the first night they are open, and we are basically the only guests there. Because of this fact, they were very excited to have something to do and welcomed us with wine (don't mind if I do!) AND upgraded both of our rooms to rooms right on the water and ours had a HUGE balcony! Like the size of my bedroom at home, probably bigger I think. The weather was amazing, ACTUALLY WARM!!!!!! I DIDN'T EVEN PACK A COAT, you people don't know how wonderful of a feeling that is! So we got there and hung out and lounged around for a bit, then headed down to the Piccola Marina and sat on the beach and on the rocks. It was so amazing, again words can't describe! Sitting on those rocks will forever be my happy place whenever I am having a bad day. The pictures are pretty, but they don't do it justice AT ALL! I have read that during the season the island is packed with extremely inflated prices, tacky tourists with nametags, etc. Making it just like another Hawaii or island, but in my head it will always be the quiet little island with the best weather and nice people--i even found a CAT i loved there and that has only happened once in my life (no offense Murphy, but it's not you! :P)!!! The water is the bluest blue you have ever seen and oh gosh I can't even describe why I love it so much it is just AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING! My advice: go in March or April, when it's still close to the off-season but still nice. My only regret is that since it is the off-season, we weren't able to rent scooters and race around the town (probably better considering my gracefulness+driving record) and we also weren't able to see the blue grotto which is a cave in the ocean near Capri that is all limestone and you take a boat out and the whole thing is BRIGHT BLUE GLOWING. I still sent out a postcard like I had seen it haha. On Sunday we took a chairlift to the top of the mountains on the island. Mom would have been freaking out I can't describe how rinky dinky this thing was. It's probably a 10 or 15 minute ride to the top, and you're in a little wooden thing that rocks and doesn't really have a seat belt (a bar comes down but you can lift it up whenever--not that I did!) and only one person can go at a time. So I went up and the ride was so amazing (I overuse that word I know) but you're going up and you can see like gorgeous buildings that were once used in WWII with no tops on them because they were bombed and are now covered in grass and green flaura and fauna (i think, i dont know what that means really but it sounds fitting?) and tiny little gardens with makeshift decorations, and a gorgeous view of the island and the buildings and the water and the coast of Italy and it's the most amazing feeling in the world! At the top of one of the mountains there is a cross it's so pretty! I wanted to hike down to it, wore my hiking shoes (uggs!) but my friends' nice boots couldn't make it! So we got to the top and I have never seen views like that in my life. The other side of the mountain is a straight cliff down to the water, and you look down at all of these beautiful cliffs and green GREEN GREEN and you're so high you're loooking DOWN 50 feet at birds and the water is crashing on the rocks and it's SO PRETTY!!!! For you movie fans, it literally LITERALLY looked like Pandora from Avatar. (or so I hear, haven't seen the movie!). Everywhere you go is an amazing view and it was literally breath taking. Words haven't been invented to describe it. Unfortunately, we had to go back down:( And head back to Naples for our night train home. Getting from the port to the train station was a joke. Oh really man working on the boat? An easy 20 minute walk from the port to the train station? I didnt know that meant dodging traffic, climbing over construction, walking through grime and filth and homeless people, getting bartered at to buy the stuff that the people had stolen that day, and it taking an HOUR to get there! But hey, all in the experience! We got there a couple of hours early and went to the ticket counter to see if we could get an earlier train, so you can imagine our surprise when they guy told us we MISSED our train! What? What do you mean? 21:00 means 9 and it's only 7! Yes, that may be true, but don't trust the man at the station when he tells you he booked you for Sunday night to arrive on Monday morning, what he REALLY means is he booked you for SATURDAY NIGHT TO ARRIVE ON SUNDAY MORNING! So we had to buy ANOTHER ticket. Any poor college student can relate to me on how annoying this is, but I didn't have the energy to be mad, plus, a tiny voice in my head was telling me that there was no point in getting mad because there was nothing I could do, and it is all apart of the experience of being abroad, and now I know not to be an idiot and LOOK AT THE DATE VERY CAREFULLY WHEN I GET A TICKET! (Mom? Is that you? Get out of my head you are making me wise!) So we took the night train back, this time it was a little more comfortable but kept switching from being INCREDIBLY stuffy in which we would open the window, to FREEZING cold because the window was open! Again, my plushy red blanket saved the night! We got back to Torino earlier than expected so I was able to sleep in a bed for a while, unfortunately it was nowhere near as comfortable as the bed I was spoiled with in the hotel (it had a MATTRESS TOPPER like mine from home that I was desperate to pack)! But it was extremly comfortable and nice to lie down before the day started. Tomorrow is the USAC GREEN DAY CONFERENCE, which I think is a sustainability conference with a bunch of speakers, but my roommate Micki and friend Katherine are showing the USAC documentary they made about the program which is going to be cool! (starring yours truly!) This weekend we are headed off to Roma and I can't wait! Time to catch up on my shut eye! Mom, Dad, Mamalynne and Granddaddy, once again GRATZIE MILLE for sending me on this amazing experience! To everyone, I miss you all so much and wish you were here with me! Ciao ciao ciao!
Love,
Caitlin
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