Amalfi Coast: Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, and Naples

This weekend I went on a trip with the program to the Amalfi Coast: Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, and Naples. It was an unbelievable weekend with great weather, food, people, and once in a lifetime experiences. We started the weekend wicked early on Friday morning, having to meet at the buses by 6AM. After a 5 hour drive to Pompeii, we were dropped off at the ancient city to have a guided tour with one of the funniest tour guides to date. He was a dead ringer for Professor Lupin from the harry Potter movies which only added to his hilariousness. We walked through Pompeii and got a real sense of the history of this ancient city. Although I've been to Pompeii before, it was like seeing it for the first time again and it was interesting to gaine a new perspective on what occurred and what went on in this beautiful city. The amphitheater was one of my favorite stops (there are pictures on my photobucket page the link to that is at the bottom of this entry) and I can only imagine what performing on that stage must have been like.

After the tour ob Pompeii we were loaded back up on teh bus and taken to the hotel in Sorrento which took us about 45 minutes. How the bust was able to navigate these extremely narrow twisty-turn cliff-side roads I will never know, but the driver should get an award for not killing us on the way lol. Upon arriving in Sorrento we had the afternoon to explore and then dinner at the hotel at 7:30. It turned out that I was rooming with a new friend, Hannah and so we brought our stuff upstairs and then met up with a few other kids to decide what to do for the afternoon.

Hannah ended up going in search of a bathing suit for one of the other girls, while I headed down to take a swim in the sea with some of the guys on our trip! Walking down the amazing cliff I couldn't help but stop every few feet to take a picture of the views that got more and more spectacular with each step. The beach was so white and the water so clear blue and with gorgeous skies, it was hard to look away but we finally got our bathing sutis on and ran to the ocean. The water was so warm it was like bathwater (a nice change from marshvegas's numbingly cold waters) and we swam for a few hours before dinner.

We were staying at a 4 star hotel and so we all met back at the room before dinner to shower and get changed. The rooms were really nice and it was fun to get kind of dressed up for dinner. We had a great meal and then went to explore the surrounding area with some kids from the trip. We went to an outdoor patio bar and just hung out for the rest of the night with snacks and such, a great way to end the first day of our first vacation since arriving in Italy.

Saturday we woke up wicked early, ate breakfast, and boarded the awaiting buses to head down to the docks to get on the ferry to Capri. As we looked out on the harbor, I couldn't believe that in a few short hours we would be able to swim again in this clear blue water that is so beautiful it looks fake. When we got to Capri we went on a boat tour that took us to all the sites although the infamous blue grotto was closed due to the choppiness of the water and the high tide. The tour was nice and we headed to lunch immediately after the tour. The afternoon plans were up in the air, but we decided after much thought, to rent our own boat so we could go swimming. Our friend John commandeerd a boat and we headed out to the ocean again. Hitting up all the good spots that we had seen earlier we swam and hung out and ate good food and it was amaszing! Hannah has a camera that takes underwater pictures so as soon as she loads those online I'll post them on the blog.

We got back to the hotel and had another great meal, after which we all went dancing at a few of the local clubs before heading to bed to get up for a day in Naples!

Naples greeted us in the morning as a very sleepy city, reminiscent of Boston or New York. There were some extremely beautiful old palaces and castles but for the most part Naples is completely urbanized. We had a great bus tour of the city with many chnaces to get out and take pictures. Around lunch time we drove not the main piazza and were given free time for the rest of the afternoon but not before being given a few suggestions of great pizzerias and a fmous coffee shop (although how you could have a bad pizza ni teh city where pizza was invented I will never know). Our group decided that we wanted to go in serach of the pizza place that is in the book Eat, Pray, Love which is also the site of recent filming for the movie version starring Julia Roberts. Unfortunatley after 45 minutes of searching, we found it, and it was closed, but lucky for us we found a great pizzeria right next door. We each ate a whole pizza then headed back to the main piazza and had a coffee at a famous cafe followed by the obligatory gelato. Overall this weekend was fantastic, but it was great to get back to our little city of Perugia!

peace and love to you all!

xoxo aisling

p.s The link to my photobucket is :
http://s775.photobucket.com/albums/yy40/aislingguinee/

Hey guys! So after yesterday. . . my most hectic day of the week with 4 classes from 11-5 with only one fifteen minute yesterday I was poooped, but it was karaoke night at one of the local places so almost everyone from the program showed up it was wicked fun and my roomates and I put on quite the performance of Shania Twain, Man I feel Like a Woman. It was awesome.

Went to the gym for the first time and it was quite the experience but I'm super glad that I joined and theres a good group of people who have also joined which I hope will keep me motivated to go, plus they seem to have some pretty sweet classes which is great.

In other news, we're having a free gelato night at a local gelatteria hosted by the Umbra Institute so seeing as I've only had it once since I've been here (which is shocking even to me) I'm extremely excited to taste some bizarre flavors . . . I'll let you know how it goes tommorow!

peace and love to you all


xoxo Aisling <3

Pictures from the First week in Perugia !

Me in our kitchen before going out to dinner!

My roomate Chrissy and I with Perugia in the background.

My roomate Ariel and I again with Perugia in the background!

The great group of girlies. . . Back row. . L-R Katie, Mattie (roomate) Chrissy (roomate) Ariel (roomate) Alexandra (roomate) Amy and myself

The obligatory Roomate picture

Kitchen

My Bed

Bedroom prior to really unpacking. . .

City built on a hill = pretty windy but gorgeous views!

First view of Perugia. . . unbelievably gorgeous ancient city built on a hill!

Bella Perugia !

Hey guys! So I've finally taken a few moments to get the blog up and running and post a short little entry with some pictures from my first week and a half in Perugia. So far the adventure has been unbelievable. Upon arriving in Rome, our program directors picked us up and brought us to the outskirts of Perugia (our new hometown for the next four months) and we all promptly passed out from the lack of sleep over the previous 24 hours of travel. After a much needed nap all of the program participants had a great first italian dinner and slept again anxiously awaiting the next day when we would be brought to our italian apartments with our new flatmates.



The next morning myself and my four roomates (Chrissy (SanFrancisco/Boulder), Ariel (New York/Northeastern), Mattie (New Hampshire/Northeastern) and Alexandra (LA/UCLA)) were all taken in a taxi to our new apartment where we're going to be based for the next four months. The apartment is great (some pictures are located below), small but functions exactly as we need it to. Three bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and deck. After moving in we had a short orientation meeting and then had the night to ourselves. As Perugia is a city of students the main Piazza (Piazza IV Novembre) is flooded with students and Perugian natives every night of the week. . . sometimes it's hard to tell whether it's a weekend or a weekday :) The following day we had a practical tour of Perugia (pharmacia, supermercato, scuola etc.) followed by a three hour orientation meeting in the duomo (main church of Perugia). We then headed home to get ready for our first day of classes.



The first week of classes (last Mon-Th) was dedicated solely to getting our italian good enough to get around Perugia as the vast majority of all the inhabitants speak little to no english and italian is necessary to get around and function, therefore we had three hours of italian lecture in the morning and two hours of practical italian in the afternoon. My italian professor Francesco is awesome, he lives just outside the city and has a great sense of humor that made these long classes seem hours shorter. During the day we took class and at night my roomates and myself along with other Umbra students travelled throughout Perugia exploring and checking out the sights, learning our way around the city. At the end of the week Umbra held the first of many Umbra nights at a local Steakhouse (Argentina Steakhouse) where we all met for apertivos (a sort of italian tapas) which was great not only for the food and the spectacular view but also for the great food! After dinner one of my roomates and I met up with a few of our new friends from the Universita di Stranieri (University for foreigners) for dinner at a great Pizzeria (Pizza e Musica) which was jazz themed and had some of the best pizza we've had since we've arrived. One great thing about this city is not only are we getting to really know many italians but the number of internationals is awesome. . . just at this dinner alone we had an australian, german, greek, norweigian, and polish girl along with ourselves! It was great.



Finally the week of intensive italian was over and we had a great weekend of more explorations ahead of us. . .



Friday (yes my weekends start on Thursday night :) we woke up and together explored Perugia figuring out what we wanted to do for the rest of the weekend as well as where things were located in relation to our apartamento. Saturday we again explored, joining a local gym this day. This was an experience in it of itself seeing as the woman registering us spoke no english at all which forced me to use my little italian to help my roomate Chrissy and I figure out what was going on but the gym is great full of locals and just big enough to serve it's purpose.



Sunday we had an Umbra outing to a local farming town called Passignano. This town was amazing, it was all self-sufficient. They are known everywhere for their award winning olive oil, but are also known for being a part of the slow-food movement. This movement is all about keeping the traditions of Italian food and culture alive by not being commercialized and industrialized in the sense that they have full-course meals that last hours, which we were lucky enough to have prepared for us later in the afternoon. We were taken on a tour of the farm by the owner and patriarch of the family running the farm and he showed us the olive trees etc. . . even inviting us back in October/November to partake in the harvesting (which I might have to take him up on). After that we were invited in to learn how the process of making the olive oil occurs and then we were given a lesson in making homemade pasta. . . I was one of the few participants and loved it! A few of the older italian women from the area taught us and it was awesome to later eat the fruits of our labor ! Returning to the main building we were served a four course meal made completely from food found on the farm. After the meal we were stuffed and went outside to work off some of that food while we waited for the bus.



This first week in Perugia has been amazing but I'll try to post shorter and more frequent posts along with picturse as time goes on! Love and peace to you all !!!



<3 Aisling Ciao!!!