Back to Saturday. While on the pier we talked about Amalfi. Dixie and Kate are both beach girls--they love the beach. I was thinking that maybe I'm just not a beach person because I just wasn't taking to Amalfi. The ocean made me extremely restless and I hadn't been to the beach since I was 3 or 4. But I think the reason I wasn't enjoying myself as much was because I was worrying about money and I wasn't comfortable with our hostel at that time. Later, "Willie's" became more of a joke, but I wasn't clean at the time, and was therefore uncomfortable. [clean, as in I hadn't showered, not that I was on drugs]
There's another thing about Amalfi. It's not even really a beach. The beach was tiny and not very sandy. The slope of the mountain went right on down to the water at most points, and the entire town felt very confining to me, confined by the mountains around it. Like it was being shoved into the ocean.
Later in the afternoon we went up the main road and into the shops. Kate and I split off so Dixie could check her email. We went up to the Duomo, a beautiful church with an interior of white and gold. I want a hall like that in my fantasy temple. On the way down the tall flight of steps, we saw a wedding celebration coming out into the square below. The bride and groom were dancing, people were blowing bubbles, etc. Later we found out that they were both American, but the families came over every year.
Tuesday, 4/15/03
So when we met Dixie we were standing in the square talking, when we saw a lady reading an English newspaper, sitting at the fountain. We had been keeping an eye out for newspapers for fresh news about the war. So I told Dixie to ask her where she got the paper. I don't know why I didn't ask her myself; we're just used to relying on Dixie because she speaks Italian.
Not only did she give us the front section of her Wall Street Journal, but she ended up showing us a few places where we could get some dinner. Her name was Suzanne and she lived in Italy, though she was originally from California and goes home to Atlanta every once in a while to visit her children, who live with their father.
So that's how we came to be in the wine restaurant Saturday night. Before we met Suzanne I had bought a sandwich to save for later, so by the time we got there I was too full to eat anything else or spend any more money. Suzanne told us we might see her there if we went, and we did! She was with an Italian man who we later found out was her fiance, the mayor of a neighboring town, and a marketer. His name was Giocanni (sp?). They invited us to sit at their table. Giocanni, when he found out Dixie was a marketing major, said he needed a business partner and that they should run a business together. As for architects, he said that Italy needed designers with more of a world perspective, because Italians take things so slow and discuss everything so much that nothing ever gets done.
Suzanne had an interesting background. I don't remember what her previous work had been in Italy, but now she was working on two books, one on something to do with MLK, and the other about some healing methods a doctor used. The two of them were looking at villas in Amalfi. They were nice enough to give us a ride back to Willie's after dinner.
When we got back to Willie's we found Marty and Maari in the kitchen, and they said that there was a train strike, so we couldn't get home on Sunday. That really upset me because I couldn't afford to stay another night. Marty was worried because she had 3 Italian quizzes on Monday morning. So until she could get a hold of her instructor, the plan was to go to Napoli Sunday evening and catch the first train running after 9pm to Rome, then the first train of the morning back to Castiglion.
Having the whole day of Sunday to hang out, we decided to go to Capri. I debated about the expense, but I didn't want to stay by myself. How glad I am that I did. Capri was by far the best part of the weekend, and what made it exceptional. We thought we would have to make a choice between Tiberius' palace and the Blue Grotto. I was for the palace because it was less expensive, and we would see more of the island that way. We decided to go for the palace and do other things if we had the time. Marco had said it was a 2 1/2 hour hike up there, but he's a leisurely man. Once we took the funiculare up to the real town of Capri, it was only a 45 minute walk up to the palace, Villa Jovis, it was called. It cost €2 to get in. It was a fascinating place, though in ruins. Tiberius was the Caesar during the time of Christ, and apparently he came to Capri for his health. His reign gave him a bad name, even though it was really his generals who were ruling from Rome and doing the cruel things. The funniest thing we saw was when we were walking down a path, suddenly two billy goats popped their heads over the wall above us. There were four or five of them climbing around in the ruins.
I knew I had left something out! Vick! Vick is a dog who picked us up about halfway to the palace and decided to be our tourguide. He was the friendliest dog I've ever known. Ken named him Victor Mancini after a character in some book (by the same author who wrote Fight Club). Apparently he was sort of a Silence of the Lambs-ish character.
Vick knew exactly how to get to the villa. He even showed us the restroom on the way up, where he proceeded to drink from the toilet. It was he who aroused the billy goats by barking. He even begged Marty for some water by nosing her bottle. He ate lunch with us at Tiberius' leap, a cliff edge where, according to legend, Tiberius threw his enemies over. We threw plenty of orange and lemon peels over.
Down at the bottom of the cliff we could see rocks just under the water that had an incredible green tint against the pure blue of the normal water.
Now that I felt I knew the island better, I felt a lot more comfortable going back to the shore and seeing the blue grotto. By that time Marty had found out they could take their quizzes on Tuesday, but by that time the hostel in Sorrento was full. Dixie and Kate had made reservations for that morning, but the rest of us were homeless for the night.
We paid €7 for the boat to the grotto, €4 for the rowboat in, and €4.10 to get in. We knew it would be really expensive, but we had heard tales of €20 or more, so we figured ourselves lucky. We were amazed at how small the entrance was. It was only about four feet above the water, and every minute or so a wave would all but fill the entrance, so the rowers had to be really careful and we had to get low down in the boat when we went inside.
In the larger boat on the way there, I was loving the sea spray, the taste on my lips, and running my hands through the water I could barely reach. The cliffs and small caves we passed were incredible. The water was so so blue, a deep dark blue. Not navy, but much darker than the sky. And I could see green in its ripples, reminding me of Monet's paintings of the sea. I love the Mediterranean!
Inside the Blue Grotto all we did was go around it, then back out. We were only in there for five minutes or less, but the beauty was worth every penny. The water glowed underneath like neon lights and the walls of the cave reflected the water.
Afterward, while we waited for Ken, Kelly and Kate, we walked out to a strip of big rocks on the shore and laid there. It was a little cold to try to get some sun, so I just found a flat rock and curled up with my hood over my head and relaxed, maybe slept for a few minutes. The sound of the waves filling the cavities of rock underneath me was exhilarating and calming at the same time. It was then that I wondered why I loved Capri so much more than Amalfi. To me, the sea at Capri was liberating, where at Amalfi it was suffocating. Maybe it's because there's something so much more dynamic about an island. The cliffs seemed to want to take off into the air, they were in an intense battle with the water. In Amalfi we were sandwiched between two large masses, the mainland and the sea, but Capri was fighting on my side, the cliffs cutting through the water, or the water cutting through the cliffs.
Finally, we took the hydrofoil back to Sorrento and I took one last photo of the silhouette of Capri with the white stream of water coming out of the back of the boat. The Sorrento shore was one straight cliff against the water. The town was actually pretty flat just beyond that. I really like Sorrento. There were tons of nice little ceramics and music box shops. It was a classy place.
When we split off from Kate and Dixie we went to the circumvia station to ask if there were any trains from Napoli to Rome, but the man at the ticket office said we would have to go to Napoli to find out. We didn't want to get stuck in Napoli if there wasn't. It's known as the armpit of Italy: hot, humid, and smelly, as well as dangerous and dirty. So Marty called Rachel and had her look up trains on the internet. There was a Eurostar after 9, which was supposed to be €10 more than a regular train. I told Marty that if we went to a club in Sorrento, we would end up spending more than the Eurostar anyway (I really didn't want to spend the night in a club, watching my friends get drunk) and that convinced them. We would take the chance. We rode the circumvia to Napoli, then caught our inner city train to Rome at 10, which only cost €12. Lucky us!
Inner city trains are the ones that are entirely compartmentalized. We got into our compartment (5 of us and 6 seats), pulled the seats to the middle to make a flat bed, and all slept for 2 1/2 hours. It was a tight fit, but generally very comfy. When we got to Rome, Ken was proud of himself for "not taking a shower for four days and then sleeping with four beautiful women." They had actually gone to Rome intending to spend the day there, but up and decided to join us down south. None of them had even changed their clothes for three days!
I forgot to mention that I decided Saturday night that I had to wash my hair or I would go nuts So I took my 2 (or maybe 4) minute shower. Just being clean made me sleep so much better Saturday night. That was a major contributing factor to how good my day at Capri was.
Sunday morning as we were leaving Willie's, there was a donkey tied to the front gate, in the middle of the enormous flight of steps. It belonged to an Italian neighbor. I've never even seen a donkey before, I don't think, much less had to walk within a foot of one. It was quite funny.
So, Rome. What a funny discovery when we got off the train. We knew it was Roma Tibertina and not Termini, but what a shock for me when it looked familiar, and I realized it was the very station we accidentally got off at on Thursday night! There was still that row of homeless people sleeping, and various others lurking around. There was a grocery store that was closed, but had a little window open on the gate where you could ask the person inside to get something for you and buy it. Then there was a 24 hour coffee bar.
I swore I would never go back to Milan after that train station experience because I never thought I would be in a position to spend the night in a station again. This time it was actually a lot of fun. Ken and Kelly played cards, while Marty, Maari, and I tried to catch up journaling. We met a girl who was studying in Rome and going home to Chicago for spring break. The reason was because she had studied in Milan the previous semester. Her father was Italian, her mother was German, and her sister was a flight attendant. So traveling came easy to her. We also met a Portuguese girl who was studying in Paris and in Italy for spring break.
Late into the morning Kelly bought Maari a Kinder Egg, one of the 8-in ones, for a joke. She broke it and put the toy together, one of those race cars with a pressurized takeoff. None of us wanted to eat all that chocolate, so while Marty and Kelly raced the cars down next to the escalator, Maari passed out the chocolate to the homeless men. Monica, the Portuguese girl, was amazed. She said they weren't used to that and that it was really nice of Maari.
Despite the pleasant enjoyments we had, we were all very near the end of our energy ropes by six o'clock. Our good old Diretto came at 6:19 and we slept the 2 hours back to Castiglion Fiorentino. We got back at 8:38, the time I usually leave to go up to Arezzo. When we got up to Santa Chiara I took a shower then crashed until lunch.
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I just had a long talk with Valerie. From the window of their living room we watched the KKK procession. Just kidding! Apparently, there is an Easter parade that's part of Italian culture, where the participants wear either white or black pointy hat with holes cut out for the eyes. I feel sacrilegious, but for most things I can look past the culture block. This though, the connotations are too strong in American culture not to be weirded out by it. And they were carrying burning candles and large crosses, four of them, as well as a statue of Jesus.
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