Friday, April 25, 2014

SB 2k14: Naples/Sorrento

THE LAST ONE before I can blog about my final days in Barcelona. Seriously...only 5 more days here. I can't even think about it.

So we took a train from Rome to Naples because there aren't trains that go into Sorrento directly. It's a small town. Brian and Cody had tickets for the earlier train so they were going to meet us there. This train was definitely the most awkward of them all. It was set up Hogwarts Express style with little cubbies of 6 seats, 3 seats facing 3 seats. After I found my assigned seat in a cubby full of Italian women (who were actually very kind), I promptly fell asleep. Our departure time was 11:26 am and our arrival time was 1:30 pm. I woke up at 12:30 and I think I was confused because I immediately freaked out that the stop we were at was my stop or that I slept through it and none of my friends would know that I was sleeping. For the first time on the trip, our stop was not the final stop of the train so the chance of me sleeping through my stop was plausible. I began making a plan of attack of how to get back to Naples from whatever town I was in until I frantically asked my new friends if the stop was Naples and they said no so I was able to calm down. I decided I definitely was not going to fall asleep again. I fell asleep again. This time I woke up at 1:30 AKA the time we were supposed to arrive and I was sure I missed it. I walked over to my friend's cubby and luckily they were still there and told me our stop was next. I made it off the train with my friends so all is well that ends well but it was probably the most eventful train ride I've had, you would know if you read my previous blog about how I got to the train station to catch the train. Moving on.

We got to the Naples train station with the intention of going out and finding a good restaurant for some pizza before catching our metro-type train to Sorrento. When we met up with Brian and Cody they told us that we are not going outside of this train station because "it is bad out there." When you think of Naples, do you picture bad?? I don't. But we trusted them and we just ate lunch inside of the train station. I got an amazing sandwich, amazing muffin, and amazing cappuccino so I was not upset. Once we got on our train to Sorrento, we could see what Brian and Cody were talking about. First, the people on the train. Second, what we saw out the windows. Honestly, the part of Naples we were in can probably be compared to the West Side of Chicago, East St. Louis, or Detroit. It was just not a nice area at all and I have been to the 3 places I just listed so it's definitely a fair comparison. Taylor Molln, I don't know if it's as bad as Rockford. I don't know if anything is as bad as Rockford. Look at the huge shout out you just got.

We finally get to Sorrento and it is definitely nicer than Naples to that was an immediate plus. The woman who we were renting from met us at the train station and walked us to the villa were renting. There was A LOT of uphill walking. Honestly, I take the Midwest for granted. I do miss the flatness. The work was definitely worth the beautiful view we got from the villa though:


It was awesome. We also discovered the greatest place in Europe while we were there. It's a little shop where this man who is super nice refills your wine bottles. You bring in a wine bottle and he will refill it with any of the wine in his huge containers for 1-3 euro, depending on the wine. The other option was getting a 3 liter or a 5 liter plastic jug that he will fill at the price of 2 euro a liter. This was obviously the best choice, so Angie and I found the wine we liked the best and got 5 liters of it for 11 euro (the jug cost 1 euro). What a steal.

Photo Cred: Naamah



This trip was looking to be the best one yet. We went grocery shopping for dinner and then went home. That's when we went domestic (by "we" I mean the girls and Brian). Angie, Naamah, and Brian cooked dinner while I did everyone's laundry. Let me tell you, figuring out a washing machine in Italian is not easy. All is well that ends well though, the laundry got done and the dinner (chicken marsala) was absolutely delicious. After that, it was time to play some Spoons. I would like to take a minute to thank Noreen for raising me to never, ever lose Spoons which inadvertently makes everyone I'm playing with hate me. There was an instance where Angie may have been physically hurt in order for me to win the spoon. It was a blur of events but afterwards my fingernails hurt like I had put some sort of pressure on them and I had a spoon in my hand. Thanks, Mom. I almost lost friendships over my refusal to lose this damn game.

That night was pretty uneventful otherwise. We tried to watch The Departed but everyone fell asleep before it ended. The next day, Friday, we slept in and didn't make any plans so we could finally have one day that wasn't full of things to do. After we all woke up, we realized we didn't have much for breakfast. Brian made us all eggs and pasta. I had two eggs sunny side up over noodles with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Honestly, it was awesome. When in Italy, right? So once we were all showered and ready to go around 2, we headed down to the town to walk around and get some sights of the water. Unfortunately, it was too cold to go to the beach but it was still super pretty:


After we took plenty of pictures over here, we walked into town (our villa was just outside of Sorrento). Bo and Saleh were considering renting mopeds/scooters for the day but I was not about to do that. I'm a terrible enough driver as it is. Ask Erin, she'll be the first to tell you. No one else wanted to go and I may have given a few mother-type lectures to Bo and Saleh about why this is not a safe idea. I may have even used the line, "I trust you, I just don't trust other drivers." Oh god, when did I age 30 years and raise children? It was not enough to keep them from going though, so they went. They also made it back alive, thankfully. Such a mom.

While they were gone, the rest of us walked around. We find this adorable little lemon and orange orchard that made lemonchello, a really popular alcohol in Italy. Picture Lemonhead flavored vodka, but actually good. So we got free samples of that and we also bought some souvenirs like jams and stuff and then headed to other part of the orchard where the gelato was. I really need to not eat so much gelato. We were excited about this gelato because it was really fresh and made at the orchard. I was impressed, but I'm not sure if I would say it was my favorite gelato. After gelato, we headed back to our villa and stopped at a grocery store on the way for groceries for that night's dinner. Literally, I am a mom. We decided that we were going to make shrimp fettuccine alfredo that night. So delicious.

We got back and obviously started drinking wine. The Costco shopper in me was happy that I bought the biggest container because while everyone else had to stop to get more wine, Angie and I were set. Before they started to make dinner, Bo and Saleh returned and offered me a ride on the scooter. I was hesitant, but I caved. I went with Bo on the scooter down into town to return it. He let me test drive it first and let's just say thank God I didn't rent one with them. I would not be here alive today. I'm terrible.

After we returned it, we walked back up the hill to the villa and saw the parade/processional that was going on in town below us. It's really a processional, but it's a big deal so I called it a parade. It is supposed to imitate Jesus walking with the cross before his crucifixion seeing as it was Good Friday. It's kind of creepy but kind of cool at the same time. They all wear these black KKK looking hoods and carry candles. Some of them carry whips and things like they carried when this was all actually happening. It was really interesting to see how they celebrated Good Friday...very different from how we do it.

We got back in time for dinner and it was once again, delicious. Then the wine drinking commenced and we attempted to watch The Departed again. Again, we all fell asleep. That movie was not meant to be finished. Saturday, the weather was bad so we planned to stay in and drink wine all day. When we woke up we walked down to the wine place and got more. I refilled the 5 liter for the last day. When were down in town it started raining. Naturally, I had not one but TWO umbrellas in my bag. Mom status again. When we got back we just hung out all day on the deck and listened to music and chatted. It was a really relaxing day and probably the best way to end the trip. At night, instead of dealing with cleaning up, we got some pizza. When in Italy. It was delicious pizza, obviously. At night we tried watching The Wolf of Wall Street. I did not fall asleep but we all only watched half of it. I still need to finish it!

Sunday we woke up early and caught our metro-type train back to Naples. Then a train from Naples to Rome, because flying out of Rome was cheaper than flying out of Naples. Then another train from Rome to the airport. Then the flight. Then a train from the Barcelona airport back to where we live. Then I was finally home.

Overall, I really enjoyed the trip. I thought it was perfect way to spend my time off from school and I'm so happy I got to see different parts of Italy because I would have never been able to choose just one city to visit. The end of the trip was perfect and relaxing, and there was plenty of wine. As always, I was happy to return to Barcelona but it was bittersweet knowing that this is the last time I would be returning to Barcelona from one of my crazy trips to some European city. Enough of this sap now, you'll get plenty of that in the blogs to come.

Gonna go enjoy my last weekend in Barcelona...brb crying. 

Angela

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