My trip to Italy Oct 2004

Friday, October 22, 2004
I went to Italy and you didn't.
Rome Italy. Day One.

Alive.Ok.Maybe even a little inebriated. or alot. 2:30am rome time.Pub crawl...courtesy of the hostel.Haven't slept yet. 24 hours. no sleep/ just can't sleep on planes. Four Tylenol PM couldn't put me to sleep sitting up.NOW that is a diva...Anyway... Got cell phone hooked up. Got pasta carbonara. Then pub crawl with fellow hostelers. Red Bull and Vodka helped.

So far..saw Trevi fountain and Spanish steps. and quite a few pubs and clubs.Also met and spent time with fellow hostel tour groups and kids. Fun bunch. I also met through the gringo tour guides- three boys from the Swiss Guard....for those who don't know...the Swiss Guard are considered the elitest army of any army in the world...they guard the friggin Pope.Tommorow they take me on secret special tour of Vatican.TOTAL HOOK UP. SPECIAL!!! YAH!Good so far. Thumbs up. In rome for 3 more days.Much what I expected.and more.Ciao!Lola Bella!

Buono sera.Rome Day 2.

Let me preface this by saying...you've seen one Crucifixion scene-you've seen them all.That being said...I walked into St. Peter's Basillica with a hearty HOLY SH*T. It's a granddaddy of a church. Da Pope certainly has a nice crib. Took a stairwell down to Saint Peter's Tomb. Also hit the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Although you walk through 20 maze-like hallways and rooms before you actually get to the Sistine Chapel and almost all of them have frescos on the ceiling...So I kept thinking THIS room has GOT to be it since each one seemed more ornate than the last. Finally ...We get to it. Breathtaking for sure. I stood directly below Michaelangelos portrait of God and Adam touching fingers, raised my arm, closed an eye and held my pinkie up between them. I felt like Della Reese in Touched by an Angel.

Spent the rest of the day walking and walking. Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Campo di Fiori. Then a Quick nap followed by hostel kitchen cooking and wine consumption with some other travelers. Taking it easy tonight. My gams are shredded. I'm ashamed to admit it but I'm surprised and curious at the lack of catcalls. From what everyone was saying I thought I'd have to wear a burka to keep the Italian men at bay. Apparantly a baseball cap and sweat is enough. Being a tomboy does have it's advantages, eh?

To be continued tommorow...

Buon giorno.Day Three. Rome.Up early. 9am.

Went for a solo excursion to the old school part of town-Hit the colosseum. (Paid for a tour. Learned stuff.) After that...cruised through Vittorale, Circo Massimo, Roman Forum. Weather has been beautiful. 70 degrees. Got the bus and metro system down. My Italian consists of Grazie. Ciao. Prego. and Quanto costa? (HOW MUCH?)
The latter I've learned to ask more often as I was grifted for 6 Euros for a friggin Gatorade outside of the Vatican.

(Note to self-don't buy ANYTHING within a two block radius of any tourist spot.)

Better learn more Italian before I get out of Roma. Gonna call an Italian friend of a friend tonight for dinner and drinks- then meet up with the hostel group for another pub crawl.Tomorrow I head for Naples. Looking forward to it cause it means I'm closer to the second leg of my jouney which includes Capri, Positano, the Amalfi Coast and beachtime. Museums, churches and ruins are interesting and all..but I gots to have some R&R. All this sightseeing is exhausting.Ciao!Lola Bella aka "Brooklyn" (The preferred method the other hostelers have taken in addressing me.)

Naples is Rome on crack. When mentioning I was going to Naples...most other travelers told me how seedy, loud and dirty it was.Ahhhhh...which means...I feel like I'm right at home.When I envisioned Italy...this is what I imagined.Small alleys and cobblestone streets. Laundry lines running 5 stories up. Piazzas full of people drinking and chillling. The dance with death everytime you cross the road trying to avoid cars and scooters. (Walk with confidence).
I love it.
Even though I almost got jacked by some 10 year olds....I was wandering happily lost yesterday through the intricate maze of streets in the Historic district when I came upon a piazza of kids playing soccor. I watched for awhile and considered the possibility of introducing them to kickball...when I thought better of it given my limited Italian vocabulary. I turned around and started heading away...when a few seconds later, I hear running behind me and then someone tries to leg sweep me. I don't even stumble and quickly look behind me fearing the worst. Well...I see two 10 year olds. I'm thinkin' they eyed my camera bag I was clutching tightly and figured I was an easy mark. Perhaps they were hoping I would fall and they could grab the goods. So I just started barking at them and they ran away. It's the not the lecherous men I fear..its the wild pack of kids that roam.

A little while later I saw a larger group of them carrying nun-chucks. hahaha. I smartly cossed the street away from them.The hostel I'm staying at is nice. Great group of people. Two women manage it. One from new Zealand and one from Arizona. We all went to a piazza last night that had two bars and outside tables and had some drinks watching the young Italians preen for each other from their perches on steps, fountains and scooters.

Today I went to the Archelogical museum housing sculptures, and artifacts from Pompeii and the surrounding cities. Then headed down to the seaport and castles for a better view of Mount Vesuvius. Had a lovely seafood linguine lunch by the water with other hostel kids.

So I've got Quanto costa thing down...but now I run into the problem of deciphering exactly how much the goods in question cost because I haven't mastered numbers. I have questions but no answers. Ain't that just life.

Tonight...I'm gonna take it easy cause I get up early tommorow to take a boat to the Island of Capri where I reckon I'll stay for a night or two. Swim...check out the blue grotto and relaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.sooooooooo good.
arriverderci!lola bella

I'm on the island of Capri. Home of the caprese salad mind you. Little rainy this morning and I'm waiting for it to blow away so I can swim and go the blue grotto.This island is adorable...and Beautiful. I'm staying in Anacapri...which is on the other side of the island. Streets are rarely labeled, a web of intricate pathways that are about 6 feet wide. It's a mind f*ck trying to figure out how to get back and forth to the hostel but the Italians I've met here have been the nicest and most helpful. It's very touristy here during the day. A lot of senior citizen groups coming into buy Lemoncello. Yesterday I hiked the 1000 steps down past villa san michelle and on to the town of Capri and window shopped. Dolce and Gabbana. Fendi.

Last night...some kids and I went to a restaurant and had a few liters of wine. so cheap. sooo good.Looks like the clouds are parting. bout time. bacios.lola bellawhat day is it?who the fuck cares. I'm in Italy!!Saw the blue grotto today..then a boat ride to Sorrento. Then a bus ride to Positano.
And lucky me...It finally happened...
My first ride on the back of a vespa.

We (some english and australian girls I met at the hostel in Capri.) got into town a bout an hour ago, checked into our hostel overlooking the town and water (breath-taking), and I grabbed a bag of laundry and set off to find somewhere to get it washed. About a ten minute walk down the hill, I find the launderia. Mother, son and daughter comment on my gun tattoo on my hip and I end up showing the rest.
mama gives me the a.o.k and thumbs sign when she sees these and hears I'm from NY. I ask about an internet cafe to write to you fine people and the son, Dario, offers me a ride on his vespa. Hell yea, I say!.We decide to take the scenic route. A good 15 minute journey up and down and around the hair pin turns. He also tells me about a party tommorow night with sushi and cuban music. Sushi and cuban music in Italy? This has to be done. So we exchange numbers and tommorow my travel companions and I salsa and eat da raw pesce. Ciao!Lola Bella

Positano to Florence
Lemoncello is coursing through my veins.But I digress.Positano. Thursday. After the vespa ride with Dario, the launderers son, I went back to the hostel to freshen up. The girls and I headed to dinner at a trattoria on the street down from our hostel and dined on all things appropos. During the meal...I get a phone call from Dario. (Quick descriptive side note. Dario is 5' 3" and a ball of fire.) He and his friend Elio meet up with us and over the course of the next few hours our table for four had turned into a table of 10 as his friends walked by, stopped, listened and had to join the revelry. Two intial liters of vino turned into 8. Salute's and chin chins everytime someone dropped silverware. Which happened every few minutes. Rawkus. Fun. Food kept arriving. Everyone shared. Delightful.Fortunately, I met his friend Chiara. Half-Italian and half-British. Lovely, funny woman. Her Italian father and uncle married two British sisters. Her father is a fisherman in Positano. She invited me to stay with her so I ran up to grab my backpack. Stayed with her two nights. She lives in an apartment on the beach. We woke up the next day to rain so ....stuck inside...we watched Pink Floyd's Live in Pompeii and Eddie Izzard stand-up. Around 1pm...Dario and Francesco knock on the door with pasta, bread and wine. They start cooking lunch and Chiaras father brings down some freshly caught tuna he caught that morning. I made a minor cultural error taking a piece of tuna and adding it to my pasta bowl and Chiara gently informed me that Italians do "COURSES, DARLING". Right...This ain't a buffet, Lola.

The rain cleared up and we walked around Positano, then headed down to the small beach to kick around for awhile. Dinner that night was a pleasant repeat of the dinner we had the night before...only at a restaurant in Praino with live music and sushi. Although what they call sushi and what we know as sushi are two very different things. At the end of every meal...shots of lemoncello went around freely as lightening storms off the coast made a beautiful back drop to our cliffside dining.On Saturday morning I left Positano and had a full day of traveling. Bus to Sorrento. Train to Naples. Train to Rome. Train to Florence.Arrived last night and met some more women travelers on my hostel floor (all really sound women.) we went for some Food, then a wine bar. Then an Irish pub.Today. Walked to the Duomo and am now headed to the Uffizi Gallery.fo some mo CULTURAHHHHHHH.xoxoxoxoxo

Driving throuth Tuscany-Florence was (insert descriptive term here equivelent to beautiful).The first morning , my roomate Emily from Cleveland, and I rolled up to a small hill across the River Arno to the Piazza San Michaelangelo to get a proper view of the city before exploring its streets, museums and famous Duomo.Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to meander inside the Uffizi gallery as the line was 3 and half hours long and I didn't think to make a reservation a few days before. A few less Religious paintings I won't be able to mull but I think I got the gist so far.But we did hit one museum and I saw Michaelangelo's David. Quite a fella. Nice ass. But I wouldn't write home about his twig and berries...and so...moving on...The rest of the highlights mostly include the next days adventure.I rented a car early Monday morning with Emily and another woman, Marie from our hostel..(I'm reading the Da Vinci code right now and the fact that most of my travels find me in the company of women is very parallel to the novels theme of goddess and the sacred feminine. Da sistas are doing it fo themselves!!)

Anyway...yours truly navigated her way through Tuscany, Chianti, Sam Gimignano and Sienna and BACK to FLORENCE without a turnaround or hitch. Quite adept I am at Italian road signs, offensive and defensive driving (and womens intuition) it seems. We took a smaller road through Chianti and San Gimignano and saw some beautiful Tuscan countryside, stopping off here and there for the prerequisite photo op.San Gimignano is called the medieval Manhattan. 14 towers still dot the village. (They once numbered 72 but what with wars and weather erosion?).

Its adorable. Quaint. I can't imagine the throngs that invade this tiny village in the summer. I'm fortunate to have seen it in October.Sienna was akin to San Gimignano but bigger. Great palazzo in the center and one of the prettier churches I've seen ...(and I've seen a plenty!). Last night we had a quiet dinner with delicious wine (Marie works for a winery in New Zealand and knows her stuff)and I partook in some famous Florentine steak and was asleep by 11! The jet lag is gonna KILL me when I get back?! Today I travelled back down to Rome via the train and am settled into the same hostel I stayed at when I first arrived. Tonight is my last big Italian meal and I mean to go for the brass ring. Multiple courses. Proper wine. (Not just the house brand in the litre jug.)And then up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to catch my flight back to NY.Arriving at 2:30pm.I should be home by 4 depending on my route home.

So....Thanks for your shout-outs and interest during my much needed vacation.It went swimmingly.I am eager to sleep in my own bed and eat fried chicken and imbibe vast quantities of Vtiamin water. Maybe all at the same time.

The Prodigal Brooklyn daughter returns.