Amalfi

Today Krysta and I walked around Sorrento all morning and looked at all of the cool trinket touristy shops. I found the dress I saw and loved in Capri but it was 45 euros there (I only could get it down to 35 euros) so it was too expensive and I had to leave it but I found it for 18 euros here! Sadly at the Ischia markets it was 12 euros but my classmates snatched them up before I got there. There is this one street in Sorrento that has about 4 lanes coming from 3 directions and it has a partial circle and it's quite confusing. While Krysta and I were standing and deciding how we wanted to approach crossing it a police man walked up to us and said where do you want to go? We pointed to the other side of the road and he said no problem and walked out and stopped all the traffic for us.

We pet this puppy who was I think 9 months old and owned by the cutest old English man

We then decided to go the SITA bus route versus ferry to Amalfi due to the big difference in price. We got to the stop at 11:47 and the bus didn't get there until 1:15. We were not happy that the Amalfi bus was so delayed, there should have been two buses by that time! While we were waiting a police man came up and started blowing his whistle. Krysta and I were kind of confused as to what he was doing and then we saw people running out of the adjacent stores to their cars. We realized that they were parked in the bus lane and instead of giving them tickets the officer just blows his whistle to warn them he's about the ticket them if they don't show up. For one guy he had to blow the whistle 5 times but you could tell the police man was hoping he would show up and he wouldn't have to write him a ticket. I wish they did this in Canada but I don't think the system would really work there since we are never in the store right where we parked our car. 

This just shows how we spent a good hour and a bit of our day, sitting on this bench. We are done with this SITA bus.

Finally made it to Amalfi

We are staying in Villa Adrianna which is a really nice bed and breakfast with the most amazing shower ever! It is actually so good it is worth mentioning. It has a rain forest shower head but not one of those light sprinkles, it has the most amazing pressure ever. It also has 4 body spouts and then a separate removable shower wand. You can turn off all the lights and just turn on the blue shower light, which just makes it that much better. Alex, Allison, Krysta and I relished this luxury and all had the longest showers. We all agreed that it wasn't just because we haven't had a good shower in a long time but it was acutally way better than all of our home showers. 

 

We shopped in all the stores in Amalfi the rest of the day and we found out what the weird play we saw in the Sorrento restaurant last night was. 

So that's what that weird guy was trying to be

Panoramic view of Amalfi 

Well who knew peppers had dual function

Alex, Allison and Krysta

Weird Jacks they use as rocks to prevent erosion possibly, I'm not really sure but they were fun to climb.

You've probably noticed that in most of my posts there is always a cute puppy I've pet that day. Well Sean and Alex have been making fun of me that all I need is a guy with a dog and I'm sold. Today was the day that a guy finally played that trick on me, reel in the girl with their dog and then hit on her. There was the cutest puppy ever. He was 6 months old but already massive but had the goopy skin that he needed to grow into still and so soft. I ran up to pet him and within 3 mintues I was invited to go for drinks and then a party later that night. I was sad because then I had to make awkward small talk instead of just getting to pet the adorable puppy. 

-A

SITA Adventures

Waiting for the ferry in Forio

This morning we only had a short class and then the rest of the day off. Krysta and I had plans to go to Positano as well as a few other girls in our class who were not going to stay in our same hotel. There was a ferry that left from Ischia to Sorrento but not until 5:30 pm so Krysta and I tried to seek out other options. The lady at the ferry desk said okay we go to Positano direct on Sunday and we said no we want to go today and she told us no, we only go to Capri today. We told her that didn't work for us but she kept trying to convince us Capri was so nice and we needed to go there and to go to Positano sunday. We just had to walk away because she wasn't understanding and found a route to Naples thay left at 1:00. We got to Naples and ended up finding where the SITA buses were, which was just right from the port. We found a man that kind of spoke English and said we could take his bus to Positano we just had to switch in Amalfi. He informed us that it left in 30 minutes so we asked where the toilets were and he pointed and said hurry my bus is leaving in 5 minutes...we were confused as to how 30 minutes miraculously turned to 5 minutes. When we got on the bus it was packed and we had to stand, we had no idea how long this bus took but we knew it was at least a couple hours, luckily halfway through people started getting off so we got seats after about an hour. We had no idea the route the bus was taking but we started seeing signs saying that we were on the road from Naples to Salerno, we thought it was way faster to go Naples-Sorrento-Positano but our backpacks were up in the racks too far away to grab and we didn't think the bus driver would have led us astray. Well we were wrong we ended up going on a long winding path transferring in Amalfi to another bus to Positano, with the total trip time being about 4 hours. This is way longer than just going to Sorrento and then Positano, which is what we thought. Most people say the SITA bus isn't the best for people who get carsick because it is so swervy, which is true you are constantly turning but Krysta and I were both fine with it. It was also less scary than I had thought it would be, yes you are driving on the edges of cliffs but you go so slow it's not that bad, I acutally find the bus ride we do with 18 students on the narrow paths in Ischia way more frightenting (but fun) than this was. We had no idea which stop to get off in Positano so I had to show the bus driver my phone to show him that we wanted to go to Nocelle. At first he said he didn't understand but after looking again he said second stop Positano and I pointed at myself and the door to indicate I wanted him to tell me when to get off, just hoping he understood my charades. Luckily he understood and we got off on a street with a little cafe called Bar Internazionale. 

The lady inside spoke English well and directed us what bus to take to Nocelle, but it didn't come for another hour and a half. We walked around a bit and it was really werid because as we walked around everyone was saying Ola to us, it was if we crossed the borders. We decided to buy some groceries at the tiny mini mart to make sandwiches and a local lady laughed at us as we tried to communicate with the store owners Quanta coste? 

This is the tired puppy that ran up beside me while I sat on the curb eating my sandwich and waiting for the bus. They always say never to pet dogs in other countries because it is a big risk for rabies but...I've probably pet 15 already on this trip. He curled up behind us and slept as we ate.

When we finally got on the bus (we ended up chasing a few down that we thought were it first) we had no idea where to get off or how to get to our Bed and Breakfast-Villa Sofia from it, I asked the bus driver but he shook his head and I said Non capito? and he said Si. I showed an older lady my phone which had the address and she shook her head as well. At this point Krysta and I thought great we will have no idea where to go but then I saw the old lady only said no because she couldn't see and she was now in the process of pulling out her reading glasses. Once she saw the address she said Ahh Villa Sofia? and we said Si! and she indicated that she knew and would show us. She got off the bus with us and walked us to where we needed to be and then pointed on the path the rest of the way. We later found out that while we were on the bus when she was making a phone call she was acutally phoning the Villa Sofia and letting them know we were on our way. 

This is the view from our room

The B&B is gorgeous and we got there just in time to watch the sunset over Positano and the tiny surrounding islands. 

-A