Exploring the Island

This morning we all woke up and went for a run along the ocean. I think this is very North American of us because as we were running everyone was giving us funny stares, but one old couple clapped at us encouraging us saying Hup! hup! 

We had class this afternoon, (we keep forgetting we are actually here for a class) so we only had a little bit of time to explore the town and get gelato of course. Before class a few of us decided to get pizza, I got Capricciosa, which had some mozzarella, mushrooms, olives and the most amazing pizza sauce. Somehow this took a lot longer than we thought and we only had 10 minutes to find the classroom, instead of going all the way back to get to the water we made the mistake of going to opposite way thinking it would of course be faster. Well we were wrong, we ended up way in the hills in someones backyard, which was gorgeous, filled with lemon trees and flowers...unfortunately there was no time for a photo. I ended up going for a second run today to try and make it on time while eating pizza. Luckily people seemed to know what we were looking for and they started shouting and pointing at us where to go. We ran for 15 minutes straight and ended up only being 10 minutes late. 

I don't know how any work is going to get done in this course, the classroom has the best view. The doors open up right onto the ocean (which we can see from our desks) and its only two steps to get right into the water. There is also a cafe right in our classroom, so we all ordered some cappuccino during class. We stopped by the gelato place on the way back from class and learned some Italian words, like cone, cup and medium, while the gelato man laughed at us because we put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.  

This is the view from our class

Brittany and I on the rocks near our class.

Tonight we had cooking class where we watch the Italian mother of the family that is hosting us cook food:

Zucchini flower leaves she made, I was copying the recipes so I'll try them when I get home once our garden starts producing these

The sea bass we were having for dinner 

Dinner:

We had this amazing potato thing that they made but I couldn't get a good picture of it and I wasn't going to take all night trying to get a good picture because I wanted to eat it so badly. It was amazing. It was mashed potato mixed with ham and cheese and basil and then dipped in bread crumbs. 

Mussels with pasta 

The sea bass 

Dessert

-A

First Day in Forio

Today Amanda and I woke up at 3 am and made our way to Forio. This is mostly for my mom who is meeting me at the end of my course but also for anyone else who is travelling from the Naples airport or Naples train station and trying to get to Forio or Ischia it is not too complicated but a little tricky. Basically at the airport you follow the signs to the Alibus, which is on the far right side of the airport and you walk outside for a bit following the signs. Once you get to the bus you pay 4 euros and just wait until the second stop. It only stops at two places the Train station and then second the main port. There you get a ticket either on the ferry (which is 30 minutes slower) or on the hydrofoil which is faster but more expensive. You have to be paying attention...the dock said Port 8 but then once we walked to the other side it was actually at 5 so just pay attention to signs. The man told us that it went to Forio but it actually stopped at Ischia so we had to figure out the bus...but we later found that the hydrofoil makes two stops, oops. 

Forio is gorgeous! We got to our hostel and just dropped the bags off and ran to the beach...stopping for some gelato on the way of course (I had pistachio). Everyone knows who we are here, when we were trying to find our hostel we were all just standing around and a cute old Italian man started pointing to us to start walking in that direction. 

Me, Amanda and Oksana on the beach

This is the view on the roof of our hostel

The best thing ever here is the driving. We have a tiny shuttle that is kind of between a mini van and a small car that shuttles us to the restaurant. The man pulls up and says "okay lets get 20 of you in here." We fit 16. It was ridiculous. Amanda, Krysta and I were all piled in the front seat, Amanda had her head plastered agaisnt the windshield and my butt was smashed up agaisnt the door knob. That was fun in itself but then the driving began. It was actually amusement park worthy, kind of like the Indiana Jones ride at Disney Land. The roads are so extremely narrow and have tons of pot holes and they literally whip around the corners. It made it all the more exicting with the amount of people we had in the car, everytime we hit a pothole Amanda and I would hit our heads on the roof and bounce so high off Krysta's lap. (I'll post a picture tomorrow)

The dinner was amazing! 

Course one was some bread of course

Course two

Thick spaghetti al-dente with fava beans and some cheese sauce and I think pancetta 

Course three Zucchini in a Vinegar 

Course four Buffalo Mozzarella on a Lemon leaf

And Dessert was Lemon sorbet

Sorry if this was incoherent but we are playing heads up and drinking homemade wine from the restaurant that made us this amazing dinner. 

-A