Tuesday, May 27, 2003

It's funny to be updating this journal from home, in Ohio. In my own room again. I really meant to update this the day or so I got back, but the past week just flew by (though much of it was spent sleeping). Anyway, here's a recount of my last two weeks in Italy.

'Finals' week went very well, for the amount of studying required of my classes of course. Leanne and I went out to dinner quite a few times, both with friends and just the two of us. We went to some places we still needed to see (Piazza Michelangelo, for me, and the Museo Del'Opera del'Duomo). We enjoyed gelato for the last time at our favorite place, Perche No? ("Why Not?" indeed). I got kisses from a couple of my teachers, which was pleasant and definitely not something you get when saying goodbye to teachers at the University of Massachusetts.

We were both pretty set and packed up Thursday night, and woke up Friday around 8:00 in order to catch our 10:50 train to Napoli. Even with all this time though, we were literally running with our huge suitcases down the street trying to call a cab in time. It wasn't exactly easy to be rushing when leaving the apartment I've lived in for four months, mostly because I was worried things were still scattered around. Luckily, I didn't seem to have forgotten anything. We got to the train with twenty minutes to spare, and had a relaxing three hour ride south to Napoli.

Once there, we had to brave several flights of stairs and several suspicious looking characters (Napoli is notorious for petty theft) to get to the Circumvesuvia ("Around Vesuvius"), the hour long train we took to Sorrento. We got to our hotel, Hotel Desiree, a terrific family run place perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. We had the smallest room in the place (or so we were told), but even at that it was still very comfortable and had its own balcony.

I won't go into great detail on the next five days, but overall they were some of the best time I spent in Italy. On Sunday we visited the ruins of Pompeii; on Monday, we toured the cities of Amalfi and Ravello; Tuesday was spent visiting Capri, the highlight of the trip, and Wednesday we caught up on sleep and spent time in Sorrento. I would highly recommend Capri to anyone, but would insist that they walk to Villa Jovis, the Arco Naturale, and then the trail along the southeast coast. Our hotel was essential in helping plan our daily itineraries, and this was especially true for Capri, as half the island is an expensive tourist trap while the other half is stunningly beautiful and more empty of tourists than nearly any other famous place in Italy we have visited.

It was nice returning full circle to Rome on Thursday, stopping by some of our favorite places we saw almost exactly four months earlier, such as The Pantheon and Venice Square. We also had a fabulous last dinner recommended to us by our hostel, The Beehive.

I should really write up all my feelings of the past four months into a nice summary sometime, but for now I'll keep it to one sentence: Living and studying abroad for four months was one of the most important experiences of my time in college, both in how lucky I felt to take in another culture but also how that changed me as a person.

The last thing I want to say is that I greatly appreciate every single person who has come and read (and especially commented!) on this journal, as that was definitely a major influence for taking time to sit down and write this all out. Saluté!
posted by Jon at 10:59 PM
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