Slowing down...

Rome was fantastic but super fast...we were ready for a bit of a slower pace and smaller towns so we headed to Sorrento Italy.  Getting there was pretty easy...not to much trouble.  From the train station we only had a short walk and lucky for me my suitcase wheel was still hanging in there.  It wasn't super excited about the cobblestone street and is really loud when it rolls but it's still rolling and that's the main thing.  The hostel was really nice and modern and our room was air conditioned!  After we checked in we just spent the evening planning out the next few days.  We were both pretty exhausted so we went to bed early with the intention of getting some sleep.  This plan was good in theory however it didn't work so well.  The hostel was having a party on the rooftop with a DJ that was really loud until about 1 in the morning.  Just when we thought it was over they set off massive amounts of fireworks that sounded like gun shots going off.  Not what you want to hear the first night in a new place.  We survived the night and got up early to go 

Body Cast in Pompei

 to Pompei.  With Kelsey's iPod loaded with a Audio walking tour (thank you Rick Steves) we headed into this city of well preserved ruins.  As we walked through the place you could really get the feeling of what the city and life was like for the people who lived there.  Since it was all so well preserved from the volcanic ash there were so many parts that were still intact.  Of course the most moving part was seeing the plaster casts of the bodies that had been found suffocated in the ash.  There were only a couple of them on the sight (the rest were in a museum in Napoli) but it was enough to understand what these people went through on that fateful day when there world was destroyed by Mt Vesuvius erupting.  It is quite a 

Sorrento, Italy

shame that this city was destroyed because it seemed like it was quite a thriving and exciting city.  They also seemed to be ahead of their time with a lot of the things in the city and they way it was laid out.  I guess we will never know what the town could have been.

The next day we decided to take it easy and head into Sorrento to walk around a bit and then hit the beach. We took the train in and just started wandering all the little streets.  The town was quite cute with lots of little alleyways streets and cute little shops.  I liked that a lot of the shops were also the places where the items were made.  There were shoe shops that they fitted you to a shoe then made it for you.  The place that sold gorgeous inlaid wood boxes had the factory right next door to the shop.  You just don't see that kind of stuff any more....it's all made very far away from where it is sold.  I really loved the concept of showing the workmanship of the product that is being purchased.  There was even a lady with her sewing machine right at the front of her store where she was personalizing items that people were purchasing.  No computerized embroidery 

Crazy lightning storm!

   machine where you type in the letters and the machine does the work.  She was basically using the sewing machine like a pencil and writing with it.  It was really amazing.  

After we strolled around the town we headed down to the beach.  Or I guess what they consider the beach.  They actually were quite clever about it.  They built out these wooden platforms over the water that you could put lounge chairs on or just a towel.  They did the same private and public areas like in France.  We were able to find one small bit of space that was real sand beach and was public so we just laid out there with our books and relaxed for the entire day.  It was such a nice day...until the clouds rolled in.  Once we saw them coming we headed home.  We made it back just before the big storm hit.  Once we got back to our hostel it was in full force with thunder and lightning but not too much rain so we went up to the rooftop to take in the 

Y.M.C.A.

view.  It was pretty wild watching the electric bolts jump from one cloud to another.  While we were up there we ended up running into a guy we had met and hung out with in Rome who was staying at the hostel for the next few days.  Small world!

The next day we ended up with a bit of a hitch in our plans...more rain.  We tried to go to a museum but couldn't find it so we ended up walking a bit of a different part of Sorrento which was very lovely then grabbed some lunch at a place called Buffalo where we had fantastic mozzarella cheese and buffalo meat.  We got home just before the major part of the storm hit.  We decided to just give in and take a "rest day" We relaxed in the lounge...our friend from Rome Harison joined us and we just relaxed till dinner time.  Now this is where it gets interesting.  The 3 of us went down stairs for dinner and during dinner we noticed a band setting up.  The band ended up playing most of the night and it was so funny.  It was a bit like a wedding band since they played all the classics you would expect to hear at wedding like Shout and the YMCA.  But they also were playing all sorts of U2 songs.  Now don't forget we are in Italy so these are Italians singing these songs.  With that being said we were able to understand only some of what they said even though it was in English.  It was quite comical.

Positano, Italy

Our next day took us to the town of Positano.  This involved a very windy road in a non air-conditioned bus along a really high cliff.  I was quite proud that I did not throw up and still enjoyed the view.  The drive was beautiful.  We were so lucky that this was the one really beautiful day of the week.  We spent the day just walking around this adorable cliffside town and then settled into a great spot on the beach and just relaxed all day long.  We even sat right in the rocks where the tide was coming in and let the water wrap around us while we read our books.  It was one of those moments where you fell a bit like you are experiencing something that normal people don't get to do.  After the beach time we decided to head back into Sorrento for dinner.  We made our way back to the town, wandered up the streets, then found the bus stop where we could catch a bus to get back down into town.  So lets just talk about this bus situation.  It had been ok coming up.  Not too busy and we had a seat.  This one was not like that at all.  When the bus pulled up it was like a mad dash to get on the bus.  A crazy free for all of pushing and shoving.  We got on 

Standing Room Only!

and were smashed in the aisle standing.  We were fine with the standing we just wanted to get back home.  As we were waiting all of a sudden there was a lot of yelling at the front of the bus.  Then the bus driver shut the bus off and walked out.  He left us on there sweating and with no explanation.  Eventually people started to get off and the cops showed up.  After about 30 minutes they finally said they were going to just move the bus about 1 meter to get us off the road.  The doors closed and the bus started moving but didn't stop after one meter it just kept going.  We were super excited however we still have no idea what the issue was and why the lady was yelling or why the bus driver go off.  All we knew was the bus was headed towards our home and that was a good thing.  We made it back to the hostel, ate some dinner, packed our suitcaes to leave the next day, watched a movie with Harison and then went to bed to prepare for our day of travel to London.  The final stop on this adventure.

It has been an amazing ride so far and I am so looking forward to being back in my London town!