Everyone Loves Capri Sun

Buona Sera!

Guess what Lizzie and I wore today to the Isle of Capri? (I bet my Dad will get this...) Capris! Capri is a hot, crowded tourist trap, but a beautiful hot, crowded tourist trap. We got up with the sun and took an hour and a half boat ride out to Capri. Once there, our group of 40 had to squeeze onto two mini busses, and there weren't enough seats, so Lizzie and I had the pleasure of sitting on a makeshift fold out seat which fit (sort of) in the aisle. I was squeezed between three enormous men and one enormous woman, who bitched the whole time about how uncomfortable she was. I wanted to punch her, but I had lost all feeling in my arms. The drive was your usual treacherous coastal drive, complete with hair pin turns and plummet-to-your-death cliffs, but when we got to the top (to the town of Ana Capri) the view was stunning. We heard all about where Tiberius Ceasar held his orgies (anywhere he wanted) and how he used to make people "fly" off the cliffs by his villa if he was bored, or if they displeased him. We did a little shopping (very little--Jackie Onassis bought her sandals at Capri, which shows how far out of our price range they are) had some lunch, and then went for a walk. At 2, we crammed back onto the mini busses, and hit the even more crowded town of Capri.

Capri is very haute couture, and all sorts of rich celebrities visit. I suppose this is a selling point, but it's really just crowded and expensive, and my favorite part was the walk to the Augustus Ceasar Gardens, which offered spectacular views of the sparkling blue water. By the end of the afternoon, we were exhausted, and lined up to take the funicular down to the port. Good lord. The funicular has not been updated since Capri was a quiet hide away in the '60s. It's absolutely mobbed, and people are pushing, shoving, cutting in line, and it's much worse than even the Kenmore Square subway stop after a Sox Game, if you can believe it. I had some serious rage, as did Lizzie, and we were contemplating the benefits of causing an international incident by elbow dropping this one bastard all the way down the cliff. We barely made it in time to board our boats, and mostly slept on the boatride home. There at the port, Victorio (on whom I have a crush) was waiting for us. If Victorio had been driving the mini busses, he wouldn't have made us sit on a cardboard flap crammed between two sets of angry, sweaty tourists.

Now we are decompressing in our hotel room, and will head down to the bah later for some diet coke (or, as the server at the restaurant called it, American champagne) our earlier food poisoning severely limiting our food and drink choices. A little while ago we heard some awful Italian techno music pounding up from the beach, which I believe was a sound check, which in turn leaves me in breathless anticipation of the real event.

You owe me some protection monies, I believe

Happy birthday to me

Greetings! You'll be glad to know that Lizzie and I have survived the great food poisoning of '11. We were even able to eat a little today without forcefully ejecting it from our bodies seconds later. We are both a little weak on our feet, and won't be entering any hot dog eating contests soon, but after the hell of yesterdy, it is good to have just a plain ol' stomachache instead of projectile vomiting.

We both got up around 7, cautiously ate some dry bread, and waited. When nothing other than piteous groaning happened, we decided to celebrate my birthday in style, by going to tour a buffalo farm. Lizzie serenaded me, followed by the rest of our bus mates, and I regaled them with tales of how I was lucky to make it to this birthday. Who doesn't like hearing about other people's barf adventures? (Note, this did not dissuade one of our fellow tour members from filling his water bottle up from the tap in the bathroom at the buffalo farm. I do not suspect that things will go well for him. LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES)

We drove an hour and a half to the buffalo farm, and saw the buffalo doing various buffalo things, like pooping, and scratching, and sniffing each other's butts. I felt a little vomity, but it passed once we were out of the stench. They let everyone have a sample of their organic mozerella cheese, but Lizzie and I declined, not wanting to break our 4 hour vomit free streak.

After the tour (where they tried to sell us expensive leather...so sad) we went to Paestum, which is the site of some cool old Greek temple ruins that predate the parthenon. The Greeks occupied this part of Rome a bazillion years ago, and when the Romans came, they just used the old Greek temple and built a couple of their own. The ruins were super interesting, and they let you climb around in it, except for in the temples themselves. I wish we'd been feeling better, because there would've been some serious exploring, but we did almost get attacked by two Lizards, who were fighting, fell off the stone wall, almost landing on our heads. I don't normally find Lizards very frightening, but I still do not want two angry lizards falling on my head. We also visited the associated museum, and saw lots of hot dude on dude frescoes. (Does the plural of fresco have an e?) Seriously though, the Greeks and Romans were not into exaggeration, and all their naked dude paintings were, well, let's just say cute as a button. There was one of two guys sword fighting (not a euphemism), covered in blood, but naked. If I were going to be a solider during the Roman empire, I would ask for some damn underwear, at the very least. (Preferably sandals, too, oh, and some pants. And a shirt. And maybe some armor).

Interestingly, Paestrum is where the American troops landed back in 1943, and there was some heavy fighting in the town. Our guide, Pina (as in Colada) seemed miffed that the Americans landed there, and one of our group said, crabbily, "Well you shouldn't have let Mussolini take over then, should you have? We came to save your mother or grandmother." Hee.

So we're going to attempt a small bit of dinner later, to further celebrate my accrual of another year. I'll let you know if it stays where it's supposed to. The rest of you go have a giant piece of cake for me! (Look at me wearily holding my guts in that picture. Ugh)

Any way the wind blows; doesn't really matter to me

Sunday we left Rome to drive down to Vietri Sul Mare, where we're staying now. It was a long drive, and we stopped for a rest break at a Cameo factory, which was sold to us as a special excursion, when in reality it is obviously a deal between the factory and the tour company to make money off of us, but I digress. Gary, our tour guide, gave us really interesting information on the history of Rome as we drove, but when we crossed into Naples, which is sadly run down, he gave us a lesson about the mafia. Apparently Southern Italy is run by the mob. Organized crime controls everything, and any politician who tries to drive them out ends up murdered. This has been stifling the economy, as no industry wants to move to the South and have to deal with the payoffs, etc., so there's a high level of unemployment. There was a huge problem with garbage a few years ago, and the Italian government had to have the army bring in garbage trucks to take care of the problem.

The Neapolitans are not so concerned with another looming threat either: Vesuvius. Vesuvius last blew in the 40s, destroying the funicular this song is about. It is estimated tht it will blow again around 2020. You would think some disaster planning would be prudent, but apparently they're lassiez-faire about the whole thing, and instead have a cliche that is "When Vesuvius goes..." meaning, when Vesuvius blows up, you will do all those horrible things you couldn't before, such as strangling your annoying children, etc. Gary told us they live very much day to day, their mindsets never too forward thinking, because who knows when you will be choked on volcanic gasses and die. It depends on which way the wind blows.

Past Naples we drove through the mountains. I am not afraid of heights, but this scared the hell out of me. Lizzie is afraid of heights, and was a big brave dog through the whole thing. Victorio, our driver, is a genius, and manuevered us through the terrifying cliffs on the windy road like it weren't no thing, the passengers making nervous little jokes the whole time to keep them from crying, I guess. We ended up in Ravello, a gorgeous little town on the cliffs, which had adorable stores, and kitties everywhere, which were obviously well loved. We drank our poison water, and explored a nearby villa, and then rode the rest of the way to Vietri Sul Mare. Our hotel room is so gorgeous, and has a patio overlooking the Mediterranean. If I hadn't spent the day puking my guts out, there would've been some beach time, but alas, at least we can see it.

Dinner was included yesterday, and we ate with our group, having the great fortune of sitting next to his hilarious couple, with whom we drank the red wine I suspected (falsely, sorry) of making me ill. The man, Stew, is a teacher, and talks about his students in the way, Lizzie noted, we expected that our teachers talked about us. My favorite was the story of how the teachers tape pictures of the children to targets at a shooting range, and relieve stress that way. Nice.

It should be noted that before dinner, we saw a mo-mullet. A mo-mullet is a mowhawk mullet combination, which defys any logic imaginable.

Bella Notte

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, before the aforementioned barfapalooza, we had just come back from a long day of sight-seeing. We took to our beds for a rest, and then for dinner at our hotel's roof terrace overlooking the city. It was stunning. Rome doesn't have any super tall buildings, so you can see for miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) and we drank delightful cocktails and ate these light fancy ham sammiches, and watched the sun setting.

At one point, a seagull landed on the roof with us, by our table, and walked over to where it had stashed an ash tray, which it started picking up and banging down. This idiot woman next to us thought it would be a good idea to reward that behaivor with food, and suddenly our seagull let out this ear splitting squawking. Not to brag or anything, but I have seen many a seagull in my time, and I have never in my life heard anything like the noise coming out of one. Have you seen the Little Mermaid? You know that part when Scuttle the seagull start serenading Ariel and Eric in the boat in an attempt to start up some sweet sweet love? That was the noise coming out of this bird (note--Lizzie pointed out that there was a mermaid weathervane by the birds--it probably was Scuttle.) This piercing ululating was a call to its friends, who showed up, mafia like, looking for their cut of our dinner. A waiter came out to swat at them, but they just took a step back, waiting...it was seriously creepy. When no more food was forthcoming, they banged the ashtray a few more times in a threatening manner, and then took off. Probably to poop in our water at the restaurant the next day.

Vomitus Maximus

Today started off like the set-up of the most traumatizing porno ever. We had to be ready to leave by 8:30, and I was not feeling well. I thought perhaps I had drank too much red wine last night, and there was much self-admonishment as Lizzie went down to get breakfast (and to alert the front desk that we had no toilet paper) and I stumbled into the shower. Once I was out, I heard a knock on the door, and, figuring it was Lizzie, ran towel-wrapped to let her in. CUE THE CHEESY PORN MUSIC. Upon opening the door, I discovered that it was a handsome hotel clerk, holding two rolls of toilet paper. Neither of us say anything as I stick out an arm (the one not holding my towel in place) take said toilet paper, immediately turn, run into the bathroom and vomit violently. Sexy, no? Lizzie comes back, and at this point she's feeling okay, so I foolishly chalk my illness up to a hangover, and drag my sweaty self onto the bus to Sorrento. I don't remember the hour and a half ride (but I do remember that Gary wouldn't stop talking about food, which was making me feel worse). When we get to Sorrento, Lizzie and I sit in a cafe, me groaning the whole time, unable to even drink the gingerale I had ordered. We decided then to skip out on the optional excursion down the Amalfi coast as I felt so awful, and waited in that cafe until it was time to grab the bus back home two hours later.

Fun Fact: If you feel like you are going to be sick on a bus, it is important to think ahead and bring the paper "for soiled lady products" bag with you.

The bus ride back to our hotel was a decidely horrific experience. The Amalfi coast road (which I will get to in a subsequent post) is windy and deadly with a precipitous drop on one side, and formiddable rock on the other. It's so curvy that drivers have to honk while going around corners so as not to ram into one another. I alternately felt feverish and freezing, and suddenly Lizzie started to look as bad as I felt, and I realized (duh) that I didn't have a hang over, we both had food poisoning. Yay. Gary of course yakked about food the whole ride, and then told this story about a person on his tour who hit his head, split it open, didn't realize it and crawled into bed subsequently bleeding for half the night (he was okay after 17 stitches) but I am already a squeamish mofo, and I thought I was going to die. The only thing Lizzie and I consumed in common was some water at a beautiful little restaurant in Ravello, which we now realize was probably tap water. There must've been some unfamiliar bacteria in it, and so, we have spent the past seven hours cycling between being passed out in bed, or crawling to the bathroom to dry heave. This is depressing, as it is beautiful out, and our room has its own patio. I really hope this bastard works its way out of our systems by tomorrow, because, as you know, it's my birthday, not my barfday, and I prefer not to spend it jockeying with my buddy for primo toilet position. I haven't eaten in nearly 12 hours, and there has not been even the slightest nod from my stomach that, perhaps some dry crackers would be okay. This is not encouraging. Time to dwell on our previous adventures.

P.S. The above picture shows the poisonous water. As Lizzie could probably tell you, that pizza may look delicious going down, but not so much coming up. Mine had anchovies on it. Yeah.

If it's not Baroque, then it's not the Trevi Fountain

Legend has it that if you toss a coin in here, you'll come back to Rome. I am going to start a new legend that says if you give me five dollars, you will also come back to Rome. (Five dollars poorer.) Also, damn, the citizens of Rome must be sick of all us tourists everywhere. Sure, the money is nice, but you can't even enjoy the fountain because there are too many damn people. They should change the legend to say "if you throw a coin in the Trevi fountain, your ear will fall off." Related, we have these "whisper" headsets we have to wear while on tour, and they are super annoying. I am left eared, and there's only one ear piece, fitted specifically for the right ear. I call bullshit.