Naples & Sorrento

Yesterday Brenda and I met up with Lois and we ventured to downtown Naples to walk around. We visited a few open markets and walked through the streets looking in shops and at different buildings. When I was in Venice a few years ago, I couldn't believe how much graffiti there was all over the buildings and streets, but I was really intrigued by it all. Naples is very similar to Venice with the graffiti and I find that my eye really gravitates towards it when taking pictures. There's just something about it...it may not be a da Vinci or a Michaelangelo, but it is art, and some of these people are incredibly talented.

We eventually met up with Taylor, Ian and Brian at a pizzeria for lunch then we headed home shortly after. The jetlag had finally caught up with me at this point, so it was nice to have a pretty low-key day. Brenda made dinner (while I slept for 2 hours) and then we watched Alice in Wonderland in 3D on Taylor and Brenda's 3D TV!

The plan for today was to head to Sorrento. Brenda woke me up at 9am and I told myself that I would sleep for 15 another minutes then get up. Well, 15 minutes turned into 2 hours and I woke up at 11am...apparently this girl needed to sleep! So we ended up heading over to Sorrento for a short visit in the afternoon. Sorrento is amazing...it's Brenda and Taylor's favorite spot and I can defintely understand why. It's a really quaint little town high on cliffs with lots of great shopping and places to eat.

The Italians are serious about their produce and the lemons here are on steroids. Brenda took me to a store that makes limoncello right on site and I bought a bottle to take home (naturally). I'm hoping that bottle that lasts the trip and 1) The bottle doesn't break in my bag and 2) I don't drink it prior to my departure.

While we were walking around, we found this amazing leather shop with hundreds and hundres of handbags. This is where I made my first amazing purchase of the trip, a rich brown one strap hobo soft leather handbag and holy crap is it fabulous...way too fabulous to lug with me for the next 2 weeks, so I will be shipping it home for a safe arrival at the 689 in the dub-c.

We ate an early dinner at a place called MonaLisa and the food was amazing. I had some bruschetta and raviolis. After dinner we went to get gelato, no joke, I am going to be 300lbs by the time I get home. Rick Steve's recommends this place and when we walked in and there was a GIGANTIC tub of Nutella sitting on the end of the counter. Any place with a tub of Nutella is a gold star in my book. There were over 30 flavors of gelato in this store and way too many choices! I opted for the chocolate walnut, I'm pretty sure that it's gone straight to my ass, and I'm 100% ok with it.

We headed back to the port to catch the boat back to Naples shortly after. Brenda and I were waiting outside the boat so we could board and there was no one in sight to get on this thing. So we're sitting there...and we're sitting there...and it doesn't look like anyone is even on this thing to board.  So Brenda's like, ok I'm gonna go ask someone, it's almost time to leave. So she walks over to a worker guy and he's like, oh, you're boat is on the OTHER side of the dock. BAH! So we start to sprint and run to "the other side" that we didn't know existed. We get there and luckily for the first time this entire trip, the boat is late. If we would have missed the boat, we'd either be spending one expensive night in Sorrento right now or swimming back...holding my new leather bag over my head the entire way!

Packing Brenda's backpack tonight was quite comical. The girl wanted to bring a bathing suit cover-up. When I asked her when she would need it she says to me, "well, when I wear my bathing suit, so I have something to wear over top" to which I responded while pointing at her mound of clothes, "you will wear those shorts and a tank top, and we most likely won't be swimming, now remove the cover-up from the pile." I asked her if she packed a t-shirt and she holds up a Lyco Lax shirt (represent!) and this is how the next scene goes...

Me: Umm do you have anything without writing on it?
(Brenda roots around and finds one of her work shirts and holds one up)
Me: Umm you have anything else that's just plain, no writing at all and screaming that we're Americans?
(Brenda disappears into the other room and comes back holding one of Taylor's t-shirts that she could wear as a dress if she'd put a belt around it)
Me: Seriously?! Now you don't look American, you just look homeless!

So now she runs over to another drawer and is holding up shirts and we finally find one for her. I am crossing my fingers that she wears this thing at least once!  She actually did really well with packing, better than I did my first time around in 2004!

My basic packing rule is, whatever you cram into that pack is what you will be lugging around and sometimes for extended periods of time. So pack whatever you want, but that thing only gets heavier and heavier and you dread carrying it the more the trip goes on. While in the South Pacific, I adopted the throw-out rule, which basically means, throw-shit-out. This leaves room in your pack to bring home new finds and definitely lightens your load. I have already decided that my fabulous Nike's will not be making the trip home...insert sadface here (______________).

Tomorrow is Rome and I am so excited! I have been waiting to see Rome since my sophomore year when I studied Roman art and architecture it in college. Please god, let me hope that Rome is a little bit more exciting than Professor Amy Golhany's, Art in the Dark class...much of which I slept through due to it being...umm in the dark.