March 20, 2009

The hostel is really nice; Betsy, Bailey, and I are in a room with 6 other girls. When you think of hostel (shared rooms, shared girls bath, bunk beds, and lockers) that’s what we have. But only, this hostel is nicer than the horror movie style hostels. Everything is really clean and hip. There’s free wireless internet, complimentary breakfast which consisted of croissants, cookies, cereal, tea, coffee, orange juice, and pineapple juice. It was good, if a little sugary.

The group met up together at 10:30 to head to the coast town of Positano. We took our bus to the town along this really curving road. The thing about this road is that it follows the cliff edges to the coast towns. The only thing keeping the vehicle from plummeting to a watery grave is a two foot high, one foot deep concrete wall on the edge of the road. The bus did its accelerate and brake routine all the way to Positano. I was glad to get off the bus when it finally stopped.

We stopped at this look-out point to take pictures and see the whole of Positano. It’s a picturesque town from afar but up close it’s a little dingy. We walked down to the beach, down many many many steps. I would tell you how far I walked around today but my pedometer finally died today. After falling out of my pocket and crashing to the ground multiple times, it finally gave up (at least the battery did). But, we finally got down to the beach.

Bailey and I took tons of pictures at the beach. I even took a video of the waves and the sound of the water. I think we just stared out at the sea which I believe is the Mare Tirreno, or Tyrrhenian Sea, part of the Mediterranean. Anyway, after all the pictures, finding the rocks we wanted, and getting caught unawares by the wave, Bailey and I started to walk around town a little bit. Betsy decided to stay and lie on the beach. Before going to far, Bailey and I met up with one of our tour guides, Remy and these two other guys, Josh and Joe. We decided to find someplace to go eat some lunch together. We ended up walking all over the place before finding this little restaurant up another hill.

Lunch was a really fun affair. We sat down around 1, 1:15ish and didn’t leave until 3:30. But, while we all ordered a first course, two of the guys ordered a second course afterward. We all shared a bottle of a good red wine with our meal as well. Conversation ran the whole gamut. We talked about stereotypes, where we all live, school, and just stuff in general. There were no lags in conversation or any awkward pauses. I had a good time.

When we left the restaurant we decided to walk back to the meeting point. We were to meet at 4:30 by the Bar International up this really big hill. By this point, it had been raining out for an hour or so. We started retracing our steps to get back up the hills to the bar. My umbrella broke halfway through the walk up. The winds buffeting us were brutal. Remy’s umbrella also broke during the walk. Somehow, Bailey’s held up to the fierce winds that slammed into us some times while pushing us at others. When we finally made it to the bar, we were semi-soaked and out of breath.

We found most of the group waiting in the bar already. Drinks were ordered and more conversation was had. Betsy was already there so Bailey and I didn’t have to worry about going and finding her. When 4:30 came around we walked to the bus, getting hit by the rain and wind again and traveled back to our hostel.

I took a shower as soon as we got back to the hostel. Now, most everyone has left to go grab dinner but since lunch was so large for me, I’m just going to snack on granola bars. Tomorrow we have to be up and ready to go by 7:45 as we are taking a ferry over to Capri. I would love to go visit the Blue Grotto but I don’t think it’s going to happen as the sea needs to be very calm or they don’t run the tour. With the weather like it is and it’s expected to be windy but no rain tomorrow so probably a no for the Blue Grotto. Oh, well. I’m sure that I’ll find something to occupy my time tomorrow on the island of Capri.