I am finally recounting the details of my very pleasant vacation in Italy, which I took with one of my closest friends, confidants, and motivators, Ameedah. We had an amazing time, and it made me so happy to be back in Europe after my time in Spain at the University of Salamanca three years ago.
Saturday
Anyway, once I made it from Daegu to Seoul to Moscow to Rome, an only mildly exhausting journey, I did a bit of wandering to find a taxi that wasn't charging an extortionate price to take me the <10 minutes to my hotel, which was eventually a successful endeavor.
We pulled up at the hotel, where Ameedah was waiting for me at the front. Everyone seemed to be expecting me, as when I entered the lobby and she told them "My friend Willie is here now," the people addressed me by name. Haha. We ended up talking for several hours about our trips there, looking at pictures of the friendly Italians she had met during the day, and then hitting the hay.
The Fiumicino hotel, Torre del Moro, was rather basic but not terrible by any means. The shower stall was broken, which was a little janky, but other than that, it was fine. We had a nice breakfast and then headed to the airport to catch the shuttle to Termini Station, from which we would take a train to Napoli (Naples), the birthplace of pizza.
First stop...Napoli!
Sunday
Then the fun part. We were looking for our train when a guy who ostensibly worked for the train station (he had on a shirt with the logo on it but I had forgotten that that doesn't necessarily mean anything) approached us. I thought he was just going to point us to the right train, but instead he walked us down to the right train, wheeling Ameedah's bag behind him. When we got into the train carriage, I was amused that it reminded me of the Hogwarts Express. It's laid out the same way...three seats facing three seats. Anyway, the train guy said that we should give him a tip, which we anticipated. But then he said "20 euros, 10 euros each," to which Ameedah immediately raised a fight before I could say a word. She said, "20 euros?? No! You'd better get outta here with that! You're trying to get over on us!" Let me just point out that the whole train ride itself didn't even cost 20 euros, AND that this guy failed to take either of the bags on our backs; he merely wheeled a rolling bag along. He stood there for a minute and kept saying 20 euros. I pulled out my wallet and handed him a five, closed my wallet, and Ameedah continued to tell him that that rate was unacceptable. After a minute, he sighed and left, defeated. One point for us (more Ameedah than me), 0 points for the guy trying to rip us off!
On the train ride, we were seated with a friendly Irish mom and her three daughters, with whom we ended up playing a card game called Stop the Bus. This was not only fun, but also useful, because I ended up using that game in my classes this week! Props to the Irish lady in car 110!
After taking the first of what would become many riposos (siesta/long lunch break and/or nap), we walked around, got some authentic pizza napolitana, and walked around some more.
 |
| Authentic Napolitan margherita pizza. It was simple and may not look perfect, but it was indeed probably the best pizza I've ever had. Good job, Napoli! |
We decided to ferry over to the highly-recommended Isle of Capri from Napoli, so we woke up at 8:15 (not a vacationable hour!) for breakfast, which was delivered to our semi-private terrace.
 |
| Sometimes you need to stay in a proper hotel and not a packed hostel to feel like a real person. |
What's funny is that this semi-private terrace was housed inside one of the sketchiest looking (from the outside) hotels I've EVER seen — and I won't lie, I've seen some pretty seedy hotels. When we first arrived, we were sure the driver had taken us to the wrong place. The door was something out of A Knight's Tale, and when we walked through it, we found ourselves in what can only be described as a not-so-secret lair where some evil person used to run his experiments. We took the 10 cent elevator up, went through another door, and almost died of surprise when we saw how much nicer the hotel was than the bottom floor indicated.
Lesson learned: Don't always judge a hotel by its front door...or the foyer/lair thing...or the elevator...you can judge when you get to the front desk, though. If that's a mess, then you should leave.
 |
| Our faces when we first walked into the bottom floor of the building our hotel was in (#1). LOL. That little dwarf door in #2 is the heavily spraypainted, ironclad thing you had to walk through to enter the lair. Once we got past all the foreboding concrete and metal, we found a great hotel with a friendly keeper who helped us navigate our way around Napoli. |
Note: For all the photo collages below, pictures are numbered L to R and top to bottom :-) |
| A collection of Ameedah's Instaphotos from Napoli. We ended up meeting the father and brother of our super friendly water, who is in the second picture. #allinthefamily |
We spent the afternoon at the Isle of Capri, which we reached via ferry from Napoli.
 |
| The rolling hills of Capri. |
 |
| #2 shows the hot mess...I do mean HOT and sweaty mess...of a bus ride down the mountain. #4 illustrates that the beaches of Anacapri are too touristy for pictures! And the ever-annoying and omnipresent pay bathrooms that force you to scrape in your bag for euro coins is in #7. And #8 shows Peroni, Italy's second-best selling beer (and a favorite of Ameedah). It tasted like any other beer to me, but I hate them all, so I'm not the one to ask for reviews #wineisfine :-P |
 |
| More of Capri! #5 shows the taxi ride we ended up taking after enduring the fruitless struggle of trying to walk up the mountain. LOL |
This experience just reminded me that foreigner stereotyping and annoying questions can happen across any ethnic group.
Back to the main story...our original intention was to take the chairlift up the mountain at the Isle of Capri, and to see what else there was to do on the island. First of all, it was hot! Not "painful, heat advisory-inducing, 116 degrees F heat in Oklahoma" hot or anything, but definitely the variety that makes you feel like you are being slow-roasted in a convection oven. We walked around awkwardly for a bit, trying to rent a scooter to explore the island. We visited three scooter shops, all of which denied us rental for various reasons — such as not possessing an Italian driver's license (despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people who rent these things aren't Italian!!). Whatevs. So, we footed it.
We ended up walking for half an hour before just taking a taxi to the top of the mountain, decided against the chairlift, and then took a crowded bus ride back to the bottom. Let me explain what "crowded" means on a Capresi bus.
Crowded (noun): A situation in which you are packed so tightly into a public transportation vessel that your sweat is sweating, and you are not sure whether the random girl sitting on you — because there is a random girl sitting on you — is twerking on your leg or merely unable to balance because of the bumpy mountain descent.
We strolled down the insanely crowded beachfront to snap pictures of the ocean. En route, we passed a throng of swimsuit-clad people who reminded me why staying in shape throughout life is so important (if you get my drift)!
We took the ferry back, taxied to Napoli Centrale station, and hopped on the train.
Part 2 coming right up! Well, it'll be coming up in the next week for sure!
