...and that's a lot to know about Italy

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. This past week with traveling and homework has been pretty busy. I was in the Naples area this past weekend visiting the ruins of Pompeii, the town of Vico Equense (on the Amalfi Coast), and the Palace of Caserta (Royal Palace of Naples). We had our first over night trip this past weekend so we left the bus station at 6:30AM and got to Pompeii in the early afternoon. It was a very long bus ride, so it was nice to spread our legs and walk through the ruins for the afternoon. Pompeii was something definitely worth seeing but I have to admit that after about two hours there, I was a little bored since everything kind of started to look the same. It was beautiful and a lot of fun playing with all the random puppies that wander through the ruins, but I was glad when we took the bus to our hotel in Vico Equense. It is a small town about 10km from Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast, and might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. We didn’t get to see much of the scenery that night but we did go to the pizza place my Italian teacher Francesca recommended that serves meter size pizza. Ten other girls and I managed to down two meters of pizza and still have desert! That night we were all too tired and full to go out, so we stayed in and it made checking out of the hotel at 8AM the next morning not so painful. Since the bus didn’t pick us up until 9:30, me and some of my friends decided to walk down to the beach, which was about a 10 minute steep hike down and a much longer painful hike back up, but it ended up being my favorite thing I’ve done in Italy so far. The Amalfi Coast is absolutely gorgeous! We trekked down the hill with the views of the Mediterranean, houses built out to the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea, the island of Capri, and Mt. Vesuvius (volcano that erupted over Pompeii). It was also about 70 degrees out, sorry for all of you stuck in Minnesota or Wisconsin right now. It was beyond beautiful the water was so blue and the colors were just amazing. Italy is so full of color, I find myself taking pictures of random things just because I like the different color combinations (I’m such a graphic design geek!). Anyways, it was my favorite part of my trip so far. After my friends and I got yelled at for being late back to the bus (pictures were worth it though), we were off to the Palace of Caserta, which is where the royal family of Naples used to live when Naples was its own country. It was based off of Versailles and was huge, fittingly!!!! We spent a good amount of time inside, but it was impossible to see the 1,000+ rooms so we headed outside to the gardens which cover 22 square miles behind the palace. Me and some friends walked all the way to the end of the path that you can see in a few of the pictures, and then my camera battery died. It was about a mile and half walk up to the water fall that then goes half way up the hill behind the palace, and of course a mile and a half back. It was a beautiful day out so it was really nice to be in the sun and walking around so much. I cant believe people actually used to live there, it’s just unreal to me. After a few hours, which is not enough to visit this place, we hoped back on the bus for our 7 hour ride home on Sunday afternoon. This past weekend was lots of fun, but I’m excited to head to Venice this weekend for my birthday. My roommate Cassie from home will also be there and so will my friend Jen, so I couldn’t think of a better birthday present than to meet up with them while I’m here! Also, the weekend after that, my friend Catie and I are headed to Munich, Germany for a 3 night stay and after that in early April her and I and some of our friends are headed to Malta (island south of Sicily) for spring break. We were able to book on Ryanair during their 1cent flight day so we got extremely cheap flights to Malta for that week. Life is amazing here….I hope this finds you well.