Saturday, May 2, 2009

A Lazy beach day in Positano


April 25
Today we got to sleep in a little more and only had to be ready by 9:30. We got ready and had breakfast around 9 and then went and loaded up the bus. We took the beautiful ride down to the beach. The whole ride was along the cliff and had gorgeous views of the water from a straight drop off. It was like driving through Colorado but with water. The water was a gorgeous blue and clear. You could see the rocks even from the height we were viewing it from. We continued to Positano and as we got near we had to get off the bus and walk the rest of the way down because non-public weren’t allowed. We got off at a beautiful look out with a fruit stand a lady was waiting with a knife and plenty of oranges. She kept saying, “You want to try orange?” Of course, we all tried a piece and a majority of the group purchased fruit. We took pictures and started the walk down. It was all down hill and we walked along the side of the road. We finally made our way to a set of pedestrian stairs and started the walk down the beach. It was like walking through a cute little Italian village in the movies. The stairs led to a little market set up along the street and set underneath a lattice of intertwined wisteria plants. Then it lead us to a street of shops and finally past a basilica and down to the beach. We then got our instructions on how to get home and when to meet if we wanted to pay for boat rides and finally we were on our own. Kristin and I set out onto the black sand beach to find a spot away from our tourmates because we didn’t want to here their annoying American voices any longer. We set up close to the fence on the far side of the beach and away from the others. We laid out our towels got into our suits and laid down to "prendiamo sole" (take in the sun). After awhile our tanning was interrupted by a game of calcio played by a group of Italian boys. The ball ended up hitting Kristin and she moved. I was near asleep so I didn’t want to get up just yet. I stayed for about 30 min more then moved over the group of friends Kristin had met on Spring Break in Greece from Florence. I went and tried out the water. It was really nice, not really cold, but the rocks under my feet were the unpleasant part. After I tried out the water I went back and laid in the sun for a bit more but we decided we needed a little break from the sun so we didn’t get completely fried. We went up to the bar and sat down for a drink. The waiter brought us a menu and we decided Daiquiri sounded amazing. I really was thinking strawberry, but the waiter said, “Lemon?” after we ordered like it really wasn’t a choice, and then he said, “It’s better.” We took his word for it and let him put the order in. He brought out our drinks in fancy glasses and we had our first sip. It was like heaven in icy delicious form. We sat and enjoyed our drinks and decided to go up and explore the shops a bit and then maybe find some gelato. We walked up through the shops and looked around we made it up the basilica but decided we were too scantily clad to go in so I just peaked around the corner and snapped a quick picture. We continued up and looked through the little market set up along the walk way. After we got to the next set of stairs we decided to head back down. We didn’t want to walk too far up because we would have to do it later so we just headed back down and found some gelato then enjoyed eating it in front of a shop with a funny shirts in Italian. One was translating what a girl says and what she actually means. It said that yes is no and no is no and maybe is no and then other things that we figured out but I can’t remember all of them. There was one for guys to and it was I’m hungry I’m hungry, and I’m tired is I’m tired, and I love you means let’s have sex now. We walked down to the beach again and laid out again. We spotted Tiffany and went over and talked to her. Then Kristin and I went down to the water and took some pics. We finally just laid back out and enjoyed the last bit of the sun. We were going to stay and have dinner on the beach and see the sunset but then some girls said that the last busses were earlier than we were thinking. Mike had told us 10 or 11. We decided not to chance and head back up and check out the timetable for ourselves. We made it up to the Tabacchi on the main road. The timetable said that the last one was at 7:40, too early for the sunset sadly. We went back down to find lunch and after searching towards the bus stop we went back down to the beach. We looked at several places and they all seemed to be really expensive, we hadn’t had lunch earlier so we decided to just go for it since our options were pretty limited anyway. We sat down and ordered a glass of wine and I got the gnocci alla sorrentina. It was with tomato mozzarella and basil. When it came out I’m pretty sure it was one of the best pasta dishes I’d had. Mike Deller came over and asked if it was good. I gave him a taste and he got this surprised happy look on his face that turned to sad as he said, “I just got a Panini.” It was hiliarious. After we finished our meal we went back up to the top to wait at the bus stop because we didn’t want to risk missing the bus since it would be the last one. We waited and were soon crowded by Italians, even a couple that literally pushed their way in front of us. There was still about 30 minutes before the next bus was supposed to arrive. We waited some more and the bus finally arrived. It was near uttered chaos. We were pushed by a group of old people to get on the bus. We managed to get on but we had to stand the whole way back. It turned out to be quite a workout through the winding streets. We did get to see some beautiful views of the sunset though. We continued the way back, but we passed our stop and went back into the center of Sorrento. The bus had the heat or something on so my feet were burning up. It finally stopped and we got off and went to the taxi stand and got a cab back to the campground, Santa Fortuna. We went back to the cabin and took a shower. After we showered we went up to the bar to sit and use the internet and work on a little homework, even though that didn’t really happen. We got tired and turned in early.

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