As Lauren and I wait for more True Blood to load and completely avoid studying for more midterms...I must say that the weeks since Oktoberfest have been a whirlwind.
The following weekend was also booked through Bus2Alps and we definitely visited some of my absolute favorite places, I fell in LOVE! The AMALFI COAST. As is the usual drill we took a bus through Thursday night, arrived in our hostel to sleep a couple hours in a city called Sorrento on the coast, and then were off to the small island of Capri for the day! From the Sorrento coast we took a private boat with our tour group to Capri which was simply beautiful, my friends and I were sitting out on the bow so we got to see everything, it was so peaceful.
We arrived first at the imfamous Blue Grotto, which is on the side of the island in the mouth of this tiny cave opening. Basically during the daylight hours the cave opening is in a position so that the light coming in reflects and looks like it lights up the water!! It is absolutely phenomenal! It looks like there are lights underneath illuminating this cave...there is only one way in and you go on this 4 person wooden boat manned by a local Italian who steers you around it, singing Italian songs, giving a Blue Grotto history lesson, and reminding you to tip him, clever man...in any case it was an awesome start to the weekend!
Now if you're thinking that the island of Capri sounds familiar...it's because it probably does. Most celebrities, European and American have homes here, it is very upscale, very private, and very beautiful. No big deal our guides were pointing out George Clooney, the owner of Ferrarri, and some of basically the worlds richest people's mansion homes on the cliffside towns of this tiny island. We got to explore the island, take a chairlift to the top that overlooks everything, had some bomb seafood, explored the pebble beach, sipped free limoncello, and watched the local shoemaker make jeweled sandals!
After our lovely day exploring the island we took the boat on one more cruise around the island and headed back to Sorrento and our hostel for the night. We were staying in an 11 person co-ed hostel room, which made for quite the interesting weekend. That night we went out in Sorrento for dinner and to an American bar/discoteca some awesome people we were hanging out with. Proved to be a lot of fun.
Saturday was by far my favorite...I absolutely fell in love with the town we visited: Positano. It is this gorgeous town on the coast, with these insane black sand beaches, and is built completely into the mountainside, it's streets are almost vertical! You have to climb uphill to get anywhere from the beach! It reminded me of Laguna, CA, the town had such an authentic beachy style to it, artists covered the streets and small boutiques could be found between the tabacchi and gelato shops. Also held the best sandwich/panini shop in Italy, hands down! We spent most of the day laying out on the beach, and exploring the town, before jumping on a private boat that took us to a sick spot to cliff dive up to 40 feet, and go cave swimming!! SO FANTASTIC. Such a rush and one of the best days I could've possibly experienced.
After an exciting day we retired to the hostel for the night, which actually had live entertainment, a decent bar, and a rooftop hangout with a beach view, perfectly chill and wonderful way to spend the night with some good friends! On Sunday we hitched it over to Pompeii, the infamous city of ruins that fell to Mt. Vesuvius during Roman times. They kept EVERYTHING in this place accurate, as if no one in the city had left, it was eerie. There were still paintings and statues and full on homes that you could walk through. There were no roofs to any of them and all of the buildings were crumbling with age but still held firm. And it was not a place to hit up for an hour, this was an entire city, and you walk...the entire...city. I mean you have to see it all. Pompeii was the perfect ending to an amazing weekend.
We even found a home that we particularly liked, claimed rooms of course, and Mamma Bea put on a little cooking show for us! Such a pro.
First of all, I feel like a blog failure, it's been almost a month without a post from me and clearly that is unacceptable. But time more than flies in Italy, it sprints, and I am clearly far too out of shape to keep up...between traveling every weekend and classes and midterms this week, it's been a bit hectic. Internet has also been a problem...and Italians aren't the quickest people to fix things, the pace is a bit more relaxed here.
In any case I currently only have two more midterms out of six, a practical cooking one and a communications one and I'm home freeeee! Then my parents arrive, and we will be traveling around Florence, to Pisa, Lucca, Chianti, wine tasting in Tuscany, and spending two days in Venice! Then next weekend Lauren, the roomie, and I are joining a few girls from our wine tasting class on another Bus2Alps trip to the island of Corfu, Greece for Halloween! November 1st is a holiday here, All Saints Day, so luckily we have that Monday off. A brief recap of the past few weekends must happen because they were some of the best days of my life.
OKTOBERFEST: Now this was a weekend unlike any I will likely ever experience. We booked the weekend through Bus2Alps, the student travel agency around there who is pretty legit, and we took a bus overnight to Munich, Germany where we arrived at about 8am on a Friday. We wasted zero time. The best part about this experience is that we were going all out and camping in the woods of Munich. The campsite we were at is run by a bunch of insanely awesome Australians who will drink anyone I know under a table. The site was Stoketoberfest and Stoke definitely lived up to its name. Within 5 minutes of arriving we were thrown into a line to assign us all into two-person tents that were set up all over the place, and while in line they served us our first beer of the weekend. Even funnier were the vans that were parked everywhere with graffiti covering them completely and cracked out English guys falling all over the place.
Another perk about the campsite was that with 5 euro we got a wristband that got us unlimited beer and sangria there for the weekend, can you say amazing?! Well it was, especially when mixed, don't judge until you try it!
As you can see I'm pretty happy about the wristband scenario, especially that it says, "If it wasn't for booze, we'd all be virgins." That pretty much sums up the outlook of the Aussies. Needless to say we loved them. But after we got settled it was off to the festival!! Now the grounds of Oktoberfest definitely was all I imagined and more, when you arrive all you can see are dozens and dozens of carnival rides, food stands, and GIANT tents. As for the people, the Germans are quite large...I felt like a midget next to most, even the women! Most people were decked out in their Lederhosen for men, and Drindle for women, both of which looked awesome and fit the atmosphere just right.
Friday we explored multiple tents and a few beer gardens, which are the sections outside the tents where they have some seating they can still serve you at. We learned the rules of serving pretty quick, which is basically: treat the beer girls like goddesses, tip them, and you don't get served unless at a table. And everywhere was crowded so you jumped on the first empty space you see and make a looot of friends just from sharing space. This was a beautiful day if just a bit overcast...but then we got back to the campsite, and within the 15 minutes it took to get there in a cab, it had started pouring, became FREEZING, and even HAILED. Yes, hailed. Big giant baseball-sized hail. And we were going back to our tents? Well that was a definite no, so luckily the Aussies running this place had been drinking all day and had set up some psuedo tents over the food area. So for the rest of the night we just continued to drink, met a lot of fun people from all over, and avoided the pelting rain. Luckily we could cuddle in the tent, Lauren and I, but even still in our sleeping bags and all the clothing we brought with us on...it was frigid. Now Saturday was beyond epic. The Aussies had started drinking at about 5am, many didn't sleep, because of the time difference they had a playoff rugby match on that they couldn't miss, so they ran around screaming wake up calls at about 6:45. The first bus into the festival left at 7am, these people did not mess around! The best tents fill up fast, and after a certain time if you don't have a spot at a table you can't get in! So we pulled ourselves together and booked it over there! Our favorite tent was Hofbrau, which is where we had a table by 8am. WIN! This tent is where most of the Americans and Australians go, and is one of the largest; it can house about 10,000 people at capacity! INSANE! And the beer there was THE BEST. Seriously I will never drink a beer the same way because I will be thinking of this...they were served in Liters and were fantastic. No bitter aftertaste. No hangovers. No bloating. The Liter was the size of 3 US beers as far as volume, but 5 US beers as far as alcohol percentage. Perfection.
They started serving at 9am and by 11am, after two liters of beer, we were all shwasted in a wonderful way, chanting German drinking songs, meeting all of the German and French people that shared our table eventually and just overall having a grand old time. This went on all day. I took a bunch of videos of the chanting, most are not very steady because I'm jumping around singing at the same time but how could I not?! Good memories...good stories...good people...good beer.
There were a few American songs that got turned into chants so it was great that we could join in! Also there were some German guys our age that spoke English that taught us some of the words to the German ones and translated them. All in all, amazing.
Of course the rain didn't let up, or the frigid cold, so going back to the campsite was not a great thing, but the beer and sangria never stopped, they served us food, and we had our makeshift tent and wonderful entertaining company and music to keep us going all night!
The Sunday of that weekend was still rainy and cold so we couldn't do the Munich bike tour around the town that we wanted for obvious reasons, so we decided to check out Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, which was only a short bus ride away.
I cannot describe to you how powerful that place was. There was a short walk with informational signs that told us it was the walk that all of the prisoners had before entering the camp. Surreal. Immediately when I entered the camp I was in tears. There is no way to describe why I was so moved, but seeing the way they kept this place immortalized and as a museum...walking on the ground where thousand of people died. I was overcome. There are no words. We saw the death chambers. Saw where they ate and slept and died...I'm so grateful for going, as somber a trip as it was, it made the experience that much more tangible and real.
I couldn't imagine being Jewish or having relatives that went through this. I wouldn't been beyond a mess.
Alright well I'm taking a much needed True Blood break and I'll be back. I need some Alcide and Eric in my life right about now. Ciao for now, Jessica
