Earthquake, Easter and the Bay of Naples

This week, Italy witnessed a tragedy that I will never forget waking up to. On Wednesday morning, 4/8, I woke up for class and got onto the New York Times Web site, which is what I do every morning in order to catch up with international news, especially in America. The headline was that an earthquake had killed at least 20 in Italy, and I immediately freaked out and read the article. The earthquake occurred at about 3 a.m. in the Abruzzo region, which is parallel to Rome, and should have been felt all the way up to Florence. I did not feel anything througout the night, but I spoke to people I knew in Rome who said they felt it and it was like nothing they had ever felt before, which I expected since the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.3. It hit hardest in the city of L'Aquila, which I had read in my guide book that it is a tourist attraction for students and its medieval city, which was destroyed during the quake. As the day progressed and I kept my eye on the news, more and more people were found dead, which tug at my heart. It was all over the newspapers and news ... there was one big funeral for all of those who died in the earthquake and I watched a little bit of it on TV. It broke my heart to see a baby's coffin on top of his mother's coffin, and to hear stories like Eleanora's, who was living in a dormitory with three other friends and was found stuck under the rubble 48 hours later, her friends still missing. I read another story about how someone's German Shepherd dog had warned them about the earthquake with his barking and behavior, which made them realize they had to leave with their newborn baby. As soon as they opened the door to live, the earthquake shook the building and collapsed. The family luckily got out safely and alive, but the dog was missing... until three days later he was found and alive, which the family wsa so grateful for because they considered him as saving their lives. I read most of these stories in Italian newspapers, which I could translate mostly by myself, but had to refer to the dictionary several times. Anyways, it was a devastating week for Italy and it was an even harder Easter for many families, who will remain in my hearts and prayers.

Easter Monday is a holiday in Italy, so we had the day off today, 4/13. Since we had an extended weekend, Patee, Rebekka, Stacey and I decided to visit the Bay of Naples. Patee and I left on Thursday on the EuroStar, which was a bad idea because we never reserved seats, which meant we had to walk around the train for the entire six hours - it was only six hours because the train was delayed after it stopped in Rome to Naples. It was a miserable train ride sitting on the floor and moving with our bags every ten minutes, but we passed the time by reading and translating the Italian newspaper. We stopped in Naples just to eat pizza, since you "have to eat pizza in Naples if nothing else." Patee and I found the restaurant, Pizzeria Michele (picture to the left), which is the pizzeria that the author talks about in the book Eat, Pray, Love. I am not really sure why they say that Naples has the best pizza because I didn't think it was that great - Patee really enjoyed it though. As we were only in Naples for about two hours before heading to Sorrento, my impression is that Naples is an extremely dirty city. Two men on the train told Patee and me several times that we need to keep our eyes alert and keep attention while on the streets because of the crime. That made us so nervous, so we took cabs to and from the train station during the two hours we were there. Also, there was a HUGE amount of fake sellers who sold fake brand purses and accessories... it was like every 20 feet there would be a new stand and someone selling it. We found it strange because it is absolutely prohibited and monitored in Florence. There was also trash everywhere... I have never seen such a dirty city. Nevertheless, at least we can say that we were in Naples ("Napoli"). Once we arrived in Sorrento after running into Nicki, Rebekah, Caroline, Maddy, Kara and Sarah on the second train, we found our hotel and went straight to bed so we were ready for the next day!

On Friday we took an early ferry out of Sorrento to get to Capri... which was way too expensive. But besides that, Capri has got to be my favorite place in Italy! It was absolutely GORGEOUS (below is a picture of the town of Capri)! And the water was so blue! I have never seen such beautiful water. Capri was a little mountainous town that reminded me of Greece... not that I've been to Greece, but it was how I would think of Greece. The first thing the 10 of us did was take a boat from the Porto Marino to the Blue Grotto, "Grotta Azzura." Once we got there, we were supposed to get into little tiny rowboats and a rower took us into the Grotto (pictured to the right). I was so scared because of my fear of the ocean and water that is not transparent... and the opening to the Grotto was so tiny that you have to lay down when you go into it, so of course that made me nervous. And of course Nicki decided to tell me that one time there was a landslide in the grotto that trapped people and they died... though she was joking, I was freaking out for the ten minutes that I believed her story. Maddy, Rebekah, Patee, Nicki and I were in one rowboat and it was probably the funniest 30 minutes of my life. And of course it cost another 10 euro to do this excursion, so money was falling out of our pockets quickly. Once we had lifted our bodies back up onto the boat, we were in the Blue Grotto and it was absolutely gorgeous - it was unbelievable!! The water (to the left)was so incredibly blue because of the sun radiating off of the surface through the opening. Stories say that it was a scandalous gathering for Greeks back in the days, and that people still swim in there when the tide is too high to boat in there. It absolutely amazed me and is my favorite part of the entire weekend.

After the Blue Grotto, we walked around Capri and had lunch and then tried to take a chair lift up the mountains to Anacapri (the top of Capri), where we could see a panoramic view of the island. However, once we got up there on a scary bus ride, we found out that the chair lift was broken, which was so disappointing because it would have been so fun! However, we got to walk around the town through the streets and observed people's houses, farm areas, lemon trees, etc. Sorrento is famous for producing limoncella because of all of the lemons that are grown in Sorrento, Capri and Pompei and surrounding cities. Lemon and orange trees were everywhere, as were lemon slushies - which were amazing! I had so many because they were so good and refreshing. Anyways, we got so much sun because of the beautiful weather and day in Capri and we really enjoyed our walk through the streets of Anacapri and Capri. Afterwards, we laid on the beach of Capri until our boat was ready to take off back to Sorrento. When we got back to Sorrento, we all went to the sandal-making shop, which is apparently famous. To the right is a picture of the man making my red sandals. A lot of our friends who had already been to Sorrento got handmade leather sandals that were made right in front of them at this store, so of course we all had to do that. It was really cheap for what they had and our sandals were fitted to our feet, made right in front of us and specialized how we wanted them! I got some red ones and some silver ones - I can't wait to wear my red ones to the football games this fall! I could have bought the ENTIRE store out.. and I was thinking about how Mom and Mrs. Molner would have LOVED this! On Saturday, Patee, Rebekkah, Stacey and I made our way to Ancient City of Pompei. Above is the ancienty city of Pompei, through the streets with Mount Vesuvius in the background. This was amazing to me ... we entered the ancient city, which has been preserved by the ashes from the first eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which occurred in 79 AD. We saw old houses, forums, theatres, churches, synagogues, bakery, snack bars and even a brothel that had stone beds and pillows with pornographic paintings on the walls of it, AND even body casts of people who were shocked to death from the lava (picture to the left are bodycasts)- that amazed me how it was all so preserved still! We spent about three hours touring the ancient city, had lunch in the market of modern city of Pompei and then took a taxi to Mt. Vesuvius, where we bravely hiked the active volcano. I still can't believe that I hiked an active volcano. My guidebook describes it as a "semi-challenging hike," but they are so wrong - the hike is incredibly challenging! Though it only takes 30 minutes to get to the top, we were so exhausted and woke up with the worse pains in our muscles the next day! We got to the top and were able to peer into the crater (picture above), where we saw smoke coming out of it ... I couldn't believe it! All around us were lava and molten rock from previous eruptions, and we could see a panoramic view of Naples, Ischia, Pompei, Sorrento and plenty other cities in the Bay of Naples. All I was thinking of was how much Mark would have absolutely loved Pompei - so would Dad - it is definitely their kind of historic adventure. After we took our hike up the volcano with our extremely necessary and helpful walking sticks, we went back down and back into the taxi to the train station, where we headed back to Sorrento. To the right is a picture of Patee and me on the top of Mount Vesuvius - right in front of the crater of it.

Sorrento is the cutest little town and we loved the market part of it. A tiny little street was aligned with shops and outdoor restaurants. Patee and I tried to go to Mass on Sunday for Easter at 8:30 a.m. before our train left, but we got lost and realized we were on the completely wrong street at 8:45 a.m., so we turned around and went into a different Church to pray for awhile. I love being able to just walk into a Catholic Church and being able to sit down and think and pray. Being here and being immersed in the religious culture makes it so much easier to believe in everything I have been learning in Catholic school and at Church. I love being surrounded by people who share my religious beliefs, and I love being able to say "Buona Pasqua" (Happy Easter) to anyone without being afraid it is going to offend them. On Good Friday while we were eating at an outdoors restaurant in Sorrento, there was a procession taking place in the main plazza, and crowds were lined up to watch it. We were asked to be quiet at the resutaurant when the procession began and they turned out the lights and stopped serving everyone. It amazed me how seriously everyone took the holiday and their religion and it made me wish we were like this in America, but there is just too much diversity. The procession consisted of lines of people dressed in all black (costumes that looked like the KKK, except in black, which was kinda freaky) carrying incense candles, followed by a statue of Jesus lying in a tomb, and then by his Mother Mary, and then by a crucifix. Being immersed in a country where 95% of its people believe in the same religion is an amazing feeling to me and makes my faith even stronger than it ever was before.

Believe it or not, the Easter Bunny does not exist in Italy. Instead, everyone receives a HUMONGOUS chocolate Easter egg that has a "sorpresa" (surprise) in it... for children it usually has to do with Disney or a cartoon character. For adults, I think it's usually just even more chocolate on the inside. These chocolate eggs are humongous - I have never seen such a big chocolate egg. We never got a big one, but Rebekka got us miniature Sorpresa eggs for Easter morning, and I brought my Easter basket from Mom so we could all pig out on Easter day and feel like we were at home. :) In Florence, everyone gathers in the Piazza near the Duomo at 10 a.m. and awaits a fake dove to fly out of the doors - if it hits a cart sitting in the middle of the piazza, than Florence is supposed to have good luck for the year.. if the dove misses the cart, than Florence is supposed to have bad luck for the year. I am not sure what the results were, but I will probably find out tomorrow!

Patee and I left Sorrento to go back to Florence on Sunday. As soon as we arrived in Florence, I went on a run by the river because the weather is so beautiful. We wish we had a porch to sit on because this weather makes us want to sit outside the entire day - tomorrow we are going to lay by the river for the afternoon after school because it is so beautiful.

Buona Pasqua from Italy!!!