Part Two: Beach, Cliff Jumping and Hot Springs

In Sesto (the suburb of Florence that I live in), sidewalks are about 2 feet wide, and I constantly feel like I'm about to get hit by a car. Actually, I almost have been hit quite a few times, especially in the traffic circle intersection on the way to the grocery store and bus stop. But anyway, in Ischia, the streets themselves aren't big enough for cars to go down and you literally have to jump in a doorway if you hear a car approaching-luckily most of the streets are one-way. Now imagine being packed into a minivan (which is really a mini minivan if you're thinking of an American one...) with 14 other people, on the lap of a friend who has his arms around your waist because you're pressed against the sliding door that doesn't actually shut completely, and one of the German girls in the front seat has a hold of the door to try to hold it in place, and besides the typical fear this should invoke, the driver is somehow managing to speed down these tiny winding streets within inches of the walls of houses. And this was only the trip from dinner the first night...

To explain, I actually loved the adventure. Our hostel was owned by this family, and was really great. It was up a huge hill from the port, and down this crazy, tiny, winding street (the one I was talking about) and we were on the top floor, which meant we had a huge balcony that over looked the city and coast and was fabulous for writing postcards and drinking wine with the other guests. The owners went out of their way to interact with everyone and recognized each person there. They would drive anyone that wanted to go to dinner together each night to their mother's restaurant across town, and then would plan some kind of evening activity after dinner. So, the first night, after spending the afternoon lounging lazily on the beach, we headed to dinner with everyone, and watched a gorgeous sunset over the island from the restaurant. Colleen (my friend from Pompei) was staying at the same hostel, so we all met up there with almost everyone else in the hostel. I actually sat next to a guy with my dream summer job-he writes for "Let's Go Italy" (which is like my Italian bible for this summer) and basically gets paid to travel southern Italy and rate the hostels and restaurants and things to do in each town.

So after dinner, I found myself packed into a van exactly as described above, semi-scared for my life but actually finding the whole situation strangely blissful. We headed to these hot springs outside of town, where you had to go down a million stairs in complete darkness-it was a clear night so the stars were out and it was gorgeous, but not good for stair climbing haha. The hot springs are right next to the sea, so there was the perfect mix of cool and hot water and everyone had brought bottles of wine, so I spent the evening drinking wine under the stars while relaxing in hot springs next to the sea. It was absolutely amazing-no other way to describe it.

The trip back to the hostel was (seriously) crazier than the ride to the hot springs. We piled 14 people again into the other van, which actually had a door that shut, but not a window that did. So again, my friend Tim held onto me while we sped down the streets so that I didn't fall out the window. Our driver was new to the hostel, and managed to get lost on the way back home, so we saw a group of teenagers on a side street, and asked for directions. Of course, they gave us wrong ones, and we ended up back in the same place, where they proceeded to all jump on their scooters and start chasing our van!! They were like surrounding the van and pounding on the windows, and at one point they started throwing rocks at the back. Everyone was scared to death, and again, I didn't react as I probably should have. I found the whole situation absolutely hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. I mean, we were packed into a van in this crazy island town where not even people that live there can navigate the streets and were being chased by a group of bored locals-what a crazy experience...

We made it back to the hostel after some creative driving and lucky turns, and the next day we decided to go cliff jumping. The owner of the hostel explained to us how to get to the rocks to jump off of, and we headed out. So, we find the rocks, and you have to climb out on all of these smaller boulders to get to the big ones to jump off of, and finally 2 of the girls from our group make it to the top of one. They rock-paper-scissored to see who would jump first (I should probably note that we didn't have anyone with us that had done it before, or seen anyone do it...and the water is so clear that you can't really judge the depth). Shannon did it, and the rest of us followed suit. I'm terrified of heights, and water, and the combination completely freaks me out-which makes the rush of doing something like this a million times better.

We grabbed lunch at this diner that overlooked the sea, and I had the craziest "hamburger" I've ever seen-it was basically a burger cut in half and placed in a pita with the french fries inside too. But it was actually quite delicious. We spend the rest of the afternoon/evening lounging at a sandy beach down the coast-and even at like 6pm it still was amazing beach weather-which I loved!! It was one girl's birthday that was traveling with us, so we went out to a fancy dinner where I had a really delicious bow tie pasta with cream sauce and sword fish. Sea food is definitely growing on me...

Sunday, the other girls headed back a bit earlier than I did since I wanted more time on the island. I wandered down to the local fruit vendor and wrote out postcards on our balcony. Discovered a new favorite flavor of gelato-pistachio. It tastes almost like Superman ice cream...delicious :) Again, Naples was an adventure to navigate...I took a tram instead of a taxi to save money, and someone attempted to pick pocket me, but luckily I'd emptied everything important from the zippers I didn't have locks for, and all they got was a couple of pens. Some random guy from the ferry like latched onto me and like followed me to the train station and proceeded to "wait" for my train with me. I finally got the point across in Italian that really, I was fine and could wait for my train alone and he left, and I got to go get Margherita pizza (the ONE good thing about Naples). The train ride home was super long, it was delayed an entire hour!! I was like the amusement for my compartment as I was an American girl that spoke Italian, so everyone wanted to talk to me. I met this ADORABLE Italian guy that was my age, but unfortunately he was on the train to head to training for the military. I had been seriously considering running away to marry him regardless of the fact that he only knew like 10 words in English, but the whole heading to Afghanistan thing kind of hindered that plan. One guy was retired from an engine company that supplied for Ford, so he started getting all technical with me and that overwhelmed me a bit because I didn't understand like any of it, which was when this other guy stepped in and monopolized the conversation because he spoke fluent English, and practically refused to let anyone else talk to me. That annoyed me so I pretended to sleep until he went back to his own compartment. Kind of mean of me, but oh well, I wanted to practice Italian.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I definitely recommend Ischia to anyone wanting to head to Italy-it was beautiful, and I loved the laid-back beach community. I wish I'd had more a few more days there, because I really wanted to see the Blue Grotto on Capri (the island next to Ischia) but didn't have the time. I definitely plan to go back...