When it came to the end of Year 8, and elective subjects were vying for our favour, various (sometimes unfulfilled) promises were thrown about. I can't say I regret being bought by Italian's promise of a trip to Italy, no matter how many delicious cakes Home Ec baked. I rate that little decision on an elective sheet as one of, if not THE best decisions I have ever made.
After much anticipation, with me running around delivering newspapers and accumulating finances for a good 2 years in advance, on New Years Eve 2002 I set off for Italy with a group that included several of my good friends. After a somewhat lengthy stopover in Seoul, where much time was spent curled up on the carpet, we landed in Rome before being whisked off in a coach down south to Sorrento. And here begins the recount:
* Sunburst over Pompeii * Scooter in Positano * Cliffs along Amalfi Coast * Sorrento * Me & friends on Isle of Capri
Sorrento My first impressions of Italy were of a tiny little girl calling out Eccola! (here she is!) when meeting her mother at the airport. Oh wow, they really do speak Italian here. I then noticed, as we headed down the coast, that the Italians had a passion for decorating their mountainsides with glowing Christmas stars. According to my diary at the time, we stopped at an Autogrill, but despite being quite hungry I avoided buying anything as I was too confused by their system of cashiers and receipts. The fourth impression was that, upon arriving in Sorrento at around 11pm.... we still had an audience of passersby watching our busload of suitcase wheels clunking along the cobblestones in a rather attention-drawing manner down to our hotel. Why is everyone walking around at 11 at night?! Our following few days were taken up with a rather jetlagged trip to the Isle of Capri (Quote from diary entry - "We caught a train-like thing up the mountain and looked around at extremely expensive crap") however I was impressed with the brilliant greenery which at the time was a welcome change from the drought-ravaged savannah of home. We went on a bus trip along the Amalfi Coast to Positano where we were wowed by views of the town built along the cliff, the basketball-sized citrus fruits, and were invariably amused by the hoardes of sleazy Italian men wiggling their eyebrows at us. Why was it that I got the most public male attention in Italy when I was 15? That is just not cool. I have just located a story from my diary which had been forgotten but was extremely amusing at the time. I can only hope that it translates to written form. Another amusing Chloe story from Positano is when we were in a little shop looking at postcards, and Chloe decides that she’s going to be very clever and ask how much they cost in Italian. So she goes up to the man at the counter and says “Ah, quanto costa la cartolina per favore?” And the man replies “Cinquanta centesimi” Chloe, confused by the sudden dose of a foreign language can only reply “Whaat..?” The man speaks again, this time more slowly and clearly, “CIN-quanta cent-esimi” Young Chloe is still at a loss, “Whaaat…?” Taking pity upon the poor English-speaking child, the man says “Fifty cents” “Whaaat..?” says Chloe “FIF…TY CENTS” he spells out emphatically. At this point Clancy, Luke and myself are cracking up at the situation, when it seems Chloe finally realises what’s happening. “Ohh!” she replies, laughing. “Fifteen cents! Ok!” She wasn't allowed to forget that one for a couple of years. The next day we had a few hours in Pompeii, which was quite impressive. I didn't quite realise how it literally was a functional city that had been uncovered. Didn't get to see the whole thing, nor Vesuvius, which is testament to how overcast it was that day. Later that day was perhaps the first time that we, or at least I, had been completely unsupervised in our lives. We were informed of the time that dinner was on at the hotel, and otherwise left to our own devices in Sorrento for the rest of the day. This was quite an amazing level of freedom at the time. We wandered around the town, taking in various piazzas and churches, and perusing a little religous paraphernalia shop which I long to find again and purchase its very tasteful Crucified-Jesus-in-a-Snow-Dome. I found the abundance of stray dogs disconcerting. There was a statue near the road to our hotel with a man with a severed dolphin's head under his foot. There was a pharmacy called Farmacia Farfalla. There was an enormous sparkly Christmas Tree in the middle of town. After just a few days we were back on the bus and carted up north towards Florence, stopping briefly in Siena. I thought I would quote my diary entry from the bus: They’re playing 500 yet again on the seats next to me. I’m not quite sure where we are but it’s an autostrada past Napoli somewhere. The place is so green. There are rocky grass covered mountains everywhere. The country is completely overtaken by humans and houses. Only the high mountains have no people living on them. There are spindly trees on the side of the road and these SOS things every few hundred metres. There are lots of old cottages around as well. Everyone can sit there playing 500 as long as they like, but they miss out on seeing the best parts. I knew I typed my entire travel diary out into a Word doc for a reason :) More stories to follow.
