Easter Weekend on the Amalfi Coast!

Hello, world! First off, I would like to say that I hope everyone had an amazing Easter, and no matter what religion you are, got to spend some valuable time with the people you love. For the last two Easters, I have been away from my family. It seems weird thinking that life still exists in Ohio for everyone else when I’m not there. Sometimes it seems like, in my head, my mom is spending all of her time while I’m at school waiting by the computer to Skype and waiting at the CAK airport for me to walk through the gate. And then my mom tells me something fun that she, my dad, and Kip did the other day, and I remember that they still live in real life, too! Then I get to hear fun stories, and it makes up for me not being there. I spent this Easter weekend, as well as last year’s, with Toni’s family. They are always very welcoming, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re Italian and I always eat the most amazing food with them. This year, they came to us! Toni’s parents, grandparents, sister, and cousin all came to Italy for their spring break trip! Toni’s dad was born in Italy, near the Amalfi Coast, and lived there until he was seven. He hadn’t been back since just a few years after he moved to America, so he obviously was dying to get back to “his town” and see his family. 🙂

Toni and I left last Thursday afternoon to meet the family in Rome for the night. Rome was just a stopping point, so we were only there for one night. A guy in the elevator who said he was from America recommended a place right across the street for dinner. He said he had traveled all over the city, and this place had the best food around. We didn’t have anything else in mind, so we decided to give it a try. Everyone was starving. All seemed well until they brought us two pizzas that looked like they just came frozen out of the cafeteria supply truck.The food continued to get worse, so we were all banned from listening to advice from any Americans in elevators. Needless to say, we still had a fun night goofing off in the hotel room and planning a away to steal food from the McDonald’s supply truck sitting across the street.

The trip down to the coast was possibly the first time Toni’s family saw my true colors…and by true colors, I mean my ridiculous inability to stay awake when I’m in a car and not driving. I spent three years of my life driving over 100 miles a day for my job (shootout to all the Crossroads Pizza customers!), so now when I get in a car and someone else is driving, all I want to do is sit back and relax. I fell asleep probably about 20 minutes outside of Rome and continued to sleep until I was woken up by Niki (Toni’s sister) taking pictures of me and my open-mouth breathing, sleeping body. By the end of the weekend, Niki probably had at least 15 pictures of me in all different types of sleeping positions. Mostly from our private tour van, because I had the whole backseat to myself. While Carlo (Toni’s dad) was having a panic attack because we were driving on the side of a cliff, I was passed out dreaming of dreamy things.

After about 40 minutes driving about four feet from the edge of a 500-foot cliff, we finally got to the hotel. The hotel we stayed at was a remodeled convent. I tried to request Whoopie’s room but I don’t think the guy understood my English correctly.

I snapped this picture of the town of Amalfi on our drive up to the hotel.

This was the left side of our view from our hotel room’s balcony. The water was ridiculously blue…all the time.

The rocks were the most beautiful part of this area. Everything was made from stone (like most smaller cities in Italy, most streets and sidewalks were made of cobblestone), and the rocks that surrounded the beach and hid right underneath the water all looked perfectly placed in nature.

Yes, ladies and gents, those are ALL lemons. I’m dead serious. The coast is known for their lemon production (including part of Carlo’s family), and it is easy to see why! I didn’t get to try one of the huge lemons, but we had locally produced lemon candy and lemon cake multiple times…both were delicious. We got the candy just a few blocks down from these lemons. The actual town of Amalfi was actually very small, with one central area for everything. So, the time that wasn’t spent eating, riding around in the tour van, (or my third option: sleeping), was spent here in the main square of town. There was one long street with the church, a bunch of little restaurants and cafes, shops, food vendors, everything! It was a nice place to chill out in the evening.

During our days in Amalfi, we spent most of the time visiting different little towns around Amalfi. On Saturday, we went to the town Carlo grew up in. He hand’t made plans to meet up with anyone, so it was literally a shot in the dark when it came to actually finding anyone. So, we hopped in the van, I fell asleep, and then Gianlucca made his way up the mountain! We stopped at a little market that a member of Carlo’s family owns, and just minutes later we were all outside the market meeting all of Carlo’s extended family! It was like a scene from a movie. Such a unique experience.

On Sunday, we went to the town of Positano, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful towns in the whole world. (For anyone who has ever seen the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun,” Positano is the place she goes to visit and meet up with her new boyfriend’s family. Thought that was interesting! :P) It really is gorgeous. There are shops lining every inch of a street that is barely wide enough for one car to pass through, that runs all the way down to the water. While we were doing some shopping, we had some unfortunate weather  and had to take shelter in a church. Turns out, the church was about to have Easter mass in five minutes. None of us were dressed for church, the place was almost completely full, and I had never even been to a Catholic mass in English, let alone in Italian! I found it to be quite an interesting experience. Still not sure why we were standing up and sitting down again so much, but hey…I can’t figure out everything on the first try.

In Italy, the Monday after Easter is just as important (if not more important) than Easter itself. Pasquetta, Easter Monday, is a time of celebration in Italy. In Amalfi, the streets shut down and everyone has one huge celebration in the streets! Unfortunately for us, that meant that we had to leave town by 7AM or risk not being able to get back to Florence in time for Tuesday classes. After some crazy talks with the hotel manager and the travel agent, we devised a plan and agreed to travel home early Monday morning.

These are pictures of two different mornings on the coast. I thought the morning was the most beautiful part of the day there. Everything seemed very tranquil. Fishermen were going setting up for the day, the waves were crashing against the rocks on shore, and life just seemed good.

After an hour-long bus ride and a four hour train ride, we finally got back to Florence…which had officially been completely taken over by tourists.

I had an amazing weekend and got to see some of the most beautiful places in the world! I want to thank Toni’s family SO much for a wonderful and relaxing weekend. You guys are the best!

Learn Italian: Lemon – Limone (pronounced lee-MOH-nay)

x Ricky