Baaaaaaaaaarthelona where the rain falls mainly on the plain

I'm in love.

And I've only been here for a few hours.

Fear not, friends and family, the love is only with
the city itself, but I'm sure it's just an
at-first-sight kind of thing that will fade with the
daylight. But right now (roughly 1:00 a.m.) I'm
loving this town.

But first... Southern Italy.

I packed up last weekend and took off with Busabout
for a 3 day adventure to the southern part of Italy.
The adventure actually began before leaving Rome when
Vincenzo (Lilly's husband) picked me up on his little
Honda scooter to bring me to the place to meet my bus.
Hah. A scooter. In Rome. In the morning rush hour.
Who needs coffee? I followed the sage advice my
friend Kerrin (Hi, Kerrin!) once gave me on a
motorcycle ride across the Bay Bridge (she drove): If
you're going to be scared, shut your eyes. Worked for
me then, worked even better for me in Rome.

Once we made it to Camping Roma, I hopped off the
scooter and boarded the bus. After a few hours we
pulled into Pompei and had a good tour of the city.
Or what's left of the city. It was an amazing sight,
all of the ruins rescued from the ashes of Mt.
Vesuvius (which our guide happily told us could blow
again at any minute). It was unreal, especially
having a look at some of the artifacts and bodies on
display (photos on the website).

>From Pompei, we headed into Sorrento and had a short
siesta at our campsite before heading into town for a
yummy 3 course dinner. More pasta, fish, bread,
dessert, and a shot of Limoncello, a digestive/liquor
that is oh-so-yummy. On Saturday, we took a bus to
the port in Sorrento and hopped a ferry to Capri. The
tour price included a full day on the tiny island, and
even though the weather was the worst I've seen on the
trip (outside of London, anyway) all of us opted to
get on an even smaller boat and do a tour around the
island. The first fifteen minutes were wild. The
swells were huge; it felt like The Perfect Storm every
now and again. I was too nervous to be seasick, and
instead giggled my way around half of the island,
contemplating whether or not I could swim to shore if
our boat went the way of the SS Minnow. We didn't.
And we made it safely around Capri to its star
attraction, the Blue Grotto. This is a tiny little
cave, accessibly only by rowboat. For a small fare,
we got off of our medium sized boat and into the tiny
one, laid ourselves down flat, and entered the grotto
itself. In the pictures you can see the amazingly
blue water. It truly was like nothing I'd ever seen
before, and the experience was made complete by the
row boat rowers singing happy little Italian tunes
(like Volare, whoa whoa) throughout. From there, some
of us ventured into the main part of Capri, a Rodeo
Drive kind of place where the price tags alone were
enough to make my eyes bug out. No shopping spree
here. Instead, I took a nap on the beach.

On Sunday, we left Sorrento and arrived in Amalfi with
enough time for a quick peek around the town and a
nice morning swim in the bay. It was a perfect way to
spend a Sunday morning. One of the guys on our trip
invested in a mask, and three of us took turns
swimming down as far as we could and checking out the
sea life. On our way to Amalfi, we passed a tiny
fishing town called Positano, and after Amalfi we
spent an hour or so in another small town called
Ravello, which overlooked the bay and town of Salerno.
(Pictures of all of these places are online.)

We arrived back in Rome on Sunday, and Vincenzo met me
at teh campsite with the scooter, ready to take me
home with enough time to do a load of laundry and have
a good sleep before heading to Florence the next
morning.

Now, when he picked me up on Friday, I only had my
small daypack with me. Riding on the scooter with
that was easy because Vincenzo actually balanced that
bag between his feet while I simply held on for dear
life. On Monday, however, I had to leave with
everything. So the small backpack went to its usual
spot, but I had to wear the big one. The big one
weighs about 14 kilos. I can't tell you what that is
in pounds, but it's damn heavy. And it was about a 40
minute ride. Abs of steel? Not quite, but if I had
to do that over and over again, I'd be well on my way
to a six pack. Instead, I only had sore muscles for
the rest of the day.

I bid ciao to Roma and got on the bus to Florence.
Before getting there, though, we had a few quick stops
in Orvieto (the donkey-well place) and Siena. I only
stayed one night in Florence, but it was great because
our guide brought us all into the town center and gave
us a quick, but unofficial tour of the town (the
Italian tourism department will fine you something
wicked if you get caught giving a tour without a
permit). We got to see the Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo,
and a few other sights. That night, we enjoyed a
4-course meal of bruschetta, pasta, steak, and ice
cream before hanging out and watching a group of
Contiki folks make absolute fools of themselves doing
Karaoke. Good thing they were there, otherwise we
would have been the fools.

For me, one night in Florence seemed like plenty, but
I'm sure I'll try to get back there at the end of the
bus trip in early September. The next morning, the
bus took off bound for Nice. We made a brief stop in
Pisa, where I took about 50 pictures of the leaning
tower (deleting about 46 of them after the fact).
It's quite a sight, that tower. After Pisa, we
dropped a group of people off in La Spezia (for Cinque
Terra) and I decided that a trip there in September
would also be worth my while. But for the time being,
I stayed on the bus and made it into Nice.

Nice is nice. I opted not to stay at Busabout's
drop-off accommodation, but headed to a place closer
to the beach. The hotel itself was nothing to write
home about (and yet, I am) but the location was
fabulous. I had two full days there, and spent the
majority of both sunning myself on the beach. The
downside of the beach is that it's rocky. But the
hotel had free mats for us to use, so that helped (a
little). I took a break from sunbathing on the first
day and wandered over towards the historical district
where there were all sorts of little markets,
restaurants, and tourist traps. It was very cute, and
I sat and enjoyed a salad lunch on my first day (I was
tired of pizza and pasta). I was close enough to
Monaco and Cannes to go visit, but just didn't have it
in me to head to either place. I'm sure they would
have been beautiful, but I was content to just hang
out at the beach and enjoy the immediate area around
my hostel.

On the first night, my 8-bed room was full of
20-something travelers (two Aussies, two from
Allentown, PA, one from Phoenix, and two from Santa
Barbara--one of whom attends Berkeley), all bound for
different parts of France the next morning. That
afternoon, when I returned, I was more than a little
bit shocked to see that the Brady Bunch had replaced
them.

"Bet this isn't what you expected," the dad told me
when I walked in the room.

"Not quite," I said, counting the children (5) and
adults (2). But they were great, actually. They're a
blended family (never did figure out which kids
originally belonged to which parent) and were just
having themselves a little holiday from the middle
part of England. The kids were all under 14 and
incredibly polite and considerate. And after spending
one day at the beach, they were all purple. "Look,
Chloe´s still got her swimming costume on!" one of the
boys said as his younger sister took off her t-shirt.
No suit, of course, but some major tan/burn lines.
Not sure why the parents were slathering the kids with
sunscreen, but not my problem either. The kids didn't
complain, just came home and went straight to sleep.

That was yesterday, which was also Bastille Day. When
I planned my trip, I hadn't even considered that I
would be in France for Bastille Day, but I was glad it
worked out that way. Last night we were treated to a
fantastic fireworks show right over the water. I made
a quick call to the home office before that got
started, and in the middle of my conversation with my
mom, some guy came up and asked if he could take a
photo of my tattoo. Sure, why not? We had a good
laugh about that. And a bit later, I got more proof
of my belief that you can't swing a cat and not hit
someone affiliated with Mills. I was doing some good
people-watching while waiting for the fireworks to
start, and my jaw about hit the floor when I saw
another alum strolling down the boardwalk (Kat Love,
for those who'd know). Small world!

This morning, we left Nice and had a short stop in
Avignon before coming into Barcelona. I've already
collected my Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt, and spent more
than a few hours wandering around the city. But I'm
pushing it staying out this late. Technically, things
are just getting started, but I can't stay out this
late without a major intake of caffeine. Tomorrow I
plan to do a bicycle tour of the city, take a good
long nap, and then head out with a group for a pub
crawl that I think doesn't depart until about 11 or
midnight. Why not be nocturnal? What I have seen of
Barcelona is beautiful. And I can actually hold a
somewhat illiterate conversation! At the HRC I talked
to two guys who are from Milan but live here, and I
was slip-sliding around in French, Spanish, Italian,
and English. Somehow they could keep up even when
they´´d ask me something in Spanish and I´d answer
with a combination of all four languages. Kudos to
them.

I think that´s about all for now. On Sunday, I´m
hoping to make it to a concert at one of the local
clubs after doing a Gaudi tour, and then on Monday
morning the bus leaves for Madrid. It's becoming a
bit of a whirlwind, but I prefer this to staying in
one place for too long.

Happy trails!

Love,
Michele

Laughter has no foreign accent.