Uhhh, I have no idea what to do right now, but I am essentially trapped in Italy at the moment. More on that in a bit. My day in Sorrento has been a very relaxed one. I woke up this morning, intending to do the Coast Tour, but realized I was beyond tired and it had all caught up to me. For most of the Switzerland Program, we never really slept more than 6 hours per night, and often, we slept less than four and caught a nap every time we got on a train or bus. I have about 50 pictures of my classmates passed out to prove it. I have no idea why the sleeping pictures were so popular, but I blame Cheryl for telling us that last year’s students took tons of pictures of each other passed out too. Perhaps that started the trend with us. Anyway, traveling alone and hotel hopping each night hit me like a ton of bricks today, and the friendliness of my current accommodations pushed me over the edge, so I walked down at 7 AM and requested the room for an extra day so that I could spend today taking a vacation from my vacation. Remember, I said something about the pesto pizza in CT being the best I have ever had? The candidate pictured here now has that honor. It was that good. I have also been treated to a few tastes of a regional specialty: Limoncello. It is a liqueur made from Lemons meant to be a post-dinner drink and it is delightful. This area is known for its lemons and the trees are everywhere (including outside my room window), as well as local places that turn them into limoncello. It is so good, that I decided to make it my one alcohol souvenir and now have a bottle that I will lug around with me for the next week and a half just so that everyone back home can taste it. You can see one of the lemon stores pictured below.

 

So today, I sat on the most beautiful coastline on the planet and watched sail boats and helped tourists take pictures of their entire group. I also finally opened my Greece book written by Rough Guides, and about died when I finished the first 10 pages. Apparently, if one desires to take a boat from Italy to Greece in August, they must make reservations weeks in advance. Not good. My worst fears have now been confirmed as the primary Greece ferry booking site online will not book anything with more than 4 days advance. The only way is for me to blindly give my credit card to an agency and they then go into some kind of a bidding war and try to get me a boat ticket in the open market, but I have no say in the price or boat situation. And there is no way for me to give them a price limit. Uhh, yea. I’m kinda screwed at the moment. I might look into flying out of Rome to Greece on a regional flight, but many of the local airlines are cancelling fights left and right because workers are striking due to wage disputes (it’s all over the news here) and many airlines are shutting down due to increased fuel costs (the major one, Ryanair just announced a 70% profit loss for the recent quarter, also in the news). And besides, 40 EU from Rome to Naples was like getting kicked between the legs and I don’t want to make a return trip. I seriously have no idea what to do. I might cancel the coast drive again tomorrow and find a travel agency with people I can talk to, but really don’t want to waste another day. And besides, I came here for that darn coast drive in the first place. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!