We had a 4 day weekend for Easter (and I skipped a day of class so make that 5 day!) Anyways, the trip was an adventure, to say the least. But it was amazing, and by far one of my favorite trips so far (my second favorite probably being Munich, which will be in the next post!). On Thursday we took a bus to a train (which ended up being the wrong train station), so another bus to the CORRECT train station, sat on a squished train for 5 hours, and then stood on a squished above-subway type train for an hour and a half, and the took a taxi to the hotel. It was quite a long day of traveling, but totally worth it. The best part of the 5 hour train ride was when a wedding party of 24 people from Brooklyn got on (not knowing there were assigned seats) with 2 huge pieces of luggage each, and stood in the aisles for 2 hours. For some reason they could not figure out how to get to the correct car (all they needed to do was walk forward), so instead they stood, and yelled back and forth through the front and back of the car. Lets just say they did not give Americans the best reputation that day. When we finally got to Sorrento we had to take a cab to the hotel - and we get to the top of this big cliff and the cab driver goes "alright, it will cost you more if I drive you down there, so its easier to walk." So we walked down a cliff with our bags, got lost, and then finally after about 15-20 minutes found our hotel.
I loved this hotel -- it was run by a family (the old woman though, we think the wife of the owner was mean though), but besides that they were all so nice. They gave us dinner the first night even though the kitchen was closing. I don't think we could have picked a better hotel -- every hotel in the center was on top of the cliff (since Sorrento is on a cliff) - and therefore, kind of far from the beach. Our hotel on the other hand was on the beach -- which explains why we had to walk down the cliff to get there. And it also explains why I did not have cell phone service for the 5 days I was there! But it was the perfect location. PS - the first picture is a view of where our hotel was from the boat from Capri. On Friday we went onto the beach that was right outside of our hotel.
Keep in mind - Italians still think it is winter, and they will continue to think that until the middle of July. So the fact that we were out there in bathing suits for 4 hours definitely got some weird looks. Especially since the people walking by and the other people sitting on the beach were in winter jackets and scarves. Anyways, we thought it was a bit chilly so we were wearing sweat jackets, and didn't put on sun screen. BAD IDEA. we went inside a few hours later and it turns out we got burnt to a crisp.
Oops! We went into the center of Sorrento for dinner on Friday. Turns out the hotel was about a 10 minute drive from the center (expedia lied!) but the hotel provided a free shuttle (aka, a 40 year old guy who looked like he was 25 named Luigi). Abbie and I became bff's with Luigi -- I even gave a presentation about him during my Italian class last week! He was pretty awesome, and he would always make fun of us for being burnt/shopping too much. Abbie and I weren't too smart in getting dressed that night -- we assumed that since it was hot enough for us to get burnt, it was hot enough to wear sundresses/shorts -- WRONG. It was a bit cold (and by a bit, I mean very) once we got out of the sun, and once again, we got weird looks from the locals since they were still dressed in their winter jackets and hats and gloves - no joke. Some people even had earmuffs on -- I swear, it wasn't THAT cold - just cold enough that I probably should have worn pants, not a dress. On Saturday we took a boat to the Island of Capri, which was absolutely gorgeous.
We never actually made it to the center (we got 3/4 of the way up the cliff, but had to turn around to catch our boat back to Sorrento). Instead we spent the day on the beach and it was fabulous. It was a lot warmer than the day before - and don't worry, we learned from our mistakes and bought sunscreen!! :) It was overall just a relaxing, wonderful day. 
On Sunday it was Easter so we were stuck at the hotel -- which wasn't a terrible thing at all. Luigi had the day off so we couldn't get into town - but this forced us to actually get work done. (On this trip I wrote 2 papers and read a 400 page book!) We had lunch and dinner at the hotel (ravioli for lunch and spaghetti with clams for dinner). Oh my gosh, the seafood here was unbelievable -- since the fish was fresh from outside the hotel. I wish we had that kind of seafood in Florence! Oh! And since it was easter, I brought easter eggs for abbie and I -- they kind of got squished though. They were "surprise eggs" - so it was chocolate on the outside of a plastic egg, and then once you ate the chocolate you could open the egg and find a little toy! :)
On Monday we did some more work (it was a little cold and veryyy windy so we couldn't sit outside for long), and then took a 5 hour train back to Florence --- we got home at 2am! Which was not too fun considering I had class at 9am! But it was a great trip, and I had SOO much fun. I definitely will go back to Amalfi at some point in my life!
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