It's Sunday morning now, and I'm writing from the restaurant/bar area of a hostel in Rome called The Yellow. So maybe this post doesn't deserve so dramatic a title, but as I approach my last twenty-four hours in Europe, it feels right. Even more so, I feel like the quote captures the irony of my having visited an immense Roman aqueduct on my third day in Europe with my program's excursion to Segovia, and two days ago, while in Naples en route to Rome, Johnny and I took a tour of Napoli Sotteraneo, the Naples underground, which concluded with the ruins beneath the city of a Roman aqueduct. But maybe this is just one of those things that's only particularly interesting for me...
Anyway, since it's been awhile since I last wrote I thought I should take advantage of this little bit of down time I've got to catch you up with the adventures I've had and the people I've met over the past few days.
As I mentioned before, our last full day on Capri started off early with a hike up to Castella Barbarossa (I've since had several discussions over the proper spelling of this wonderful viewpoint, and have come to no conclusions). On the hike, we met some fellow English speakers in Ben and Emma, a couple from London, maybe about ten years my senior. Ben is the son of Tom, who lives on the island and is a good friend of my aunt and uncle, and he works in advertising - creating and explaining more effective ways for companies that are trying to modernize their appearances with sites like Twitter. Emma, though, I think had the coolest back-story. She's half Sri Lankan and so after the tsunami about six or seven years ago, she went there to volunteer. But the thing is, Emma is an artist (she describes herself as having tried to force herself to love the sciences, but it just didn't work) and she ended up setting up her own charity, face painting and teaching face painting in an orphanage down there. About two years ago, she moved back to England with Ben where she works a conglomeration of jobs ranging from stage make-up, to body-painting for Halloween costumes, teaching sewing to in-mates as a part of their parole... Truly, an incredible and interesting person to speak with, and so it was with Ben and Emma that we hiked up from La Pietra to the quaint chiesa la cetrella and then up to the ruins of Monte Solaro, free-spirited, chill and in love with the island. The Cetrella was calm and soothing, and apparently the location where the husband of my cousin Jane (Johnny's older sister) proposed to her. We chatted a bit and shared a small coffee with the amici di cetrella, the group of old men working to restore and maintain the church and its lands. Monte Solaro, on the other hand was bustling with tourists, and amidst our deep and worldly conversations, the four of us enjoyed picking out the American and English tour groups from our high and lofty posts as friends of the locals.
On Friday, we packed up and said goodbye to Capri, setting out for Naples. Johnny's parents accompanied us (thanks again for helping with the luggage!) for the boat ride over, a quick spot of lunch at a cafe we found inside a galleria across the way from the archaeology museum. I'm not the hugest of history buffs so unfortunately I don't think I can do justice to an explanation of the archaeology museum beyond describing it with adjectives: huge and breathtaking and exquisite and incredible, mostly because everything was so old and so beyond the scope of my understanding for how each artifact might have been created or preserved. From there we directionally wandered to the Piazza San Gaetano, from which runs a narrow and picturesque street where they make and sell figurines for nativity scenes (and soccer players, musicians and political figures - I suppose that nowadays, for some, these figures are more important than their religious counterparts but to each his own). Before descending to our subterranean tour, we said our goodbyes (and maybe shed a few tears) to my aunt and uncle as they headed back to the island. For dinner, and the original reason for our stop in Naples, we met up with Johnny's cousin Bruno, a math professor, and his wife Ale, from Mexico and proficient in many languages. As with Ben and Emma, our conversations with Bruno and Ale were most interesting as we took the time to learn more about each of them. Even if I hadn't known Bruno to be related to my aunt's family, after our dinner their I would've guessed it - the generosity and hospitality were out of this world.
Hmm, well writing this has taken a bit more time than I thought it would - I suppose I'll save my tales of Rome for a later time. As for now, I'm off to wake Johnny up and then head out to sightsee.
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