want a cookie? want a date?

Every fairytale has an evil, grim vector in plot of the happy ending. He, she, or it always finds a way to slip in the most quintessential moments of the plot. If Italy is the setting of my current fairytale, I am positive I have met my antagonistic force: the tiger mosquito! I’m not quite sure how something so small can inflict so much pain! After a couple of weeks of wondering why I had multiply inflamed bites on my legs, I finally called a truss and waved flags (modernly called Euros) at la farmacia (pharmacy). I have never been the person to be eaten alive by insects, but evidentially Italy’s mosquitoes have a different taste!

With accords to lesser evils in Italia, I have observed that the Italians don’t pride themselves on speedy service. If you plan to dine out, don’t’ plan to dine quickly. It may take a good twenty minutes just to order water or for the waiter to even grace your table. I find myself thinking of my loved ones back home (JOE THOMPSON!) who can’t even stand the thought of just waiting for a table. But imagine this. If you want the best homemade food in town, you first have to ask, get directions, and then trust that the church on the left has only one right fork. Once you have walked for twenty minutes, all the restaurants on the way to this supposed “best restaurant” start to look really good and you begin to consider settling. With five people and an array of personalities, it is inevitable to get into what I like to call study abroad “conflicts of interest”. Everyone has a different idea of the ideal experience. Lately, I have been feeling the need for a vacation from my vacation. This week, I decided I wanted a break from guided tours or “following lollipops” as the lady behind me on the ferry, described. When I think vacation, I think islands, palm trees, maybe a mojitio. I realize this is a stretch for October in Italia, but what better place to relinquish this dream than Southern Italy. I could picture myself enjoying a limonchelo and sitting in the harbor watching the ships go by as the beauty of this charming country engulfs me.

Naples is less than charming. That’s an understatement. Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Eat. Pray. Love that every city in Italy has a word to describe it. When I get off the train in Napoli the first word that comes to mind is trash. This might be a little harsh being I have not given the city much of a chance. But the only thing I have noticed is there is trash all over the road, piled up on medians and street corners. The whole city contains an aroma of hundreds of garbage flavors. According to Kate and her PBC knowledge the unsaid M word is rioting against the government. The m word (shhh...mafia or what my friends and I like to call “oven-mitts” as a code because heaven forbid you mention the word where it “doesn’t” exist) is on strike and exhorting control where power is held: the garbage. Although appalling, I find this pretty funny and you may never actually believe it until you see it (I didn’t). The streets of undeveloped poverty stricken nations are surely cleaner than the streets of Napoli. I should stay that I only spent one night in Naples and my less than positive feelings towards the city may be something to do with my less then positive experience. After a five hour train journey, we got off the train at 10pm with no definite plans of where to spend the night. We were walking down the street as it began to rain and I realized I had packed all wrong and way too much. At this moment, it becomes clear that the rest of the weekend I must suffer under the weight of my vanity.

Ellie booked a hotel room for two people that in the beginning sounded like a deal, but turned out to be quite the fiasco. After 150 Euros later and much distress, it was decided that we would need another room. Dressing myself in poise, I walked into the hotel across the street and told them what I needed. I felt pretty big in my business boats and came out with a deal at that. Someone important to me once said that if I just smiled the world would buy itself for me.
Capri is a breath of fresh air, literally, after Napoli. The ferry ride over was a Carnival experience. The sun was warm and salt sweet on my checks .Oddly for late October, my pink North Face was a green thumb. As we pulled away from the harbor, I exhaled a bit, and let out the tension built up from weeks of adjusting to my new life. As this was a pleasant experience for me, it wasn’t for some. The man on the boat was handing out baggies that didn’t take me long to understand what they were for. In case you lose your cookies, these are for your assistance! Colin was one of the unfortunate few. I found him sitting inside the ferry cabin embracing the floor for the sake of sanity. I’ll admit, the ocean was a little rough with an impending storm, but I still gave him a hard time. In the end, we all arrived safely in Capri with not much more than nappy hair and pink cheeks.

The trip after this ferry ride was epic. Naturally, if you are in a town where every street looks the same and you have never been here before it is hard to get where you are going. The Italians don’t exactly give great directions. It is not unrealistic for you it to take an hour to find something that is 100 yards away. Take my cousins Mike and Lourdes, for example. They missed their plane from Florence back to the States solely because they couldn’t find the airport 5 miles from them. It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are, or if you have a good sense of direction, it’s not easy making it to the building behind the cathedral on Via Garibaldi; every third street in Italy is Via Garibaldi! If nothing else, at least this man is well honored.

After about an hour of lugging around my vanity, we finally find the hotel we were directed to ten minutes after we got off the ferry. Hotel Bussola is a quant and clean place in Anacapri. Capri is made up of several towns; Anacapri would be the equivalent of Hilton Head in comparison to Myrtle Beach. Here I found my much needed vacation. I finally let loose and did something almost sinful. I took a thirty minute shower! This might be the best shower I have taken all year. Europeans only know two water temperatures: scalding and not scalding. I gladly too scalding and stood under the faucet washing away four weeks of toxic stress and staggering emotions.

According to Frommer’s, “Italy guide 2008” here are two treats you shouldn’t miss as a tourist in Capri: lemon gelato and limonchello. I will have to add my own favorite to Frommer’s suggestions. If you are ever in Capri, you must go into a bakery and have a Caprilu’ limone cookie. Better yet, plan a trip to Italy in honor of this simple delicacy. If you are anything like me you will most likely order three, try one, and then order ten more. This lemon sugar orgasm is more like a potato chip than a cookie; once you start, it’s hard to stop. Upon discovery, I instantly forgot about the large anti-Adkins dinner I just ate. Who counts carbohydrates anyway? I count cookies, the more the better! Just take an extra pro-biotic.

It’s expected that one will make mistakes when learning to speak a new language, especially when there’s different type of phonetics and words so close, such as casa and cassa. At the continental breakfast, I mistakenly asked for dog sugar (zucchero di cane) instead of raw cane sugar (zucchero di canna). My attempts to be healthy in another language have officially turned into a caffé carnivore. I’m pretty sure I will be in a wheelchair before I live that one down.