Alright friends, its been a while again since my last post. Problem remains the same, so much to do and no time to post! Barely even getting a minute to write in my journal...but that could only mean one thing: That Im keeping track of everything im doing and it will all end up in this blog, so keep checking back. Every city I go to Im doing such fun stuff its blowing my mind.
Im in Berlin right now using this funky german keyboard that swaps the y and the z around cuz its used so much, and I cant figure out where the apostrophe is...so thats why Im not using them FYI.
Ok so back in Italy....
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On the train to Albano I passed a beautiful lake as the sun was on its way down. Nothing quite like the Italian countryside. I pull into the station and stand alone for a moment, in a suburb which surely no tourists visit. Then I turn to see a girl with long blonde hair running towards me "Brendi Brendi!" she yells. Corinna looks and is exactly the same, just long blonde hair this time instead of a short red bob she had in Paris. I did see her briefly 6 years ago when I rented the car with my friend Kristen, but it still felt like an eternity. She such a caring and cool person, so good to see her again.
We hopped into her beat up old Nissan Micra, with dented panels and a passenger window that was wedged up and couldnt roll down. There are so many beat up cars in Italy that they have a word for them, something like "carccione" I think, which in English isnt quite the same as "piece of shit" because the italian word has a more endearing connotation, and not resentful. We drove to her town of Arricia and down to Lake Nemi where they all hang out in the summertime. Such a beautiful private place, just for the youth of that village. We went back into town to meet her friend who was soon closing up her shop, and we met her friend, a french guy who moved there a few years ago and makes custom rings and jewelry across the way. We had to wait another hour or so so we wandered through the old part of the village as the sun had set and the streets were just lit by the orange incandescence of the old streetlights. Corinna teaches theatre to kids; we went into the old theatre where she teaches sometiems but there was a rehearsal going on so we couldnt go in. We ended up at an old viaduct where she used to hang out too. We stopped and chatted about life back in Paris, and leading up to now. Shes had it rough for jobs, she works 3 right now, and has no job security. After Greece, Italy is in the most trouble as one of the bigger countries in Europe. Hard to get good work and Berlusconi the President is a much hated and corrupt man. I felt really bad for her situation, and it made me really appreciate my job and the things my country has to offer me. She would love to travel and even live somewhere else but its so hard. Im pretty damn lucky.
We went back to the town centre and had a Martini at a cool little bar in an upstairs living room, and they brought out chips and nuts and little pizza breads. So common in Italy to get all that with just drinks. (Wait till I talk about Como...) We then met her friends and went to a little hole in the wall restaurant and had real, regional food. Mussels, seafood pasta, and some bean soup made by the grandma in the kitchen. I got to try a meat plate including slices of the famous Arricia "porchetta" pork. YUM. Later her other friend Alessia joined us. We ate a special biscotti for dessert that you dip in white wine...so weird but delicious. It had like a hard sugar crust on it and it was already made with white wine. Wow. We then went to a little cafe after to grab a coffee and to get some change so I could pay Alessia back for the meal, which after all was only like 15 euros. We were also with an older guy Alessandro at dinner. So he, Corinna, Alessia and myself said goodbye to the others and headed back to the town centre and dropped off Alessandro, and the 3 of us continued back to Rome. So great of her to give me a ride, and she refused to take any money for gas. At that point it was already quite late but we tried to find a cool bar that was still open. Not our luck, we just ended up just kinda wandered around Travestere, a cool neighbourhood with some great bars. Ended up just grabbing a beer and wandered around some more. We just chatted in Italian the whole time, switching a bit to english when I needed to be really specific. But I liked hearing them speak italian :) Then we tried to make it back across Rome to my hostel, and it was pretty hard to do with all the one way streets, combined with the fact that they didnt really have any sense of direction hahaha... oh, classic. Pulled up to my hostel finally and had a long goodbye to both of them, even though I had just met Alessia, I still felt welcomed into friendship. So common in Italy I find. They expect nothing back and give so much. I would encounter this even more in Como and Crema a little later...
I had originally planned to stay a little longer at Corinnas, but because I never stayed with her, I had one extra day, and I made a spontaneous decision: I had never been to Naples. And I wanted to see Pompei. So I bought a ticket the next day and made my way to a hostel I booked last minute on Hostelbookers (great site btw). It was already midday, and I would have less than a day there, but it was worth a shot...
Believe me, Pompei is worth a trip by itself...
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