A Rainy Day in Capri

This past weekend three of my roommates and I went on the school's trip to Pompei, Sorrento, and Capri. It was a very rainy weekend. The sun would peep out only for a couple of hours here and there. On Capri, we arrived with the morning waves. A ferry brought us from Sorrento to Capri. It was a forty minute ride on a boat that shifted from right to left, front to back. It took concentration and balance to stand in one spot. Once we arrived we then took another boat around the island to see it for its breath-taking views. This time the boat was private, so we were able to sit and actually enjoy the scenery instead of fearing death from falling overboard. Our group of about fifty students went under the Lover's Arch and saw where Roman Emporers vacationed with their lovers. We also saw the place where they threw them into the sea when they tired of them. We saw villas on steep cliffs and rocks that resembled elephants (for a moment I thought I was in Thailand again) and monasteries that overlooked the Mediterranean.
After our two boat rides, we were given the rest of the day free. So the four of us trekked to the top of Capri and saw the views from above, this time looking down on the sparkling clear blue water, which was now still. Go figure. We probably took too many pictures, but hey, better to have more than less. (In this case, at least)
At lunch we went to Villa Verde, a restaurant our professor/guide-for-the-weekend reccommended. Apparently, Mariah Carey had dined there before too. It was a funny situation because when we asked for directions to Villa Verde, Lucca, our professor (who reminds me of a Roman soldier), was on his way there with his brother (who was another chaperone). So we ended up eating together. Two Italian men and four American girls. It must have been a sight to see. Really. Because the waiters kept glancing over and making eyes with all of us girls. When we went to leave one of them actually came up to Katie, my roommate, and gave her a slip of paper with two mens' names and phone numbers on it....it was one of those nonchalant, long handshakes in which a "secret" note is passed. It was hysterical! They gave the note to the girl who already has a boyfriend!
After lunch we decided that we actually wanted to feel the water instead of just looking at it. So we hiked down the cliffs on this zig-zag path to the shoreline, which was very small. It was a long hike down because Capri is extremely high up. In the middle of our hike it started raining...again. We made it down safely and Katie and I jumped into the water and swam a bit. The other two girls didn't want to get completely wet (little did they know that soon it would be pouring and none of us had umbrellas). The water was beautiful, clear, smooth, warm, everything you would think the Meditarranean would feel like. The bottom was rocky, no sand. Even the shore had pebbles and sea glass instead of sand. It was a magical moment. I thought of all of the legends of Venus coming out of the sea and the stories of Ulysses coming home to Ithica (an island in the Meditarranean). And in that moment I could believe all of the stories and legends and myths that have been told about the Greeks and Romans and their beloved sea. But the hike back up sobered me up and as I looked out over the sea I couldn't get over the fact that this island, something so beautiful, is only a part of earth. Not heaven. My mind can't even imagine such beauty, something more beautiful than where we already live. But it's out there..

And that was my lovely, rainy day in Capri.
(I did leave out a few details, but I'm running out of internet time)

CIAO!