well, once again the bottoms of bottles of wine has lured me away from my lovely blog. but i'm making a triumphant return with a slew of new pictures from some very interesting places. for my spring break, i traveled with several apartmentmates to southern italy, hitting naples, ischia, capri, sorrento, matera, alberobello and ostuni (the first four are in western southern italy, and the latter three are on the eastern side, down by the heel of the boot). i really have to say, southern italy sure is pretty. the wine's good, the food's great, it's sunny, and you GET HARRASSED CONSTANTLY BY SKETCHY MEN.

our first stop was naples, which might be fairly called the smelliest city in the world. but i did really like it. it's chaotic, basically, and enormously dirty, and severely smelly, as i said, and the people there are just weird. also, the men are a little forward. i took the train down with natania and carly, and soon as we stepped out of the station, we received several offensive comments in about 15 minutes. for example: "very goooood, very goooood" was the first we got. then came a man barking at us, very realistically might i say, from a car. but the winner was (directed as natania as she took off her jacket): "yes baby. it is very hot. you need some children."
now, it remains a mystery as to if this were an insult, a direct statement, or an offer to be natania's child-bearing partner. i suppose we will never know.

this was on one of the most ancient streets in naples, which was about three feet wide. i really did think that my last view of this life was going to be a vespa running over my stomach. naples is vespa mad.

not only is it vespa mad, but it's got some really bizarre, yet strangely beautiful things going on. for example, on that same street, we heard firecrackers and music coming off from the distance. we waited, and several men dressed all in white and playing horn instruments came marching down the street, with this float behind them. the men carrying the rather large float were swaying back and forth and singing, their movements evoking the sea, as i think the float was something to do with mary star of the sea. we just watched for a while, and then they were gone.

okay. so people like to dress identically in naples. i don't know what it is. we saw maybe three pairs of people dressed exactly alike, just meandering around. we saw these army girls once, and just stood with our mouths agape. but then i saw them down the street again a few hours later, and i stopped to point and shout, "THE ARMY GIRLS!!!" to carly and natania. then we proceeded to tail them for several blocks and secretly take pictures. i think we scared them, cos they kept looking back and eventually crossed the street.

i do love the artsy, blurry, black and white shots. i took this shortly after we went on an underground ancient acquaduct adventure tour, where we were lead through narrow caverns with candles and we saw a goonies-like cave room filled with water. it was cool! except for the german superdork journalist on the tour with us.

so, naples being finished, we moved on to the island of ischia, which is where a lot of "the talented mr. ripley" was filmed. it was purty, though way too traffick-y. the first part of our trip there was spent at the most fantastic castle ever, and of course i had forgotten to bring my camera, so too bad for you. the evening after the castle, however, we spent on the beach. boy. that was an experience.

here's myself, robin and cynthia on our little beach patch. let me explain something to you about the beach. no wait, about italians. italians are freaks when it comes to temperature. they feel no heat. starting in october, they swaddle themselves up in down jackets and scarves beyond belief, and these don't come off until the end of may. so there were tons of italians on the beach with us, and even though it was beautiful weather, they were ALL in jeans and sweaters. so we come tromping onto the beach in our bikinis, and basically, madness ensues.

first, boys behind us start chanting, "USA USA USA" and will not stop. i attempt unsuccessfully to pretend i am deaf-mute, and then i give up on that and just put on my frigid bitch face. sorry, i'm mean, but agressive italian boys are a pain in the ass to deal with.

a few of the girls near sunset.

it gets even worse when carly decides to actually go in the water. god forbid! it's seventy degrees out! she's going to die! when she takes off her shirt and enters the water, i swear, the entire beach went silent. one of the guys talking to us says, in fractured english, "she is much like a submarine!"

to deal with all of this, we begin imbibing wine. we run out. oops. so carly and i decide to take a trip to the little mini-market down the road to get a couple more bottles. we are way brutta figure (which, by the way, means "looking ugly" -- pretty much not fitting in or following societal rules or whatever). cos she's only got a towel and a t-shirt on (that has wine spilled on it, of course), and i'm wearing my button down plaid shirt and jeans rolled up to my knees. we also have THIRTY GUYS following us at this point. how this happened, i do not know. carly turned around and said something like, "when did we get a posse?" i was actually talking to one of the guys, who was decently nice, and i complained that our little road was really narrow. he says, "the narrow path is the one you should always take in life." i tell him that's very deep and that he has a lot of thoughtful quotes -- where does he get them from, i ask? he replies, and i swear this is true: "depeche mode."

our last shot of ischia. bellissima. the madness of that beach will never be forgotten. i had a blast.

alright, my fingers are cramping up, and even though i have dozens more photos, they will have to wait till later and you will have to be satisfied for now with these nuggets. i also have to go home to deal with the trauma of the fact that a student's mother asked me today if i was HAVING A BABY. aiya. time to go on a diet.