alright. this is actually the second parter of my spring break, so please go back to the one entitled something silly like "spring break bonanza" and check out those pictures before looking at these. not that it really matters, but being chronological is nice, don't you think?

i believe we ended up last on the island of ischia. that night on the beach was great, but later that evening, trying to sleep in the hostel, an army of mosquitoes attacked us. it was miserable, and since my face was the only thing not wrapped up in my cocoon sheet, i ended up with 8 bites on my cheek. very schifo. so i was kind of glad to get out of ischia. next stop: sorrento.

sorrento is, like basically everything in southern italy, very beautiful. lots of dramatic cliffside, stunning sea views, endless groves of lemon trees, blah blah blah etc. we settled into our amazing hotel, il nido, which i highly recommend to anyone staying in sorrento, as it's cheap, has a huge breakfast, and FREE INTERNET!!! so, www.ilnido.it if you're interested. the hotel itself is actually about 10 minutes up in the hills beyond sorrento. great vista of the sea, the town, and vesuvius!

only i would make vesuvius look small by comparison.

sorrento also had the best restaurant EVER. yes, ever. :) we wandered around the cobblestone streets for a while that night until we happened upon l'osteria del buonconvento, which, by the way, was never mentioned in any of our guidebooks, so shows what those retards know.

we settled into the cozy little place at our cozy little table in front of the pizza oven and proceeded to have our food orgy. first, the cutest old pizza man ever made us this great sort of crispy foccacia thing, free of charge. (i think he thought we were hot.) then we had lots of white wine. then i had insalata caprese (mozzarella, basil and tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil), then i had pasta with fresh swordfishmmmmmmm. then the best chocolate tiramisu. by the time we finished the three hour meal, we were best friends with everyone in the restaurant and had already decided to come back there the next night. how loserish are we?

the next day we ferried on over to capri, island of the rich and famous. i was *so* hoping to see a celebrity there. well, it's a pretty island, but otherwise i would say it kind of sucks. it does have some natural amazing sights, though, like the natural arches and the blue grotto. the blue grotto is actually fantastic -- you take a boat out to this little hole in the side of one of the island's cliffs, and then a scary rowboat man will row you in (after you tip him like 12 euro). the hole is really kind of a small entrance -- i was convinced my head was going to get smashed if a wave came up so i cowered in the back of the rowboat as robin laughed at me. but once inside...well, look for yourself.

the amazing natural light is created...somehow.

after the blue grotto, we took a two hour hike around the island.

these arches were also created somehow.

the other girls went on to anacapri, a second town on the small island, and i decided to ferry it home. that night we did indeed go back to our wonderful restaurant and they forcefed us everything on the menu. also, during dinner, the girls told me they had seen suzanne sommers in anacapri and i got really jealous they'd seen someone famous. then they told me they were lying. evil whores. i guess i am not really that upset about not having seen fake suzanne sommers.

onwards! after the pleasures of the amalfi coast, natania and carly went on to pompeii and vesuvius, while robin, cynthia and i decided to get an early start on to southeastern italy (the heel part of the boot). we took several crazy forms of transportation to matera. at one point we ended up in a completely desolate train station, and i am pretty sure we are the only non-italians to have ever come there.

the train station at ferrandina, where the only person happy to see us was a dog.

matera might be a town you've never heard of, but you should. it's completely amazing, visually and historically. until the late 1950s, people there lived in caves. yup, caves. six to a cave on average, most of the time with a horse and a few chickens thrown in there for fun. the caves are called sassi (stone), and are carved into two sides of a ravine that splits the town.

here are some of the sassi, although they were of such scope that it is really hard to convey what they looked like and how stunning they were in my photos.

nowadays, a lot of the sassi are being renovated into new bars, stores and even homes. it is pretty cool.

by far one of the coolest things we did in matera was to go on a tour of the rock churches -- several churches that had been built directly in natural caves. now, i've seen a hell of a lot of churches since being in italy, but nothing has impressed me as much as these. they have low, craggy ceilings, little light, are completely damp, covered with rotting byzantine frescoes...it felt really raw. unfortunately, photos weren't allowed, though i sneaked in this one:

these are the dead monk chairs. there was one room in one church were there were a bunch of seats carved out of the walls. when a monk died, his body was placed in this chair. to be gross and rot. and then other monks would come in and see the gross rotting body and were supposed to meditate on death. i bet they mostly just threw up. anyway, i sat down on one of the seats in order to take this photo, and got some white stuff on the seat of my pants. therefore, through the rest of the trip, if you had anything on your butt, it was, "you have dead monk on your ass!"

alright...the length of this is becoming epic. next, we went on to alberobello, which is a town famous for its trulli structures. the trulli are buildings of indeterminate origin that have conical roofs and are built without mortar. they are very cool looking. i mostly liked them because i knew they would enable me to take many artsy fartsy photo shots, as i love doing.

and that was alberobello. next, we went on to the beautiful, beautiful town of ostuni. it was all white, and up on a hill, and it was what i imagine deserted greek towns to look like. of course, my camera card was filled up at that point, so i took pictures with a manual, and they're not scanned yet. so you'll have to do without. but i had the best meal of my life there. l'osteria del tempo perso. you know, if you ever happen to be in puglia. which i highly recommend you do.

next entries: long-overdue pics from a trip to slovenia, and pictures of david okano's and heather johnson's wedding in charlottesville! i spent 24 hours traveling in order to be in the states for 72 hours. that's how much i love them.

please leave some comments. no one ever does and i feel so sad.