The Agony and The Ecstasy

To put it the short way, our weekend didn't quite go as planned. But, i'm going to tell you the long way, because I need to vent about the weekend that I just had.
It all started well enough. We had to get up at the crack of dawn to make a 6:30 AM train. It was about a 4 hour ride which went just fine. I have fallen in love with the train. I find I do my best thinking on the train, looking out the window at the Italian countryside. So, we took the train to Naples and then got on a ferry to Capri. I was excited about the ferry because in Lake Como, we took the ferry everywhere and loved it. It was the best way to be on the water. However, when the ferry pulled up I saw trouble. There was almost no deck space on this ferry. The entire thing was indoor seats, and lots of them. They herded us on this ferry like cows and then took off. I knew that it was a bad idea to sit inside, so I stood outside on the deck. Shortly into the trip I could tell that we were in for trouble. The water was extremely rough because it was a gloomy day- a little drizzly and windy. The boat headed out into pretty open sea and began really swooping and lurching. It was awful. One by one people came stumbling out of that cabin of the ship as white as ghosts. And that's when the vomiting began. Everywhere. Now, i'm sorry to be so graphic but I was traumatized and need to get it out. Luckily, the ship provided plastic bags for people (which should have been the first sign of trouble) but not everyone used them. I couldn't get away from the vomit that was all over the railing of the ship because I had to stay outside so I wouldn't get sick and I had to hold on because it was a really rough sea. People were puking everywhere around me. fortunately, I didn't feel very ill and I put on my headphones to some calming music and tried to get through this hell ride. We thought it would be 45 minutes, but we were wrong. It was an hour and a half of people vomiting everywhere. My roommate Cara ( the same one that sneezed on the dishes) is an infamous vomiter. She has thrown up in every country on this trip, and most cities. She threw up in our sink at home, in a bar in Amsterdam, on a roller coaster in Paris and yes, on the vomit comet on the way to Capri. EVERYWHERE.
Now that I have probably sickened all of you ( and again I am sorry, but I have to get it out), we have finally arrived at Capri. By the time we get off the worst ride of my life, it's raining. It continues to rain for the entire few hours we are in Capri. I was so nauseated I couldn't eat anything so I missed out on the world renowned sea food. But not Cara. She ate a huge creamy seafood dish at lunch. I kept wanting to shake her and tell her what a mistake she was making, but I didn't. We do find out however, that the ride to Sorrento (where we were sleeping) was only about a 20 minute ferry from Capri and it stayed closer to shore so it wouldn't be as rough. Oh, and let me back up and tell you that I packed an umbrella and Dramamine foreseeing both of these situations and I accidentally left them on the bus that was meeting us in Sorrento. I wanted to punch myself in the face.
While we were waiting for the Sorrento ferry we pretty much got soaked to the bone. My water "resistant" jacket had held off the rain for a good few hours and it buckled. Everything was soaked, and it was freezing. It was really a "combo flashback" of being near hypothermic when I was stuck in the rain at Waterworld as a child and that ill fated deep sea fishing trip i'll regret for the rest of my life.
The ride to Sorrento went fairly smoothly, and surprisingly, Cara held down the lunch. Once we got off the boat in Sorrento we found out we have a few mile walk to our hotel, in the downpour. We're trudging along and i'm thinking about how I only packed one pair of jeans and only have one coat and neither of them will be dry by the morning....it's dark at this point. We come to some old stone steps going up a cliffside. Now, picture this, 50 students walking single file, heads down, in torrential rain up steps that seemed never ending. I felt like the soundtrack to the Ten Commandments should be playing in the background.
I was pretty sure it wouldn't get worse, but it did. I miss a step. I fall up the steps. These steps are really vertical, which means that before my hands have a chance to catch me, my right knee cap catches me. I thought it was broken. I still had 4 more flights to go up, in the downpour. I really almost cried.
I drag my leg up to the top of the steps and guess what? There's Cara. Vomiting. You know you've been traumatized when it finally doesn't even bother you. It was survival at that point.
I could go on and on but this is a really long blog so i'll just tell you that my knee is ok, but still hurts when I walk. I just banged the shit out of it. The next day we put on our wet cloths and went out into Sorrento. For about three hours the skies were clear and that was the highlight of the trip. We had a great time and it was GORGEOUS. We got on a bus to Pompeii and I think it was the most beautiful bus ride i've ever had in my life. Lemon and orange trees, lush cliffsides, and aqua blue mediterranean sea below. It was amazing.
Inevitably the rain came again and the entire time we were in Pompeii it poured- even hailing at some points. I couldn't see anything because I had to watch where I was walking the whole time so I missed most of Pompeii. I am really sad about that but as my Aunt Frayda said, at least the volcano didn't blow while we were there. Our tour guide was talking about how it errupts every 40 years and it's been 60 since the last erruption and i'm thinking...with the way the rest of this trip has gone I wouldn't be that surprised. So here are a couple of pictures of the beauty of it all that we were able to see in between the vomiting and the falling down. I can imagine it would be one of the most beautiful places on Earth when it is sunny and everything is in bloom.
Oh, and P.S.- I finished this dream weekend by biting into a raw hamburger at MacDonalds in Naples. It was the only thing open and we were starving so I got MacDonalds. Then I spent the train ride home wondering what kind of horrible food poisoning I was going to get from it. Love those grand finales.