Debbie suggested I post photos Matt and friends have taken over the last few days. I weeded out the best, or what I thought were the best, and I admit I might have posted a couple Debbie would have left out.

Debbie suggested I post photos Matt and friends have taken over the last few days. I weeded out the best, or what I thought were the best, and I admit I might have posted a couple Debbie would have left out.

So last night, as usual, we picked a dinner restaurant at random. Although maybe it wasn’t at random because we noticed that it was the only place in Italy that had chicken on the menu which is something that debbie had apparently been craving, maybe just to shut up my statements that she doesn’t have a very varied eating pattern. Anyway, there is no way to tell which are the nice restaurants and which are the really nice ones… apparently this was one of the latter. It was definitely worth it though because the food was exquisite. I had some of the best steak and potatoes with a nice green salad and debbie had a chicken somethingorother. It was one of those meals that you see in cooking commercials that just look too well put together to be something you are supposed to eat. Don’t worry though, father, we took pictures so you will get to see it too. For dessert we had some chocolate cake with a white chocolate filling. At first it looked small but then we realized it was so rich that you could not eat one of these small loaves alone. After that we went into the main square to have coffee and drinks (along with peanuts which was one of the more exciting moments of my trip). There were two girls from California sitting next to us and I pointed out that the waiter was hitting on them, although he was being too subtle for debbie to notice. At some point they were approached by two Italian men, and this flirtation was noticed even by debbie. They were trying to get them to go to a night club in sorrento. At some point during this the waiter that had been hitting on them walked up and said to the girls “be careful of all the sharks in Amalfi”, for those of us who are males, we know that this is just not called for in any way. I mean what a blatant attempt to foil their plans. It was pretty funny all around and the two men ended up retreating, but promising they would be back at midnight. We however didn’t stick around to see what happened.

 Debbie wants to add:

First off, Matt left out the best part of that story, haha. The men, particularly one of them, who approached the two women from California, were the typical suave Italian men. One of them looked a bit older than the girls, and he was wearing a red polo with one too many buttons undone. They knew exactly what to say it seemed, even though their english wasn’t great. Anyway, Diane, the water is a teal blue and it is beautiful, to respond to your question. It was filled with a lot of salt a tiny bit cold, but nothing compared to the beaches at home. We swam for a while and are going back today. And, my parents have been very good about keeping in touch now haha thanks for the concerns though. I don’t think there were as many internet points in north carolina as there are here.

Anyways, much love

Matt and Deb

So, as Matt has said, we made it to Amalfi.  I must admit, the trek here was a little hair raising at times, but definitely worth it. We started taking a train from Naples to Sorrento, where Matt befriended four kids from Australia, but now living in Wales I think, who were planning on camping in Sorrento. They had even more luggage then we did, if you can believe it.  Then we hopped on a bus that took us through Positano and a few other towns before stopping in Amalfi. The bus ride gave us great views of the coast the whole ride, but was a little frightening.  The road was hardly even wide enough for the bus, so it was quite a fiasco when a car came from the other direction. And the roads were incredibly windy and right next to the cliffs the whole way. To my mom and dad, it definitely beats the drives we had on the Blue Ridge Parkway and on Mount Olympia by about 100 times. As you can imagine, the constant turning didn’t make Matt’s stomach feel great, but we made it after all.

Anyway, on the bus we began the ride standing, because a lack of seats, right next to an older couple who noticed rather quickly that we, like them, were speaking English. After talking, they told us they were from Ireland, and we could certainly tell by their accents. They were extremely nice and friendly and told us all about their journey and asked us about ours. They raved about Ireland, saying how much we would love it. The man asked Matt if he had any Irish in his family, and when Matt said yes he said “aha I had a feeling about you.” Later when we sat down Matt said, “I think it’s funny that he thought he could tell I was Irish.”  We realized it was no mystery; Matt was wearing a green shirt and a green hat with a clover on it.

Anyways, Amalfi is gorgeous. I love it despite its touristy-ness which doesn’t bother me at all. We’re going to go swimming now, which I’ve been dying to do the whole time in Italy!

Much love

Debbie

So we have finally arrived in Naples after a 10 hour train ride, which we thought was supposed to be around 7 or 8 hours.  We were in a couch car which means six people in a little room and not very much space to sleep.  However, me and Matt found out that if we ever need to fit in a child-size coffin together it won’t be a problem.  While Matt stayed up for the entire ride, I was able to catch a few hours here and there.  Meaning Matt was up for over twenty-four hours total, and if our hotel hadn’t been within a five minute walk of the train station we wouldn’t have made it at all.  In our slightly larger than a child-sized coffin space, it was me Matt and four other people.  We started sitting across from an Italian couple who spoke not a word of English and apparently didn’t even have tickets, which led to them being kicked out before we even made it to Rome, their destination.  In their place was a new Italian couple with a one year child. They too spoke no english.  Their baby girl was one of the cutest we had ever seen and extremely well behaved.  And their father, who started out looking like a very scary person, decided that he would stand for the entire ride so that his wife and baby could sleep in his seat.  The two others were an African couple who spoke a small amount of English and were traveling around Italy after she had finished being a professor at the World University in Venice.  After their time in Italy they are heading back to Africa. After they all got off in Rome, Matt and I had the place to ourselves and I fell back asleep while Matt feared that if he closed his eyes, I would never be able to get him back up.  After a few more hours and many extremely long tunnels, we made it to Naples, and only knew which stop to get off at thanks to the help of one of Matt’s new friends, an Italian man who again spoke no english but was not a fan of Bush( To my father who was asking if we had to defend his policies, i talked to him a little about how he thought that the war was unfair and mainly for their oil, now back to Debbie).  He directed us to our hotel where we collapsed for a long nap before dinner.

Well, things are actually working out as planned. So far the only problems have been that Debbie was sick(Completely better now, sorry for scaring you Barry and Sharon) and the fact that we were not sleeping at night and were tired in the day. I think that our schedules have now gotten used to the new time zone so everything is A-okay. We are leaving for Naples on a train tonight at midnight for an eight hour ride. I think that it should really just be a blast. Then we spend three nights there before going on to Amalfi where we will be spending four nights. Then we are going to get on a bus, then a train, and then hopefully end up back in Venice for our last three nights. When i say it like that it doesnt really sound like we are going to be here for long enough. Anyway, we thought that we were not going to have a place to stay once we were back in Venice, but hostelbookers.com has saved us again and we will be staying at a budget hotel, Hotel Giovanni or spelled something like that. We have been eating really well. I may have mentioned this before, but our hostel in Venice so far was not just a room but a small apartment. When i asked if they had something available in a week she laughed at me and said everything was booked for a month. Anyway, we are just killing time before our long ass train ride. So off for some shopping (makes debbie happy).

Anyway, mUch love of course from both of us.

Seeya later

MAtt and deb

Hey,

As usual following your exact instructions has not worked, in other words following your login key only came up with something that said wrong username. Whatever, see what you can do about it and then get back to me. In the mean time you can post this.

Sorry that we were not able to email sooner, but finding a good internet cafe is not as easy as one might think, not only that but the prices seem a bit exuberant to me. Anyway, all went very well. Neither me nor debbie slept a wink on either of our two flights and arrived in venice a bit tired. We got on the water taxi and were able to make it to a stop close to the one we were aiming for. After which we followed the instructions from the hostel, which remarkable got us to where we wanted to go. I hope that my dad will post it, because the instructions initially looked as if they made no sense. What we ended up with though is a great room, with like three beds, our own shower a stove and a fridge. Much more then we asked for and certainly much more then we expected. After which we went to sleep. Good times, we woke up and went out to get some food but decided to call it an early night because debbie was not feeling all that well. We went to sleep and at three in the morning realized that we had both woken up and there was very little chance of getting back to bed soon. Deb fell asleep at around five and i around six thirty… at which point we slept till five. Whoops. The next day was fairly uneventful except debbie threw up in front of a very beautiful building. We went out for a very nice dinner and after i forced her to have some veggie soup she felt a lot better. At around twelve we called it a night and went back to the hostel. where we slept for two hours before waking up again. Stupid jet lag. Anyway, i am running on about three hours of sleep and debbie not much more. All in all though it is going very well and venice is a beautiful city. Amazing to look at and a very weird concept once you think about it. We will write again soon, much love

The two of us