I am not really a big fan of dunking myself in huge bodies of water. Despite my love of the ocean, I usually wade in up to my knees, maybe my waist tops and then I'm out. But Saturday, when I found myself basking on a small speed boat in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, no amount of coaxing or encouragement was needed to get me into that water. A glorious weekend spent on the Amalfi Coast hit it's climax on Saturday during a beach day spent in Positano. Possibly the most picturesque place I have ever been in my entire life, Positano is a small town in an enclave in the hills. As lovely as the pastel watercolors done by artists on the paths, the brightly painted buildings stack up the hill like building blocks holding up the kind of sky that can only be by design, a resplendent blue with just a few wispy clouds.
To get to the beach you have to traipse down about a billion weathered stone stairs. Descending stairs seems an easy feat but at the bottom we are all weak at the knees, nursing blistered toes and muscle spasms in our over worked calves. Thin white hotel thrifted towels ride the wind like sheets on a clothesline and then settle onto the smooth dark pebbles of the beach as clothes come off, sunglasses go on, and we sprawl across the rocks like the sun worshipping California residents we are. The only thought on anyones mind is a day napping in the sun and, for all of the lucky people with some pigment to their skin other than freckles, cultivating a tan After a few rotations someone breaks the sleepy spell "Hey you guys, want to rent a boat?" A boat? "It's 10 euro a person, eight people to a boat." People are picked for teams like elementary school children in PE class. Nobody wants to be picked last for dodgeball. We are handed a set of keys, given a quick lesson in how to work the gas and loaded eight by eight along with our handles of rum onto small speed boats with a push off the dock and a Ciao Bella! There are no life jackets, waivers, insurance forms. No pesky questions like Do you have a boating license? Are any of you sober enough to drive a boat? Can you Swim? In fact there are no restrictions at all as to how fast, where we can go, or how many body parts can be hanging out of the boat at one time. We speed off with the wind in our face, our hands in the air and shrieking like banshees everytime we get air striking a large wave.
Out in the open water we pull all three boats close, cut the engines and pray for no jellyfish as we catapult off the boat and into the sea. Like I said, this is usually the point at which I stay on the boat or at the very least require a little push but something about being in a foreign country has been making me brave. Lately I've been eating octopus, walking barefoot outside and taking unknown shots chased with bananas dipped in coffee. Before I even have time to think about it, I plant one foot on the side of the boat and launch myself as high and far as possible. I go under laughing and swallow an excessive amount of the saltiest water I have ever tasted. Seriously, if you filled a cup halfway with salt and added some water that would be less salty than the Mediterranean. The water is the most energizing cold, it shocks all of my senses into a kind of awareness that makes me feel as if all my life before this instant I was sleep walking. I feel like I'm in a Clariton commercial. Like I hadn't even realized I'd been walking around seeing everything through a blurry film until it was gone and now that I'm "Clariton Clear" the resolution is upped and I can't imagine seeing things any other way. Being out in an ocean isn't like diving into your swimming pool. The water is ALIVE. It tosses me in it's waves and caresses me all over like a blind person trying to make out my shape. The color of the water is unbelievable. No other shade of blue has any right to call itself by the same name as this gorgeous water. The water is so blue it transcends the definition of color. Blue is it's very essence. It doesn't just look blue, it FEELS blue. I'm sure that if I had closed my eyes and never seen it before I would still be able to in some way know the exquisite shade of blue just from jumping in and letting it envelop me. In the water I feel tiny and huge all at the same time. The only thing that matters is this perfect moment and I am huge in my importance as the sole experiencer of it. And yet to this great living thing I am just a temporary insignificant speck. Still, even as a speck I am part of it and I too share it's beauty.
But anyway....
Since I've denied multiple requests for a play by play of the weekend with promises to deliver on my blog, let me rewind and start from the beginning.
Thursday Night: After a six hour bus ride to Sorrento that included three hours of restless, Dramene induced sleep, some altogether unimpressive rest stop pasta, an amazing find of peanut M and M's and such cinematic classics as Pineapple Express and Meet the parents, we arrived at our "hotel". A quick debate over the bunk beds is settled by the ever mature and flexible Cally and after taking a moment to appreciate (but unfortunately not photograph) our ridiculously tacky sky blue and mustard yellow floral tile that someone thought coordinated well with the steel blue damask bedspreads and turquoise wood baseboards, we all throw ourselves into bed and pass out immediately.
About five hours later we fill up on three rolls and the Fanta juice Italian people like to pretend is orange juice, and head out for the day. Someone at Florence for Fun has apparently been reading up on increased obesity in America and has mapped out all of the activities so that we have to trudge twenty minutes to get everywhere, including the bus we are taking to get to the ferry to Capri for the day. Capri is a scenic Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea which houses multiple lavish celebrity mansions and is a ravishing resort town with the price tags to match. During a boat tour around the island we see the lovers arch, Grotta Azzurra (a Grotto in which the water is a surreal colbat blue color because of a trick of light), and lots of other pretty things I don't remember because I was too busy trying not to get seasick. My favorite part of Capri was a tiny iron statue of a waving man set to welcome visitors to the island, so high up on a cliff it was scarcely visible. After some hiking around the island, a few stolen hours laying on the breathtaking beach, some heavenly pizza, and a lemonchillo tasting we were headed back to Sorrento. This brings us up to Saturday aka the highlight of my weekend and maybe one of the best days of my life. I returned from Positano sunburned and smiling. I am stunned in the kind of way someone is when they have experienced something beautiful and it has ended. I wish that I could capture the memories to preview later like a snowglobe you shake up and watch the moments of a day too good to be true fall like glitter.
A superb weekend ended with a day spent at Pompeii and hiking up Mount Vesuvies. As remarkable and astounding it is to actually see Pompeii and learn about the culture of a city that survived being buried under 30 meters of volcanic ash and was resurfaced centuries later along with molds of it's citizens, it is not all that interesting to hear about if you have not actually seen it so I will spare you the details. I am fairly certain this has already been my longest, least interesting and most poorly written blog post to date so I will end it soon. And as far as Mount Vesuvius. Ummmm ya. I climbed that shit. I looked down into the impressive gargantuan volcano and didn't fall in. And sadly, there was no lava. Obviously I'm an idiot for thinking there would be but still. Disappointing.
I wish that I could tell you all of the breathtaking and beautiful sights on the Amalfi Coast. I furthermore wish that I could do so without rambling and putting you to sleep. But I can't so I'll just end with another thousand words guaranteed to be beautiful than anything I could ever write.
Positano
P.S. Promise my next entry will be better. Expect exciting stories from Oktoberfest this weekend!
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