Family Vacation! (With the Medveds)

First, a bit of business. I have reached the limits of a free Flickr account and rather than upgrade to a pretty account, as pretty as they are, I'm switching to my dormant Picasa account. Shockingly, I encountered a fair amount of problems uploading the web albums and had to resurrect my troubleshooting skills. Who knew there was any flaw in Google at all?

So now I'm in the process of organizing albums from past trips. Here's Sardinia and the Amalfi Coast in pictures and from a while back, Amsterdam, Paris, and Gtown's Spring Break in London.

Now onto the Amalfi coast vacation. Much like Sardinia, this trip offered an experience that differed from the typical student travel that I've been doing and will be doing for the rest of break. There weren't really museums to visit, although we did visit the Archaeological Museum in Naples. Never before have I been surrounded by so many phallic images. Penis pendants on necklaces, penis earings, flying penis statues WITH penises, penis wall adornments, and of course erotic frescos and statues, all from Pompei. Naples was the only real city we went to on the trip, and I think we were all glad that it was a brief visit. Besides for the garbage on the streets, check out this TIME photo gallery to get the full and shocking picture, I was a little taken aback by the traffic. Never before have I heard sustained honking and beeping for such a duration of time. It was a fun experience though.

Naples was only one day out of ten, but it's hard to recap where I've been. Most of the towns on the Amalfi coast are very small and vertical with windy roads connecting them and they tend to blend in my mind unless I have a certain restaurant or villa to distinguish one from the other. We stayed in two villas in a town called Positano, supposedly the most vertical town in the world? In Italy? Facts are fuzzy. Right outside our door (literally) was a hike to Ciello (I think), an extremely small town directly above us. 2000 steps later, we were there and having lunch in a small trattoria where we could see the three famous rocks of Capris. Ok, I won't go through everything and everywhere I went, but highlights include Pompei, the small hike up and around Mt. Vesuvius, the stair hike, and the drive around the island of Capri. Food and gelatto were another major highlight. I was constantly well fed, tummy well-stocked with local seafood, pastas, tomatoes, and mozzarella.

The Medved's know how to vacation and have a good time, and I was lucky enough to be along for the ride. I've got to say, I haven't laughed that hard on a daily basis since I've been back at Georgetown and that was a good feeling to have again. It was also nice to be around "family" again; they weren't mine but I felt adopted for the time being.

So now... I rest for a week and sort out my business. In good news, I will be back in DC by June 16th and semi-employed. Alright. A picture says a thousand words, so check 'em out. Hope to talk to everyone while I'm back in London.