Ischia

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A Great Ending to Our Spring Break

So after traveling for two weeks across Europe we decided it was best to end our vacation in Ischia, an island off the coast of Napoli. We had heard great things of this place from Sethiepoo so we decided to give it a try, and we definitely were not disappointed. Supposedly its way prettier than Capri, less touristy, and a lot less expensive. They weren't kidding when they said less touristy though because most of the people didn't speak any English and were not understanding my Spanish.

We stayed in La Rotunda sur la Mer which was right on the water and was basically an apartment equipped with kitchen and tanning deck. It was owned by these three Italian brothers who enjoyed stopping by a couple times a day just to make sure we were ok or if we wanted to go do something.

Thankfully after 10 days of bad weather during our spring break our prayers to San Isidro finally kicked in. We had perfect weather the entire time on the island; I even got burnt. We enjoyed our happy hours thanks to Tessie, and just walking around getting lots of attention, especially when we were walking along the main road. Cars would literally pull over, people would get out or try and talk to us even though most of them only spoke Italian. My favorite was when we realized Jaymee wasn't next to us. Tessie and I turn around to see her walking back over to the Audi so we were like Jaymee what are you doing and her response was, " What!? It's an Audi!" Yea no one followed me when i was talking to the hot guys in the junky car but just because it was an Audi we had to go back. So of course the guys don't speak English, or Spanish. Only Italian. The one guy is yelling at his friend with the universal Italian hand signal which we thought wasn't real up until this point. Turns out the guy, Valentino, owned a night club in Ischia. I figured this was kind of legit seeing that he had a V tattooed on his neck and we had heard of a club called Valentino.

We saved our trip to Capri for Saturday. We even took the time to map out our route and see what time the ferry left Ischia. We left our apartment at 8:45 to catch the bus. We tried buying a ticket before hand at the machine but of course it wasn't working and you can't purchase your ticket on the bus. As if I'm going to inconveniently walk around Forio looking for a drug store to buy a bus ticket. So we decided it was better to catch the bus right away than miss our ferry to capri. Jaymee and I had been having very good luck getting public transportation for free the past two weeks but our good luck was about to run out. Tessie (who already paid a fine in Rome for riding without a ticket) said she would keep a lookout for the uniformed men. So we were completely caught off guard when this everyday looking guy asked us for our tickets 5 stops later. I wasn't very concerned since we're pretty good at talking our way out of things, so I was even more shocked when the guy started announcing, "PENALTY!" Tessie's trying to explain things, but he's not having it and enjoyed throwing in the word "FINES" everytime Tessie took a breath. That's when the situation heightened and Tessie's jumps out of her sit and starts talking really fast in her flustered voice. Keep in mind she's about a whole head taller than the stout Italian man. At this point the other bus checker is making his way over and he is clearly amused by the situation, and Tessie tries explaining to him, so the mean Italian man decides to take his wrath out on me. Therefore I decide its an ideal time to give him attitude by raising my eyebrows and saying, "I'm from Paris, it's our first day." Jaymee doesn't even know what to do so she just gives him her pouty face in hopes of some remorse. So he tells us to come to the front of the bus so he can issue us our individual 40 euro fines. A.) I don't have 40 euros on me and B.) I was planning on using that 40 euros to buy some hot sandals in Capri. So we begin following him to the front when all of a sudden the bus stops and the back doors swing open. I see Jaymee and Tessie looking at each other and I was thinking to myself there is no way there going to run. Then of all people I hear Tessie go, "Should we run?!" and I hear Jaymee scream, "Yess!!" and pelts off the bus taking down about two people trying to get on. I didn't even know what to do but run after them hearing the guy shouting behind me, "STOP!!! STOP THEM!!" Keep in mind we are on a tiny island road that is winding up a hill. Good thing we were sprinting down it. Tessie losses her show half way and I sprint past her thinking everyman for themselves. Jaymee (who has the advantage because she is wearing strap on sandels) is about 50 yards ahead of us. I'm screaming back at Tessie, "ARe they following us!." and tessie is screaming back, "I don't know, never look back!" We sprinted for awhile and made a left onto private property and hid for awhile until we were sure no one had followed us. Of course when we stand up we see cops so we decided to lay low for a little while longer. I mean Ischia is a pretty small island you never know how serious these people get. We walked farther away from the scene and got on another bus this time with tickets and made it to the port of Ischia just in time to see our ferry pulling away. There were no other ferry's going that day so we conceded defeat and took advantage of seeing more of our island. We layed out, got harassed by some Italian men who offered to buy us dog panini, when he really meant to say hot dogs, saw a girl in what was basically a thong bikini when she really should not have been, and saw a guy trying to play soccer who was the spitting image of Ben. We had a great lunch, then got paranoid by the seven cops who walked into our small restaurant but essentially made it home unscathed, without spending a fortune to go to Capri.

Saturday night my task was to plan the evening so I had Lorenzo and his brother and friends come pick us up to go to the clubs in Ischia. Jaymee got to ride on the back of his scooter. We went to this place called Friends where the bouncer literally looks at the mob of people standing outside and hand picks who he wants to come in. The place was really cool and the guys were a lot better looking in Ischia than in Rome. The people were a lot more friendly too and I obviously was loving life. We got home around 5 and were up about 3 hours later to catch our ferry back to Naples then the train back to Rome, then the bus to the airport, followed by my flight back to Paris and another hour long bus ride to the metro with it ending 30 min later at my metro stop. That was a 14.5 hour long commute but totally worth. Morale of the story: Buy your tickets and the Islands have better looking men.

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