Alessandro: Part 3

Two hot Italian guys + two charming American girls = a lot of fun on a boat in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

This was probably one of the best days ever.  The guys took us out on the boat and it was another scorching, humid day.  Of course, my curly hair was starting to get a little puffy and resemble a fro, but I didn't care (OK, I probably did care a little).  We packed a ton of fruit for lunch and we were laying on the boat tanning (OK, I was probably burning) when suddenly I'm splashed with water!  After some playful arguing, I pushed Alessandro and he jumped overboard, while holding my arm so I would go overboard, too.

That night was the festival for the San Vito, the patron saint of Positano.  We watched the fireworks together, went dancing, and fell asleep on the beach together (not like bums or anything, I'll let you use your imagination).  Mel and I went back to visit Positano again on a weekend during our classes, but we decided to stop there, it wasn't like we were going to have a transatlantic relationship with these guys or anything.  Plus, Mel actually had a boyfriend back home.  I'm not one to judge, but I wouldn't have done that.

We talked to Alessandro and Enrico almost every day, and when we came back to the United States we kept in touch via e-mail.  That was definitely one of my favorite summers, and just thinking about it is making me miss Italy like crazy, so I think I need to end this blog here.  If I don't, I'll be in a shitty mood all day because I can't decide whether I should move to Italy or not!  OK, enough Italy talk for now!

Alessandro: Part 2

We walked up to the house and met Enrico’s roommates.  There were a handful of other people there, but with the events that happened later, I didn’t remember their names.  Enrico, Mel, some guy named Marco and I went out onto the balcony, and with perfect timing entered Alessandro with a few bottles of Prosecco.  Alessandro shook the Prosecco a little and opened it.  When it fizzed out the top he grabbed some in his fingers and rubbed it behind my ears and said, “For good luck,” and did the same for Mel, Marco, Enrico, and then himself.  He filled some glasses, passed them out and announced, in Italian, “To new friendships!” and we all took a drink.

Niccolo and I talked all night (in Italian) about anything and everything.  We both had knee surgery (on the same knee with a strikingly similar scar), he’s from a nearby town, Vico Equense, and works in Positano every summer where he makes good money as a waiter with all the tourists in town.  He has a big family, and a niece he adores.
 

After Mel, Enrico and Marco decided to go back into the house, Alessandro led me to the edge of the flower pot-lined balcony to look over at the other houses which were tumbling down the hill.  I had never seen anything so beautiful before, the houses looked like they grew out of the hill rather than having been strategically placed and built there.  The clarity of the stars on the warm June night was amazing, not something I typically see at home.  Tonight, thousands of stars were thrown across the sky and each one had a perfect reflection in the sea.

Alessandro stood closer to me and said, “I would like to kiss you now.”  He grabbed me by the waist and stared directly into my eyes, which was pretty uncomfortable because I never had someone staring at me so intensely.  He said, “Bella, I would love to fly into your eyes.”  I held back every inch of me that wanted to laugh.  He wants to fly into my eyes? I thought, That has to be the dorkiest line I’ve ever heard!  I couldn’t decide if it was just some nerdy line he fed to all the tourists, but I simply smiled, put my hand on his chest and said, “Well, I don’t want you to kiss me right now.”  Ha!  Take that!  I can play hard-to-get...kind of!
 

“What?  Why can’t I kiss you now?  Why can’t I kiss you whenever I want?”
“Because I’m not the kind of girl who just lets a guy kiss her whenever he wants!”  OK, this was probably a lie.
“Don't you see I want to be more than your friend?” he asked smiling.
“Uhm, yeah, sure, but you can't tell me before you kiss me!  You have to just do it!”
“But why?”
“I like being surprised.  I’d like to be walking down the street when you just grab me and kiss me without warning.  That’s more romantic than you trying to get a kiss by telling me you want to fly into my eyes!”
“OK, then I'll kiss you when you don’t expect it!”  I could see the gears in his head turning, thinking of the perfect moment to surprise me with a kiss.

I really did want to kiss him right then and there, it really would have been romantic, but I was a little nervous and needed to buy some time.  A nervous kiss isn’t always a good kiss.  At first I was more nervous anticipating a kiss, but at least now I knew he wanted to kiss me, just like I wanted to kiss him.

We talked a little more about our lives and our goals for the future.  I was impressed with how certain he was that he’d like to own a restaurant someday and he would appoint himself head chef, because there’s nothing he loves to do more than cook.  I made up some fantasy of moving to Italy and owning a hotel.  I felt like I had to say something impressive, even though, deep down, I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do with my life.

Finally, it was almost five o’clock in the morning, and well past time to go back to the hotel.  We decided it was time to leave and wait outside until the ladies would unlock the doors and have breakfast started.  Then, we realized we didn’t remember how to get back to the hotel through the winding maze of roads and half-broken cement stairs.  Thankfully, Alessandro and Enrico gladly offered to walk us home. 
 

Enrico and Mel walked ahead of Alessandro and I, stopping to make out at every possible chance.  We walked past a group of late-teen guys who were probably partying all night, and they were shouting something to Enrico and Alessandro, and I suddenly felt a little ashamed.  These guys probably think we had sex with them!  I must have shown an ashamed look on my face, after all, I didn’t have sex with anyone, and Alessandro yelled something in an angry tone at them.  I have no idea what he said but it sounded good to me and the guys quickly shut up.
 

We got closer to the hotel and I finally knew my surroundings.  There was a huge wall comprised of large stones with jagged edges and small spurts of green grass and tiny wildflowers growing out of them.  In all my travels so far, this is still one of my favorite roads because it seemed to wind around the hill nonstop.  One of my shoes slipped off my left foot a little, so I took a quick pause to fix it.  Just when I was finished, Alessandro grabbed my face in both his hands and gave me a hard, long kiss.  I had butterflies going nonstop all the way through the depths of my stomach and I had never had a kiss before that made me feel that way.  Sure, I’ve gotten butterflies before, but nothing this intense.  Could it be possible that I actually had some feelings for him after only knowing him a few hours?  Maybe it was just the element of surprise I was hoping for.  Or maybe just that much time had passed since I actually had a good kiss.  It felt like I was in a movie and some asshole director would yell, "CUT!" any second now.  After the kiss, he asked, “Did I surprise you?”  I could only really reply with a big, goofy smile and managed to push out the word, “Si.”  He smiled, grabbed my hand, laced each of our fingers together, and we continued walking.

We finally reached our destination.  Enrico requested to talk to Alessandro privately, while Mel eagerly asked me, “So…did you do it?”  I just laughed and said, “Oh my God, no, why, did you?”  She just gave a smile hinting that they either had sex, or came pretty close to it, then said, “So, what if Enrico were to spend the night tomorrow?”  I didn’t know what to say.  I obviously wasn’t going to sleep in a bed next to two people having sex.  I’m sure we’d be able to find a way to sneak him in past the ladies who owned the hotel, but this didn't sound fun for me.  I replied, “Well, I certainly won’t ruin your fun!  Maybe I’ll go walk around the beach or something and you can call me when you guys are done with your, um, alone time.”  Mel replied, “Or you could go home with Alessandro and have some fun of your own, but either way, you’re the best!”  I just smiled, not eager to do either of my two options, but I’m sure I could find some way to occupy my time.  Besides, I had already been to Italy and fooled around with guys, I thought I was over it.  Until that kiss (insert sigh and big goofy smile).

After the small discussion was over, Alessandro pulled me aside and said, “Paolo doesn’t know if he will spend the night with Mel tomorrow night, but if he does, you can stay with me.”  We made plans for the following day, made out some more, and Mel and I sat down outside the hotel waiting for it to open.

Alessandro: Part 1

Positano, Italy

My friend Mel and I were traveling before studying for a month in Florence, and we decided we couldn't pass up visiting the Amalfi Coast.  We decided to stay in Positano, and we finally arrived in the picturesque hill town located just off the deep blue, sparkling Tyrrhenian Sea.  There are a few different ways to get to Positano, the main options were by bus or boat.  We decided to take the bus and after 15 minutes we regretted this decision.

The bus took us all around the Amalfi Coast, of course Positano was almost at the end of the entire route.  It was a tall, coach bus and we were thankful to at least be comfortable!  Being an American, these roads looked too small to drive a mid-sized car on, let alone a huge bus.  It was one lane going each way, and the bus took up almost half of the other lane.  We wound our way around the huge hills on the right side of the bus, which left us nervously looking out the left side of the bus, where we seemed to be dangerously close to falling off the cliff and tumbling down into the sea.  Every time a curve came about, the bus driver would lay on the horn a few times to let someone coming from the other direction know that we were heading straight for them at what felt like high speeds.  I also managed to get carsick, err bus-sick, which doesn't happen often.  We decided to stop looking out the windows, considering we were both having near vomiting experiences.

We made it to the bus' first stop: Amalfi.  We were told Positano was next, we looked at each other and I said, "So, we could get off here and wait for the next bus, ya know, so I don't hurl all over myself."  Mel replied, "We have to get the fuck off this bus and I'm not getting back on another one."  We were excellent travel partners because we both had vulgar mouths, thought the same things were funny, and we belched a lot and didn't feel bad or embarrassed about it.  We also both enjoyed jamming out to Justin Timberlake...but then again, who doesn't?  We took a taxi from Amalfi to Positano and traveled down the same treacherous roads.  We were relieved to see the taxi driver didn't appear to be on the same suicide mission as the bus driver.
When we arrived at the hotel we found out there was a midnight curfew, took showers and got ready to go down to the beach and explore the town.  We didn't care about that midnight curfew, we read that most bars closed at 1 and we didn't plan on getting too crazy anyway.  However, we did take note that if we were out past curfew the main door would be locked and we couldn't get back inside until they reopened everything 6AM.

We weren't dressed to impress, just wearing shorts and halters or tube tops and flip flops.  We shopped a bit, I bought some Diesel sunglasses I couldn't pass up at the time (now I never wear them, go figure), and we sat on the beach and dug our toes into the sand until we were hungry enough for dinner.  We chose a random restaurant, sat down and ordered from our waiter, Enrico. To make a long dinner story short, Enrico made some joke about the Pinot Grigio we ordered and we flirted with him through the rest of dinner.  He invited us to a party at his apartment that he shares with a few people, and told us to meet him at 11.  By his description of the party location, we figured we'd have time to stop by, have a quick drink, and then head back to the hotel before curfew.

We climbed the steps to our hotel, which seemed to be placed somewhere in the middle of the hill, and changed into more appropriate partywear.  We were so excited to go to this party and we had a ton of time to kill, so we went back down to the beach area and had a glass of wine while we waited for Enrico's shift to end.