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.