Allow me to back up....

Me and Brooke in Pompei

Beautiful Capri

Me and Erich on the island of Ischia

One of the petrified people in Pompei

Brooke and Tim in Pompei

At dinner in Napoli

Okay. So that was a long break with no writing. After receiving the appropriate amount of flack from family and friends, I am now ready to resume writing. Sorry y'all.

I have been "on vacation" for the entire month of August now. Although I understand how lucky I am to have an entire month vacation in Italy, I gotta say I am BEAT! You know how you always feel like you need a vacation from your vacation? That's kinda how I feel. Traveling is tiring and expensive and I feel like I just need to be stationary for a while. In the midst of all these travels we've moved apartments, yet I haven't been in my apartment for more than 5 days in the entire month. Therefore, I'm looking forward to actually making it feel like home, getting to know the new roomies, and dare I say it--I'm actually excited to go back to work.

So what have I been doing? The month started out great with my amica Brooke and her boyfriend Tim coming for a visit. It was really nice to see and catch up with Brooke and even better to be able to have new travel companions. With them, Erich and I traveled to Naples and it's surrounding hot spots; Pompei, Ischia, and Capri. Naples kind of gets a bad rap, I think. Even mention that you are going to Napoli and you will have 10 Italians on your ass telling you to watch your bags, beware of pickpockets, don't trust anybody, BUT PLEASE do enjoy the pizza. Naples considers itself the birthplace of pizza and as a city it is very proud of its culinary traditions, so we took full advantage of not only the pizza but also the seafood while there. Brooke and Tim were as fearless eaters as Erich and I, so between the 4 of us we got to try everything. I headed back to Naples later in the month with my family and at that point I determined, not only did I think all the negative comments about Napoli were a little overdone, but that they were also unfair and misleading. Yes, in and around the central train station is a bit sketchy as are some select other areas, but get outside of that and you can find the best that Italy has to offer; a proud and vibrant culture, awesome music, delicious food, a unique dialect of the language, friendly people, strength in the face of poverty and adversity, rich heritage....okay okay, you get the picture, needless to say I really loved Napoli. I read something in my guidebook before we went that said something to the effect of, "stay in Napoli one day and you will hate it, stay two weeks and you will love it, stay one month and you will never want to leave." I can definitely see this to be true.

Brooke and Tim weren't only great travel buddies, but they were also EXTREMELY helpful. When we returned to Rome they helped us move all of our stuff (which has been accumulating at a faster rate than I had anticipated) across town to our new place. I don't know what we would have done without them! But, I also just had so much fun hanging out with Brooke. I think she brings out my inner untapped indulgences driving me to dress up once and a while and wear make up just for the fun of it. She's just a fun person altogether, so you can't help but have fun when she's around. As soon as Brooke left, I immediately wanted her to come back.

I didn't have too much time to sulk however as two days later I was heading out on a mini-road trip to Calabria and Palermo with my friend Amy.....

Me and Brooke up on my roof

The four of us got all gussied up and went to a nice dinner. Brooke let me borrow this lovely dress!