We slept last night with the window open and could hear the sea crashing against the breakwall all night, with the cool breeze it was so nice. I woke up in the morning to the alarm at 8:30am and checking my phone. Joy had texted "No timekeeper?" My reply? "Oh Shit! I forgot, I'm sorry!" One of my jobs as Manager of the girls hockey team is to schedule the timekeepers and the first home game of the regular season was yesterday (while I was sleeping). She replied that she had a Dad do the timekeeping and as a bonus he didn't take the fourteen bucks payment so we still have it. lol. I texted back asking why she was awake, she had a sore throat and her daughter is in University so she leaves her phone on all night (remind me never to text Joy in the middle of the night!). So then I texted Naomi, who's daughter was on the girls team last year and her son is an approved timekeeper to see if Sullivan can timekeep the rest of the girls games for the season and she wrote back that he can! I asked her why she was up at 2:30am her time and she has insomnia. Next I thought I would text someone in our timezone so WhatsApped Anthony to make sure he and Sarah were still good for breakfast at 9:30am (15 mins from now) and apparently Sarah is still sleeping...again. lol. But she rallied and they were ready at 9:30 to go down to the dining room.
This is the breakfast spread.
This is the breakfast spread.
My breakfast.
I didn’t end up eating the bread because it was rock hard.
During breakfast I texted a client to let her know that my Scotia Underwriter is at a conference and won't be back until the 17th but her approval isn't an issue. She texted back she wasn't worried about it and to enjoy my trip. I asked her why she was awake and she was nursing the baby! Why are so many people awake in the middle of the night! Its sleeping time!
Time to go, our view as we exit the hotel.
Our twinsie cars.
Anthony had brought their bags down and gone back up for the third bag, and Sarah, so Jay packed their car up. On the road I said to Jay "You should have packed one of the Corey's bags into our car and then when we got to Sorrento they would have freaked out" he said "Where were you 30 minutes ago? That would have been brilliant".
Its a 3 hour drive to Pompeii which we are stopping at on the way to Sorrento which is another hour beyond that. On the way I message the Coreys to see if they want to do a food tour in Rome in the afternoon for a few hours, catch the sites and eat delicious food. I get a text back that says "we're in!" so I look up a few, email 3 and book one!
I have to go to the bathroom and Jay is getting tired, the next service station says that its 24.5 Km away so we decide we'll switch driving and I message Sarah and Anthony. As we get closer, I'm the navigator, the sign says the station is in 7.5 Km and I make the appropriate announcement to the pilot. However, at the crutial moment of .3km and beyond we are playing with the radio to find something good to listen to and we pass the service station...
The Naples comment comes later. Jay wrote that.
So we stop at the next major exit and look for a place to stop, this little café serves pizza and that's about it. Sarah goes pee first, she goes and then we can hear her trying to get the door open. So while she's inside panicking I figure I'll tell her how much I need to pee as I wait outside "I really need to go Sarah!". lol. When I was my turn I just told them I wasn't going to lock it, which I'm sure was fine since it was just us in there and another guy who had just come out of the washroom, seemingly without any difficulty with the lock.
We parked for 10Eu behind a restaurant in Pompeii and walk a very short distance to the entrance to the archeological site. Its a very cool site, we're looking to see the casts of people who were caught in the eruption, which sounds morbid but fascinating (as often morbid things are). But we don't see anything and we've spent 90 minutes here seeing all the following sites and it was time to go so that we could meet Max at check in at our apartment in Sorrento by 5pm.
This is Anthony's favourite photo of Pompeii. That’s a guy.
Anthony said this is the first BonaVista pool! Its actually a laundry.
The drive through Pompeii and Naples was enlightening, its all ghettos like you would seen in Argentina or we saw in Croatia in Zagreb. Jay is like "I wonder why Naples is a dump" and I suggested for him to google it. Apparently there are lots of blogs describing exactly why Naples is a shit hole. I said to him, you know who lives here? Italians who work in the Amalfi Coast serving tourists all day, travelling an hour on the bus or train, making 18,000 Eu a year an paying 9,000 Eu in income taxes, that's who live here.
The view into Sorrento is very nice.
We got settled into our apartment after parking nearby and calling Max to meet us. He said he didn't think that we could park our one car in the garage under the apartment, which Jay took as a challenge. Apparently it was so tight it took 2 spotters and all the balls Jay has to park the car without any kisses to the bumpers. Sarah and I took her car across the street for 8Eu more per day and parked it valet. lol. Jay said he had to park underneath once he said it couldn't be done, but now he refuses to take it out until we need to leave on the 14th! (3 nights)
Jay and Anthony are both tired and supposed to go for a nap but I say to Jay that he has to go to let the valet guy know we now need Sarah's car tomorrow to get to Positano for our boat tour while we go and get bread, meat and cheese for a nice snack/dinner on our terrace (the whole reason why I rented this apartment is for the terrace). So we all walk down to the grocery store but decide to walk to get a drink instead down 3 blocks to the pedestrian area.
We got down a side street and then another side street and find a place that has a nice board of cocktails and stop. Anthony and I both order a Sorrento which is lemoncello, lime, cane sugar and soda, Jay orders something strawberry and a half pint of Peroni (Anthony ordered this in addition to his drink too) and Sarah got a pint of Peroni.
Jays drinks were not manly at all.
Sitting here we decided to explore some more and go out for dinner instead of getting meat and cheese and staying in. On the way we found a liquor store and Jay and Anthony spent some time looking at scotch when I reminded Jay that when we went to Scotland I used my allocation of liquor for duties for scotch and he would be obligated to use his allocation this time for wine, specifically Brunello.
Jay was looking at the 35 year Blend and Anthony said "How much?" Its a lot. "Like how much?" Jay mouths '300 Eu'. I said "that's a lot" and Anthony commented "it even smacks you in the face when you whisper it". lol
We looked at a couple of restaurants and then rounded the corner and saw this place, Sarah and Anthony had stopped here earlier when they got lost, well they didn't get lost, we got stopped by a police officer because our street is semi-pedestrian and I went up to her (with the car) and said "but I'm' 'staying up there, number 243" so she let us through. Sarah didn't get through so had to circle around a second time. Anyway, we looked at the menu and decided to eat here.
We had to wait a couple of minutes and Anthony and I both took photos of the statue across the square, both zoomed in.
I would consider getting a Samsung just for vacation photos. They're very clear even in zoom.
I think that the restaurant was warm because of the oil lamps in the centre of the tables. As we sat I said to them not to knock the table due to the oil. and fire.
We ordered the Chateaubriand for two and so did the Corey's so they brought it out like this.
We saw the ladies at the table next to us had dessert menus and commented on it. Jay hopped on up and sat down with them and the one lady said "Look at the size of it!", we figure she was talking about the menu that had colour photos and was about 8 pages long.
As we were eating dinner we continued a conversation we started yesterday about pranking a friend, who's name will be changed to protect the innocent, lets call him Bevis. I said that we should paint his ceiling with glow in the dark paint that says "Chicken or Go"...we settled on peel and stick letters.
We didn't end up ordering off the extensive, very large, menu at the restaurant and instead went for Gelato. Jay went with Oreo, I didn't have any, Anthony asked Sarah what she wanted and she said "I'm going to just have a bite of yours, you should have the Ferraro Roche one". Anthony, after much deliberation, decided he would like the Ferraro Roche one.
Finally, we're sitting on the terrace, Jay is in our room and we are sitting outside. As we are FaceTiming the girls Joanne is at my Moms and asks if Sarah was able to pack as light as me. I showed her Sarah’s toiletry bag (a full on roller carry on suitcase) and my toiletry bag (the little pouch you get when you travel club class with Air Transat that holds the eye mask and ear plugs). Lol. She brought a hair dryer, though everywhere we have stayed has one for use.
As Anthony goes to bed he looks in our doors and says to Jay "Do you want me to push those two beds together for you?" (they're two twins). I said "No, we've been married 15 years and a day, we're good". Little does he know that Jay walked in earlier and said "We have the two twins? Yes!". lol.
No comments:
Post a Comment