Well, trains, you’ve been fun. We’ll miss you.

We decided to take full advantage of our hostel’s noon checkout time and slept in this morning. There is a speed train between Sevilla and Madrid that leaves every hour or so, so we didn’t have to be in a rush to get to the train station. We got our things together and started to walk toward the train station when a cab stopped right in front of us to let a lady out. We decided that it was fate that we take a cab to the train station so we loaded up our backpacks and had a nice ride instead of walking the half hour to the train station. Because we took the taxi, we got there about 25 minutes before one of our trains left so we reserved our seats and hopped on the train. The ride was about two and a half hours. It was cool! This train line has all speed trains and they play movies each time like on the airplane. Neither of us took advantage of being able to watch the movie, but we thought it was cool that we could nonetheless. We finally got caught up on our blogging! We were sad to think that this was our last train ride. We love and will miss those awesome trains!

When we got to Madrid and found that the train station is connected to the metro system so we hopped on the metro and made our way to our hostel. We started walking toward our hostel and ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere and ran into Blaire and Natalie! In case y’all didn’t know, Madrid is a pretty big place. We were really surprised to bump into them. They have a couple of friends that came to hang out for a week before starting a 4-week European tour next week. The four of them were about to grab a bite to eat so we ran to the hostel and checked in and threw our things down and met back up with them.

We had heard through the grapevine that the Prado Museum is free on Tuesday nights from 6 - 8pm so we all headed off in that direction to check out the museum. We did some photo shoots and exploring along the way and made our way to the Prado. They only let in so many people every 15 minutes so we stood in line for a bit and waited our turn. We got inside and decided to all meet up at the Goya statue out front at 8pm so we split up and went on our own art exploration adventures.

The Prado Museum in Madrid houses a ton of European art from the 12th - 19th centuries. Lots of Byzantine, Romanesque, Romantic, Gothic, religious and realistic paintings and sculptures. One of the more famous paintings here is Hieronymus Bosch’s painting of “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” We had recently heard comedian Stephen Colbert compare the new KFC Double Down sandwich to this painting. We actually ran into a KFC about 15 minutes before going into the Prado to grab one just to test his theory but the “deep fried madness and breaded insanity” has sadly not made its way across the Atlantic. Oh darn.

We met back up outside afterward and talked with our new Aussie friends about the awesomeness known as Australia. We talked about everything from kangaroos, to politics, the Aborigines, the epic blue ring octopus, and even learned some new Australian phrases. For example, when Katie tried out her new Aussie accent, one of the guys responded, "You've got Buckley's doing it right." Apparently that means that she had no chance of speaking with a believable Aussie twang. Also, we taught them how to say “y’all.” It was a very productive evening.

After a while, our stomachs started to get a bit grumbly so we started to make our way to a tapas restaurant that Blair had found in their Lonely Planet book. Katie wasn’t feeling too well so she left and headed back to the hostel to rest while Rachael went to go eat dinner with the Aussies. We ended up going to a small Italian restaurant called “Pinocchio” that served great pasta and sangria. After dinner, we made plans to meet up at some point tomorrow to see the Royal Palace of Spain and possibly do a hop on/hop off bus tour together. We bid adieu for the evening then headed back to our respective hostels. The Woodmere Gang is now at the hostel and chillin' for the rest of the night. We want to make sure we get enough sleep so that we can take full advantage of our last day of our epic European adventure tomorrow! How did it get to be so late so soon?!

Peace ninjas!

XOXO K&R

Kansas City? But we’re not in Kansas anymore!

Saturday, April 17

After being rejuvenated in Nerja, our next stop was Sevilla. We had booked this hostel way back in March because it’s right at the beginning of their big festival called Feria de Abril (Festival of April). Since Nerja is teeny tiny, there wasn’t a train station so we had to take a bus to Malaga and then take a train from there to Seville. We woke up to rain, rain, rain. We packed up our things and then trudged through the rain to the bus station (aka, a stop on the street with a kiosk selling tickets) and waited for our bus. We were about half and hour early so we sought shelter under one of the covered benches to wait on our bus. It finally came and we threw our backpacks under and then hopped aboard. We guess Malaga is a pretty popular place because our bus was packed full. At one stop, there was apparently a disagreement between one of the riders and the bus driver about this older lady that tried to get on. They were speaking way to fast for Katie to get what was going on, but from what she could understand, she was guessing that the bus driver wouldn’t let the lady on because she didn’t pay or something but the man on the bus was telling him he should let her on. Or maybe she’d missed the bus she was supposed to be on and was trying to get on this one or something like that. Basically, it was two men yelling at each other and the lady was crying and it was a big ol’ mess. Finally, we got to Malaga and were lucky to find that the bus station was right next to the train station so we didn’t have to go too far in the rain.

We made it to the train station to find that the place was amazing! It was like a mall, train station, movie theater and bowling alley all rolled into one! We were sort of sad that we only had about half an hour after making our reservation to spend in the train station. Well, since we have priorities, we decided that we would spend our half hour in line for Burger King. We didn’t expect for it to take that long but we should have learned by now that fast food places are only fast in the States and Paris. Since we were running short on time, yet again, Katie went ahead to hold up the train if need be while Rachael waited for the food. Rachael made it to the train just in time, but not before hurting her already bothered shoulder. She popped a few ibuprofen with lunch and hopped right back on that travelin’ horse. When we got to Sevilla, we collected our things and hopped off the train. We saw signs for Kansas City Avenue and Katie was very confused until brilliant Rachael remembered that Sevilla and Kansas City are sister cities. Now you know everything!

We made our way out of the train station and used the amazing iPhone to find our way to the hostel. It was a nice hike, but we finally made it. We plan on taking a cab back to the train station! We learned that the hostel has a neat tapas tour that they do where they take you to three different restaurants where you try different tapas and drinks. Sounds like our kind of tour! After we put our things in our room, Rachael grabbed a quick nap before the tour while Katie decided to go exploring. We met back up and freshened up before our tour. We met some new friends on the tour, most notably Natalie and Blaire, a young Australian married couple who are currently living and working in England. We ended up being good buddies with them by the end of the night.

At the first tapas restaurant, we had sangria and lots of unidentifiable but delicious tapas. Our favorite dish was potato slices cooked and slathered with amazing garlic mayonnaise. Talk about yum! The second place we went had two different kinds of sherry, which is a specialty of this region. Our favorite dish at that place was a toss-up between this interesting cheesecake kind of stuff and a really delish tender beef dish. At the third place, we had sangria again and several different seafood dishes. They also served interesting sandwiches with chorizo and cream cheese. At this point, the tapas tour ended but it was also the beginning of the pub crawl. Well, they talked us into it! Blaire and Natalie said they’d at least go to the beginning of the pub crawl so we decided to do the same. It got off to a slow start, but we ended up spending about an hour at 3 different bars before ending up at a discotheque for some crazy Spanish dancing.

We only spent a few minutes at the last place before the four of us split a cab back to the hostel. We made plans to have breakfast together the next morning and then we all went to bed.

XOXO K&R

Pomegranates/ Granada, To-may-to/To-mah-to

Wednesday, April 14

Making it to a city early in the morning by train has its perks and its drawbacks. On the one hand, you’re up and ready to go, on the other hand, you’re exhausted because it’s very difficult to have a full night’s rest on a night train. We stumbled onto the train platform with our bags pretty groggy eyed and made our way to a café for breakfast and COFFEE. After breakfast, we hung out at the train station, researching how to get to Gibraltar and Morocco. We saw that trains were leaving from Granada and figured we could go down to Gibraltar for the day, hop a boat to Morocco (since it’s practically across the street) then come back to Gibraltar and spend the night, then come back up to Granada the next day. Turns out Gibraltar is pretty far from Granada, about a 5 hour journey by bus AND train. There is no direct train line to Gibraltar, you have to take a train to a station within Spain then take a bus the rest of the way to Gibraltar. Looks like that dream won’t be happenin’ folks! We then made it our mission to find a place to stay for the night in Granada. We found some places but were not able to book them, but we did have addresses, so we hopped in a taxi from the train station and went to the first hostel on our list. We got there and the hostel was a hostel no longer. Turns out the hostel had moved. Awesome. We then hiked down to a little park we had passed in our taxi. We left our moms and our bags at a little café and went in search of the Granada Tourism office.

Turns out the tourism office knows a lot! They handed us maps, info sheets with names, prices, locations and ratings for all of the hotels and hostels in the area. We hiked back up to our moms to discuss and research. (THIS IS WHY iPHONES ARE AWESOME). We checked a couple on Trip Advisor and eventually found Hotel Anacapri. We read in one of the reviews that if you say the magic words “We found you in our Rick Steves book” they’ll give you a great discount. It worked! We had some pages from one of Rick Steves’ books left with us. We had sent the bulk of his giant “bible” home and ripped out the pages we needed for our trip back in February. We called up the hotel, said the magic words, and they said to come on down. We walked there from the park, made a reservation then went up to our room for four. We joked that we were getting the penthouse as we were riding up in the elevator. Turns out, it was true! Once we got to the last floor in the elevator, we had to take some stairs up to the very top floor - our room. It was a great little 4 bed room with a sitting area and everything. After dropping our things off, it was time for a nap! So we napped for about an hour then went out to get some lunch and meet Granada. Why, hello, Granada. We’re the Woodmere Gang. Pleasure to meetcha.

After eating, we walked around and eventually made our way to the Cathedral where there was a hop on point for the City Sightseeing Bus Tours. These buses are in every city everywhere and really convenient. You hop on, plug some headphones into your seat and listen to the history of the town and can hop off at any of its stops (always in important, touristy, “you gotta see this” areas). We opted to stay on the whole ride and hop off after hearing all of the history and info about Granada (about 1 ½ hours).

After the bus ride, we hopped off where we started at the Cathedral and did some shoppin’ (always fun with the mommies!) After our shoppin’ we decided to do like the Spanish do and take a siesta! We headed back to the hostel, made a reservation for a Flamenco show, then took a nap. We woke up, showered, got dressed then headed downstairs to meet the person picking us up. Turns out it was also a walking tour! We hopped on our bus and were dropped off in what was formerly the Muslim area of Granada. What makes Granada so interesting is that it went back and forth between the Moors and the Christians for hundreds of years so you have a ton of Muslim, Gypsy, and Christian influences all around the city. We eventually made it to a great lookout point where we could see La Ahambra lit up in the distance. It was pretty cool.

We then went up to the restaurant where the Flamenco dance party was held. It’s located in what was formerly a cave inhabited by Gypsies. We ordered our dinner and sangria and watched in awe as these 4 dancers and 3 musicians took the stage. Although the main volume for the music was up probably a little too high, it was spectacular to hear and watch. The musicians and dancers are constantly moving. If they aren’t clapping, they’re tapping with their feet. It’s elegant and powerful all at the same time and quite a workout! We’ll try to upload a video soon.

After the Flamenco dance party, it was about 12:30am so we headed back to our hotel. We tried researching hostels in Gibralatr again and just couldn’t find anything so then we started to look up places on the coast of Spain like Malaga. We asked the woman at reception if she liked Malaga. She said it was cool, but that Nerja was cooler and had lots of cool caves to check out. Sounds cool! We looked up hostels in Nerja (pronounced “Ner-ha“), found one 3 blocks from the beach, booked it then went to sleep.

XOXO J&K&M&R

What a Gaudieous Day!

Tuesday, April 13

We woke up fairly early Tuesday morning. Our moms grabbed some breakfast and croissants for us from the hostel’s breakfast room and we packed up our bags. We got all of our things together and left them all in the hostel’s luggage area and went out to explore some more of Barcelona. First stop - a Gaudi house!

Gaudi was a BA architect back in his day. He started the Neo-Gothic movement in the early 1900s and his work has inspired several modern artists, most notably Picasso. He was commissioned to design the Sagrada Familia cathedral that we saw the day before (which is still under construction btw) and several parks and buildings around Barcelona. He’s kind of a big deal. At one point, he was asked to design an apartment building. It has now been converted into a museum to showcase all of Gaudi’s work and inspiration. The attic of the building is where there are several displays, models of buildings and cathedrals he designed as well as a collection of inspirational items he used to help define his work. There is also a terrace, full of winding stairs, tunnels and funky chimneys. The scenery looks like it was taken out of a Dr. Seuss book! A couple floors down from there is an apartment that is furnished as it was back in 1912 when the apartment first opened, full of art nouveau furniture and period décor.

The rest of the building is all offices now. After playing a fun game of hide and seek around the museum, we eventually all found each other then headed out to find some lunch. By the time we finished lunch, it was decision time: go see the other Gaudi house-museum and Parc Güell (pronounced: “park way,” a park he designed that is now open to the public) or just the park. We voted to go and see the park because that was our priority in case we didn’t get to anything else. We went to the metro via a little shopping stop and made our way to Parc Güell. When we got off of the metro, we checked our email real quick and received some very sad news: Katie’s dog Nicky had passed away. He was already declining in health but we had hoped that he would be able to stick around in time for Katie to get back. We was a precious and sweet ol’ pup and we will miss him dearly. In the words of Katie’s dad, Terrell, “NickNick was dreaming about chasing bad guys and biting them real hard when his courageous little heart gave out. He was a fearless defender and devoted friend.” We took some time to mourn our loss before slowly making our way up to the park. It’s on a steep hill and is a great lookout point to see all of Barcelona. There were several escalators outdoors next to the sidewalk to make the schlep up to the top easier.

Once at the top, we explored the park and took some great pictures from the different lookout points. If you don’t know anything about Gaudi, you should Google him real quick because he’s designed some pretty crazy (aka awesome) buildings and Parc Güell is another example of his interesting style.

Our train for Granada left at 9:30 in the evening, but we wanted to be back at our hostel around 7pm so that we could get our stuff together and get to the train station in plenty of time to hopefully sweet talk somebody into letting us swap beds with them so that we could all get into at least the same car of the train, if not the same room. We ended up being there way too early and we couldn’t even go through the gate that we needed to pass to get to our platform. Eventually, we talked the guard into letting us pass through but sit in the chairs just on the other side and wait out the remaining 45 minutes or so. We finally got down to the train platform and boarded the train and made our way to our compartments. We were able to swap with one girl so that Marty and Rachael were in the same room but Katie and JL were in separate ones. We were all in the same train car together, though, so all we had to do was open the door to the compartment and go out into the hall to see each other. We weren’t quite ready to crash yet so we decided to rendezvous in the restaurant car to hang out and have dinner before going to bed. The meal there was expensive and sub-par, but we ate it and washed it down with a great red wine called “Sangre de Toro”. That means “blood of the bull” for those non-Spanish speakers out there.

After dinner, we hung out for a little while longer and then headed to our respective sleeping compartments. None of us got much sleep but we did get to Granada at 8:30ish the next morning, so that was cool.

XOXO J&K&M&R

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.

(Sunday, April 11)

We woke up Sunday morning, ate some breakfast, packed up all of our belongings and headed to the train station. Once at the train station, we asked if they had a better idea on how to get to Barcelona from Rome. They said that Milan had a night train every other day of the week to Barcelona and the next one would be leaving on Monday. Well it’s Sunday and we wanna be in Spain already! We booked the next train to Milan and planned on either booking a flight at a reasonable price or taking a train.

We arrived at the Milan train station and went in search of some Wifi. We left some of our bags at a luggage locker and went outside the train station to find a McDonald’s that we were told had free internet. Why do those golden arches keep haunting us!?! We searched and searched and realized that there was no Mickey Dee’s in sight. We walked back to the train station and found a travel agency. Maybe they could point us in the right direction! We told them that we were trying to get to Barcelona today and they found us a flight with really reasonable price. We had learned in the past 48 hours that if you see a good price, you book it without thinking twice because in 5 minutes it could triple in price. So we booked ourselves a 5:30 flight to Barcelona! We bought our tickets and hopped on the next bus from the train station to the airport and got there around 3pm. As soon as we got inside the airport, we repacked some of our luggage so that we would only have to check one bag each (we had bought a suitcase in Florence for some souvenirs and wine).

We got to the check in counter, started to check in only to find that we had never purchased tickets for this flight. WHAAAAT?! We explained to the guy that we had bought our tickets at the train station and he recommended that we go buy more tickets for the flight at a location within the airport because it was possible that we got scammed. After some more phone calls and craziness, we learned that the travel agency where we bought our tickets was legit and their digital booking stuff was on a different system thus causing a delay in the relay of information among computer servers. Confused? So were we! Our buddy at the desk said to wait a bit and the info would eventually come through. So we waited and waited and the info did finally come through. Success! At this point, we only had about 10 minutes before our flight began boarding. We tossed our bags on the conveyor belts, got our boarding passes, and headed to the security check point - that was a mile long. We got in line and waited. We’ve learned that Marty and JL can make quite a ruckus when others cut in line. It made for quite an adventure. When we finally made it through security, our plane was already boarding so Katie ran ahead to make sure that they waited for us. Once the whole Woodmere Gang caught up, out of breath, we boarded the plane, sat down in our seats and took a breather. Once the plane took off, we all took a lil’ nap on the flight.

About an hour later, we landed in Barcelona. We grabbed all of our bags then found a little restaurant in the airport’s waiting area where we sat down and had a very late lunch/early dinner and researched hostels in Barcelona, Granada, Gibraltar and a possible excursion to Morocco. After spending about two hours researching and booking it was about 10pm. We got our belongings together and headed outside to catch a bus to a metro stop near our hostel. The junior Woodmere Gang members, after traveling these past 6 weeks, have developed a habit of following the directions emailed to us from Hostel World, get off at metro stop “blah” and walk around in circles for a bit until we reach street “blah blah” until we reach the hostel. Our mothers, the more refined travelers, insisted upon calling the hostel to ask them where they are and how to find them. But who needs phone calls when you have iPhone GPS?! So we ignored our mothers requests and eventually found the hostel via iPhone, checked into the hostel and researched tours in Barcelona and potential Granada/Gibraltar/Morocco plans. After all of the travel research and craziness we all finally went to sleep.

XOXO J&K&M&R

From Naples to Rome

Friday, April 9

We woke up Friday morning and got a slow start. We went and had breakfast upstairs at our hotel, showered and began packing up all of our bags and goodies. After getting all of our stuff together, we hopped on a bus to take us back down to Sorrento and from there we took the Circumvesuviana train (a metro line between Naples and Sorrento) back to the Naples train station. Once we got there, we got our tickets for the train to Rome and were forced to sit in first class because there were no more regular seats (sweet!). We had about 30 minutes to kill so we went to grab some pizza from a place in the train station that Marty knew of then headed off to our train to grab our seats.

It was about a 3 hour train ride to Rome so we napped, caught up on our bloggin’, showed our moms some pictures, and discussed Spain. We knew that from Rome we needed to be in Barcelona but didn’t know how to get there cheaply and efficiently but knew that we would get there one way or another. Once in Rome, we left the train station and went in search of our hostel. We arrived and found that the owner did not speak a lick of English so Katie got to use her mad Italian skillz. We got to our room and began researching tours in Rome. Katie and Rachael had found some Segway tours that were offered in some cities so we began to look those up only to find that they were not offered in Rome. We did, however, find another tour group called “Rome(ing) Tours” that offered several tours of Rome and Vatican City. Knowing that we only had 2 days in this town, we decided to contact these guys to see what tours we could do with the time we had available. We shot them a quick email then headed out to find the Colosseum.

The Colosseum was within walking distance of our hostel. We took some cute pics and checked to see if it was open for tours - it had just closed 30 minutes before we got there. Nerds! We left there then went off to find the Pantheon and Piazza Navona for dinner. We hopped in a cab and were on our way. Once at the piazza, we walked to the Pantheon (they’re about 3 blocks away from each other). We got there in time to find that it was closed and under construction. Wah-wah. Maybe next time! Our stomachs were starting to get a bit grumbly after this so we headed back up to the Piazza Navona for some grub.

It was packed with artists and tourists and lined with dozens of restaurants. Everywhere you turned were dozens of paintings, sketches, caricatures, and portrait artists. What we’ve noticed about Europe is that when it’s time for dinner, each restaurant has hired a “seller” to stand outside the entrance of each restaurant to entice you to come eat at their place. As you look at the menu and prices, they have about 10 seconds to tell you why their restaurant is better than all of the others. In places like Piazza Navona they all have about the same kind of food for the same price so we went with a guy that could really sell it! After checking out our third or fourth restaurant, the “seller” at Ristorante Navona pulled us aside and gave us his whole presentation and four reasons why his restaurant had the best deal and he promised us prosecco to drink while we thought it over and if we stayed, free limoncello after dinner - free liquor? SOLD! We ended up eating there and it was delicious. While at dinner, Rachael got a call from the “Rome(ing) Tours” company about seeing Rome the next day. We reserved spots for the Vatican Tour that left around 11am and the evening tour of Rome that left around 8pm. This way we could see all of the big things in Rome in one day!

After dinner, Katie spied an artist in the distance doing some fantastic portraits so she headed over there to check on prices and see about getting her own portrait done. After paying for dinner and sipping on our limoncello, Rachael, Marty and JL left to go and find Katie. We found her! She had found the perfect lady to do her portrait and was being drawn as we arrived. JL stayed and waited with Katie while Rachael and Marty headed off to look at some cool Italian art work. They wandered around for a bit then made their way back over to Katie just as the artist was finishing Katie’s portrait. It was beautiful! The four of us then looked around at the different paintings and art work, had some gelato, then eventually made our way to a taxi stand and took a taxi back to our hostel and went to sleep. We were going to see all of Rome in a day and needed our beauty sleep!

XOXO J&K&M&R

Sorrento, Part One

(Sunday, April 4 - Tuesday, April 6)

Happy Easter! We woke up on Easter Sunday and started to make our way toward Sorrento. We hopped on a train to La Spezia then on a train to Rome and from there we took a train to Naples (so technically we were in Rome for Easter). While traveling, we mapped out the rest of our trip. We decided we would look into cancelling our last night in Sorrento so that we could make it to Rome by Wednesday, spend two days there then start making our way to Spain. Woo hoo!

On the train to Naples we met a couple from Utah who were traveling around Italy. They were also bound for Sorrento so once we got to Naples we stayed with them to try to figure out how to get to Sorrento. We had been told Easter Sunday was a good day to travel because there would be less traffic (like Christmas is for Jews and Asians). Well, that proved to be true until we hit Naples. There is a metro line that connects the Naples train station to Sorrento that runs hourly every day - except Easter. So we journeyed outside to find the bus to Sorrento. While searching, Rachael got yelled at by an angry Italian man and our Utah mom had a kid wipe something on her face. We had heard Naples was sketch but didn’t believe it until now! We searched and searched for the bus only to find that it also does not run to Sorrento on Easter and that the next best option would be to catch a bus to the Naples International Airport and catch a bus that leaves for Sorrento at 7:30 pm from there. By this point it was about 3pm so we hopped on a bus and made our way to the airport where we waited. And waited and waited. The bus finally arrived so we hopped aboard and rode to Sorrento. It’s usually an hour bus ride but the traffic was so backed up because of Easter it took about 2 and a half hours!

Katie was a real home sick that day and had been really hoping to find internet all day. This was the first time she was not with her family for Easter so she really wanted to find some internet so that she could Skype with her family and find out what the Easter Bunny brought her. We finally made it to Sorrento and found our hostel. They wouldn’t let us cancel our last night, they had no wifi, but one computer with Skype and a video camera that had been broken earlier that day. We got up to our room and it was tiny. With 2 sets of bunk beds and 2 singles. Katie took the laptop and went in search of some internet so she could Skype her fam while Rachael went to get some dinner. Katie was finally successful. Turns out, the Easter Bunny got us a night at a bed and breakfast in Sorrento for Wednesday night! We were super excited but a little stressed since we had already tried to cancel Wednesday night at our hostel and had made plans to go to Rome that day, but no worries! We would make it work. We were so exhausted after our 12 hour travel day that we went upstairs and went to sleep.

When we woke up Monday morning, we found that our bathroom had no toilet paper and the door to the shower was no longer attached. After traveling for 6 weeks in staying nothing but hostels, this was by far the worse and least accommodating that we had visited yet. That bed and breakfast for Wednesday was starting to sound like heaven! After speaking to the management, we left and went to go and see Pompeii. Monday is also a holiday for all of Italy so the metro to Pompeii was packed! Once we got there, we walked around and explored the ruins for a couple of hours.

We then went to grab some lunch then made our way back to our hostel. We then went to walk around downtown Sorrento, did some window shopping then ate some dinner. We headed back to the hostel and went to sleep. We woke up Tuesday morning and headed to the Isle of Capri. Capri is an island off the coast of Sorrento with some fabulous views of the Mediterranean. We had just missed a boat there so we bought tickets for the next one and went to grab some lunch. It was delish!

We finished lunch just in time to hop on the boat to Capri. In retrospect, that probably was not a good idea to do on a full stomach but we made it there just fine. Once on Capri we walked around for a bit and decided to do a boat tour of the island after our food and our stomachs settled so we hopped on the tram to go up to check out the rest of the island.

We walked around and window shopped up there. Katie found a cool little icing gizmo to help her decorate petits fours. We walked some more then decided it was time for an afternoon cocktail. Katie got herself a margarita and Rachael got herself a strawberry something. It was just what we needed. After our drinkaydrinks we walked around a bit more then headed back down to do a boat tour. We got there just in time to find the last tour returning. Turns out we missed it by about an hour. Oh well. We then decided this would be a good time to check out the beaches on Capri. We walked around and found that there was no sand, just rocks that had been weathered and were so soft from the ocean. It was really cool to listen to the sound of the waves rolling in and out as it moved the rocks - it sounded like a rain stick. Katie then began to find really cool pieces of glass that had been weathered down by the ocean so we made it our mission to find as many as we could! After doing that for awhile, we realized that the second to last boat was leaving soon and that we should try to be on it so we made our way to the pier and hopped aboard. Once back to Sorrento, we hiked back up to the downtown area and had dinner at a great little restaurant. We each ordered iced cappuccinos and enjoyed them so much we decided to eat dinner there too. It was delish! We did some more window shopping and saw tons of art with inlayed wood - apparently it’s kinda big here in Sorrento.

After walking around we headed back to the hostel to do some last minute things on the internet before heading to the bed and breakfast the next day. We found some free internet and Katie skyped her mom, Joy real quick. Turns out JL and Rachael’s mom, Marty, were at Starbucks together getting some coffee. They all chatted for a bit, catching up on the events from the past couple of days and we told them how excited we were about the B&B the next day. After hanging up with them, we continued to check email and stuff. Just before we went to bed, Rachael got a text from her dad saying that Marty's cell phone was not working and that if we needed anything to text him. No problem! We went to sleep and woke up the next day then headed to the bed and breakfast!

XOXO K&R