Ciao Bella!

Bongiorno from Italia!
This has been an amazing week! This is our 6th day of traveling and our second night in Naples. We stared in Milan last Friday, where Allie and Preston met Katrice, Danielle, and I at the train station at around midnight. The first thing we did in Milan was get gelato, and oh my god was it amazing. Preston took us to this place called Chocolat and I got chocolate (ciccolatte) and banana and it was basically the best gelato ever! We then went to Preston's apartment to drop of our bags and crash after 12 hours of travelling. In the morning, I woke up with about 20 misquito bites all over my arms and face, swell! Preston played tour guide for the day and took us to see Milan's castle, the park, the famous Milano shopping area (filled with stores that I can't even afford to go into), the Duomo (third largest church in the world!), then more gelato and rest at the apartment. We had dinner at this amazing place where you buy one drink for 6€ and get all the food you can eat for free! it was delicious, and all vegetarian! wahoo!
Sunday morning we left Milan and headed to VENIZIA (Venice)! OH. MY. GOD. Venice is simply gorgeous. We got off the train and had a little trouble getting to our hostel since we were trying to avoid paying 6.50€ to take the water bus. But once we got there and got settled in, we started on our sight seeing tour of the city. The view from the hostel was amazing. We were on the big island just south of the mainland and could see all down the coast. The only place we really wanted to see in Venice was the Basilica. So we headed straight to Piazza de S. Marco. The Basilica is amazing. Most churches here have very ornate exteriors, but are not very colorful. The Basilica in Venice is colored with gold and red marble, and the piazza is breathtaking. After that we sort of wandered the Venitian streets, got lost, had some more gelato, ate some fabulous pizza then headed back to the hostel. We woke up to some French students blasting "Low" and being loud at 7:30 in the morning. Fabulous. Then did some more wandering around our island. We met a really nice Canadian couple, sat on a pier looking out over the Mediterrean Sea, infiltrated the Hilton, and pick nicked in a park. The afternoon was spent wandering more of the streets and searching for some Murano glass pendants.
We left Venice on Sunday evening, spent a couple hours at the train station in Balogna with a really creepy homeless man who kept trying to converse with us in Italian. Then jumped on our overnight couchette train to Naples. That was an experience, a good one. At nine we checked into our Naples Hostel "Giovanni's Home."
Giovanni is a middle aged man who runs a hostel out of his apartment. First he gave us a map highlighted with things to see and places to go. Pompeii, was high on the list of things to do so we headed there first. Pompeii is a gorgeous place. I can't believe the city is that old, or that that much is still standing after that much time and that large of a volcanic erruption. We wandered the city, but I think we would have done better if we would have paid the 6€ for an audio guide because after a while the ruins sort of looked all the same, and we had no clue what the things were that we were looking at. We did see one plaster caste of a person caught in the ash, some grafitti (the world's first!), and some beautiful views of Mount Vesuvius and the surrounding areas. On the train back to Naples, we met this Australian couple who are here for 3 months, we chatted for the entire train ride. They gave us some tips on what to do in Rome, and warned us that they tend to check travel tickets in Napoli. They were right. We didnt buy tickets back from Pompeii because noone was checking at the gate, but they were chekcing to get out. We just acted like lost Americans, and they let us go with just buying another ticket, instead of fining us. When we came back we had to nap then Giovanni made penne for dinner and homemade cannoli for dessert! All 19 of the guests sat down and had dinner together. It was so great! I met a woman from Quebec who gave mer her e-mail so that when I visit, she'll help me communicate (The Quebequoise don't speak the same french as les Français). We also met a guy, Todd, from Alberta, Canada whose really cool.
Today we intended to wake up at 7:30 to go to Capri Island, but that did not happen so we spent the day wandering around Naples. But not before Giovanni made us calzones for lunch. The beach is absolutely amazing!! I love the Mediterranean Sea. We spent 4 hours walking the streets and seeing the churches of the city. I never realized Naples was so big! over 1.04 million people in the city limits alone! I have no idea how large it is including the suburbs. For dinner we went to the restaurant where the Calzone was invented with Ben (a guy from Australia), his mom, and Todd. We had the best pizza I've ever eaten in my entire life, great wine, and 1.50€ caffé lattes for dessert!
We've spent most of the night hanging out with the other guests (3 of which are from the states, studying in Lyon) and singing along to Italian songs while Giovanni played the guitar and harmonica. This is definitely not an ordinary hostel. It's an amazing experience completely centered around getting to know the other guests and making friends.
I'm surpised how many of these people are travelling by themselves. One woman was a journalist in D.C. when she decided to sell all of here belongings, her home, quit her job and backpack across Europe for 3 years! 3 YEARS! Can you imagine not having a plan and just going with the flow for 3 years! I admire that in others, but there is no way I could ever do something that drastic. Todd is travelling on his own for 6 months. He is an apprentice electrician back in Canada and just decided he wanted to do something cool for the next half a year of his life. It's pretty inspiring actually. I hope we get to meet more people at the other hostels we go to. It's really been amazing meeting all these people and hearing about their adventures and lives.