Gardens and Grottos

Well, I don't even know where to start.  My mom came this past week to visit and we spent 2 nights in Ariccia so I could show her around then we went and stayed on the Amalfi Coast (BEAUTIFUL), then we went to Rome! Few things in my life have been such an adrenaline rush as riding in the car with my mom driving around Italy, let alone through the Amalfi Coast.  Terrifying does not even begin to cover it. It was so great and so fun and seeing her just made me wish I could be with my whole family!

This past week we did some of my favorite things since we have arrived in Italy.  Tuesday, we went and did our "practicum placement", which is where we are placed in a professional setting that deals with our field, and we did ours at the Fendi store in Rome.  We got a grand tour of the store, including the "special events and VIP" part, which was really cool.

On Thursday we also went to this beautiful world-famous garden called Ninfa Gardens, which was totally my jam.  For a girl who loves being outside more than anything in the world, this was right up my alley.  It was such a refreshing breath of fresh air from touring monuments and churches in Rome.  All that stuff is fascinating and really cool, but a change of pace was nice.

After Ninfa Gardens, we had a wine tasting at a vineyard that is known for it's totally organic wines, which was amazing.  And our guide was the attractive son of the owner, which wasn't bad either!

This past weekend we went to Positano as a group, which is on the Amalfi Coast.  Besides never having walked up and down that many steps in my life, it was incredible! We took a ferry to the island of Capri and got to go into the famous blue grotto, which was unreal.  For those of you who don't know, the blue grotto is this cave that you can go in on these little row boats and everyone has to lay down in the boat because the opening is so little.  Once inside, the water is neon blue and lit up from the reflection of the sunlight inside the cave.  You are not really supposed to swim in it, but we bribed our guy and jumped in! It was easily one of the top 5 coolest things I have ever done in my entire life!

outside of Capri

That night was one of the girls' 21 birthday, so we celebrated at a club called "Music on the Rocks", which is an extremely posh bar, which drew a different crowd than we have experienced yet.  It was filled with the wealthy vacationing Italians and very upper class older crowd.  This makes sense when you consider that the cover alone was 30 euros, which is the equivalent of about $50 (one of the perks of being in a huge group of American college girls is you get in free everywhere in Italy). The club was in a cave, and it was so much fun!

This week we have some cool stuff planned so be looking forward to hearing about that!