PTM // A day in Capitolo, Italy!

This morning I awoke around 8:15AM after getting quite a bit of sleep. I felt good yet at the same time somewhat tired. I think that when I sleep for too many hours that I’m even more tired when I awake sometimes. I jumped online to check my emails, had another nice breakfast with Marina and we headed off to Capitolo.

When we arrived in Capitolo we were met by Marina’s two friends Luciana, and Lidia. They were really friendly girls that were quick to tell me that they had studied English in the past but have forgotten most of it due to the lack of speaking the language over the last few years. I laughed and Marina explained to them that I don’t know much if any Italian either, so I guess that meant that Marina would be our personal translator for the day!

We all walked down to the beach that is right across the street from Luciana’s house in Capitolo. The beach was absolutely beautiful! The water was clear at the edge, and it then faded out to green and then blue in the distance. I couldn’t wait to jump in! I laid out on my towel for a few minutes before finding the water absolutely irresistible! I swam around in the water for about 25 minutes or so before heading back to my towel.

It was so refreshing, and so great to think that here I am on the east coast of Italy swimming in the Adriatic Sea, soaking up the sun and relaxing while “reality” awaits at home. Why am I so lucky? I don’t want this to end!

After spending a couple of hours at the beach, we headed back to Luciana’s house for lunch. In Italy most people tend to have a nice sized breakfast, a big lunch, and a smaller sized dinner. Today I realized what it was like to eat an Italian lunch! Luciana was a great host and she served up two courses of food for us on the outdoor patio of her house.

The first course was pasta of course! Not your typical pasta and tomato sauce though, it was bow-tie pasta with a creamy alfredo sauce and it had small chunks of ham mixed through it. It was great! Next up was a somewhat typical meal from back home which was roasted chicken breast with roasted potatoes that tasted like they were soaked in the juices from the chicken. Once again, the food was so GOOD!

During lunch we were entertained by Luciana’s brother Giuseppe who spent most of the lunch making jokes about how much he loved food, women, and his muscles. It was too funny. His warped perception of the ideal “hot american woman” was Pamela Anderson. He did not speak English but the one thing he could say in English was “Bay Watch”. I laughed hysterically and informed him that his girl Pam Anderson is actually viewed as trashy these days. He seemed to be disappointed in my statement about his girl but we all had a great laugh!

After our meal we went for a walk down to the beach again to attempt to walk off all of the food that we had just devoured and of course I had to grab a gelato before we headed back to the house. Marina and I headed back to Bari around 4:45PM and arrived back at her home around 5:30 just in time to meet all of her relatives that were visiting today. It was a great time even though I was surrounded by 10 or 12 of Marina’s relatives as they stared and spoke in Italian. Quite intimidating, but they ended up chatting up a storm with me and used poor Marina as the translator once again.

All in all, today was a great day. Another great day in Bari, and another great day on this amazing trip of mine. I’m one more day closer to reuniting with Liz in Croatia, and I couldn’t be more excited to see someone from home again! It’s been about 2 months now and I’m feigning to hang out with someone that I’ve spent months laughing with, joking with, dining out with, and just enjoying life with back home.

Tomorrow I will try to make it out to a town called Castellana Grotte in which there are these amazing caves that you can take a tours of. Until next time…