I promise the rest of the posts from this trip will be full of photos!!
The Adventure Begins...
After traumatizing goodbyes with the kids and a pretty pathetic episode of sobbing into my Crunch Wrap Supreme on the way to the airport, Zack and I checked in at JFK and found ourselves sitting at our gate with more than enough time to spare. It was pretty shocking to see how effortlessly we made it through security without kids and strollers and backpacks and sippy cups. Since Gunner was born I've only flown without the kids a handful of times, and every time I'm shocked by the difference!
We attempted to sleep on the plane, but between Zack's excitement and my lingering pain at leaving the kids behind, we barely slept a wink. I have to admit, I didn't even feel an ounce of excitement until we touched down for our layover in Portugal and by the time we touched down in Rome I was downright giddy. I couldn't believe we were actually here, actually doing this!!
Our plan was to head directly to the Amalfi Coast, so we grabbed our (TINY) rental car and hit the road. Driving in Italy was an experience I'll never forget. And to be clear, when I say I'll never forget driving in Italy, what I actually mean is I'll never forget riding shot gun while Zack drove in Italy.
The freeways were full of tiny cars and mopeds. Even the trucks were miniature. The rare SUV looked ginormous. As we left the city behind, and the Italian country side opened in front of us, I put on my usual road trip playlist, which consists of John Denver, Cat Stevens, and America, which seemed so extremely out of place in this context.
The countryside was as quaint and beautiful as you'd imagine. The hills rolled on forever, dotted with a house or vineyard or two. (why didn't i take any pictures of this?!?)The drive was relatively uneventful until the sun went down and we saw flames climbing the mountain ahead of us. As if I wasn't anxious enough about the windy roads ahead, a car had crashed into the mountain and gone up in the flames. Traffic was stopped in both directions while the tiniest little firetruck maneuvered its way to the crash.
This was just the beginning of the scariest part of our journey. The last 18 miles were... terrifying, to say the least. The roads wound and weaved their way treacherously through the mountains, and eventually to the coast, where they narrowly curled along cliffs, the waves of the Mediterranean crashing below. I thought it probably would have been less scary during the day, but I was wrong.
We pulled up to our hotel just 5 minutes before the hotel restaurant was scheduled to close and literally RAN down so we could eat before bed. (We were STARVING) After we sat down and ordered our appetizer, Zack realized his wallet was missing. He went back to the car and searched while I franticly emptied our backpacks onto our beautiful, white linen table cloth. It was no where to be found. I was sick. I couldn't believe we hadn't even been in the country 24 hours and we'd lost a wallet.
As the appetizer (a tomato and buffalo mozzarella caprese salad, of course) arrived, my phone buzzed with a Facebook message from a stranger. "I found a wallet that I believe belongs to your husband on the street in Amalfi. I'm staying at the Hotel IL Nido... I'm going to turn the wallet over to the front desk." Are you kidding me JOSE??? I could have cried. In our rush into the hotel, Zack must have dropped the wallet, and the nicest stranger imaginable picked it up.
Anyone could have found it. But an honest, kind, man named Jose found it and not only turned it in , but went out of his way to find us on Facebook and make sure it got back to us. I literally cried. You know, you hear a lot of cautions and warnings about traveling overseas. The pick-pockets, the thieves, the scams. Believe me, I'd read up on ALL of them and was more than sufficiently skeptical. But, this experience, in the first few minutes of our trip, really set my heart at peace. And on our first night in Italy, I fell asleep knowing that there are still a lot of really good people in the world.
XX
SD
CLICK HERE to watch my instastory from Day 1.
