The Euro Trip: II

Day 3

Direction: Strasburg to Munich

Well, we had a long road in front of us, and as we were passing into Germany, we soon noticed that there was still snow on the ground. There were lots of forests and it was alot colder too. As we got closer, we saw the BMW headquarters as well as a really big soccor stadium. We got to the center of Munich (see photo)

which is dominated by their Opera House. We took a tour on foot first, through the historical quarter, the most impressive things being the colorful lion statues (the symbol of Munich- seen here)
, a very popular bar where Adolf Hitler gathered with other Nazis (the Munichese drink, a lot. Our guide told us of over four, three-week long beer festivals that occur during the year and when we went to this bar, everyone was drinking from the largest mugs I've ever seen, each holding a liter of beer!),
and the Justice Palace, one of the most famous of Munich's historic buildings.

We also learned that traditional germanic dress stills rules during their festivals and that no Munich official attends a public function without it.


Day 4

Direction: Munich to Salzburg

After having gotten up and eaten etc., we were on the road again, this time headed for Salzburg. The closer we got, the more mountainous and snowy the landscape became,
though as we go within the city limits, things started to get greener (I love these two pictures, the mist and the farms and the mountains...).


Salzburg is a city in a valley, no, a plain bigger than a valley, but still between mountains, with a huge hill in the middle on which sits a large castle and a monistary were the real Maria who inspired the Sound of Music came from. We also saw the fountain were she sings "I Have Confidence" in the film version,
and the cemitary (that was reproduced in a studio) were the Von Trapp family hides from the Nazis,
though we didn't have time to go to the garden were they sang "Do-Re-Mi". We started with a tour on foot (needless to say, we did a lot of walking during the trip) and walked to the historical center. The large town square was the first thing, it has a statue of Mozart (who, by the way, is celebrating his 250th birthday this year) and leads down the main street to the tourist's main street on which lies the house in which Mozart was born.
The house next to his had a sign over it that showed what anyone who has read "The DaVinci Code" would tell you is masonic symbols (Mozart was a Mason too, for more info, check out the connections between "The Magic Flute" and masonery on the internet, or read "The DaVinci Code").
"Mozart" anything (particularly chocolates) is being sold in Salzburg this year, and the city is producing all twenty-two of his operas this year, an amazing feat for a realitively small city. The other really important thing that we saw was the church in Salzburg. This is were the Archbishop of Salzburg (who tried to restrain Mozart's work to Masses and religious music) held his services. The Salzburg Cathedral contains five organs, one large, full-size in the back, and four smaller ones in the four corners of the main hallway.
The guide told us that the Cathedral is a flocking place for music lovers, because each Sunday, Mass is held with a full choir and orchestra and organs, Mozart's Masses being a favorite, though those by other composers being performed as well, for free. There are also many concerts held in the Cathedral all year long.

Ok, gotta stop there for a while, until next time...

The Euro Trip

How to begin? Well, the euro trip is an organized Rotary trip that lots of exchangers take near the end of their year abroad. Ours just occured last week, lasting 12 days. There were 55 students and 5 chaperones on the trip, I think about 35 girls and 20 boys (this is just some basic background info). So now I'll start

DAY 1:
Direction: Paris to Riems

The day started and I took the train to Paris early in the morning to be in Paris at 10:00 am. It took about three hours for everyone to arrive and get ready to go, so they let us go eat lunch before we had started anything. We ate at a pizzeria, and came back for the guided tour of Paris. On our guided tour we saw the main sites of Paris (for many of the exchangers, this was their first time), the most notable points of interest for me was Montmartre (a Quarter were you will find the Sacré Coeur, Moulin Rouge, and lots of painters), the Hotel de Ville or Mayor's Home and Town Hall, which is next to Notre-Dame (a splended building), the Opéra-Bastille (the modern opera house which is rather grey and depressing as far as buildings go), and the Place de la Bastille (were once stood the Bastille Prison, burned by Parisians as one of the first acts of defiance precipitating the French Revolution). The tour included lots of the normal monuments as well, such as the Eiffle-Tower, Notre-Dame, Invalides, Opéra-Garnier, Arc-de-Triomph, Champs-Elysées, etc.

After the tour, we headed out of Paris and drove toword Riems. It took us about two hours and when we had reached the youth hostel we unloaded all of our baggage, arranged rooms, ate and took a quick tour of Riems on foot, the most remarkable monument of which was their Cathedral. Unfortunately, it was too late and it was closed, though it is very pretty from the outside. After we got back, we went to our rooms and slept.

Day 2:
Direction: Riems to Strasburg

The next day, after a quick breakfast, we were on the road to Strasburg. The bus rides in general were not very exciting, so I won't mention them here. We got to Strasburg and ate right away, Emma (a good friend I met on the trip, we hung out the whole time together) and I went and got these hot dogs with sauerkraut that were one and a half feet long each! There is a very beautiful cathedral and a town center with buildings from the Middle Ages and the ancient canals and dams.

Strasburg was a town founded long before Germany became a unified nation and was for the longest time claimed by the French. During the middle of the 1800's, France and Prussia (the largest of the small "nation-states" that would later become Germany) fought over the region containing Strasburg, and thus the Strasburgians changed nationality from French to Prussian, back to French when Prussia surrendered her spoils later on, back to German in WWI, to French afterward, to German in WWII, and finally back to French after the war. Nevertheless, there is certainly a German feel to the town, though most everone speaks French, many Germans come to visit. We also saw the first of what would be many street performers acting as statues that suddenly moved as soon as you dropped coins into their hats. After our tour we went to the hostel, ate, and slept.

Vacation with my sister and Aunt Marty and Grandparents was the bomb! Especially since it was my aunt who brought Bree, so we just did all the stuff we would have always done if we were kids, and took pictures of us doing stupid stuff like round-offs in the hotel hallways, dancing in a fountain, hinding behind these tapistries, playing arcade games, doing just whatever we wanted.

One night, we went to the Saint Chapelle and saw that there was a concert of Mozart's Requiem being held that night, so we got tickets and went! It was so cool, except the solo soprano had a vibrato that made her sound like an extraterrestrial, but oh well, the tenor was good! And then, we were visiting the Opera house, and guess what! they were having the last performance of their 'The Marriage of Figaro' on my birthday! This was also, however, the day of a major-planned strike against the CPE. So we went and asked the guy at the information desk if we could get last minute tickets, and he said come back two hours before the opera begins and line up at the ticket booth for the tickets, but he wasn't certain if the performance would be cancelled or not because of the strikes. Well, we came back Tuesday, and there wasn't a big line or anything, and the opera was still on, so we asked if there where any tickets left, and the guy was like, I have four at 130 euros each. AH! Too expensive, so we asked if there where any other tickets like for those who want to stand or no visibility seats, and he said, "Yeah, I've got no-visibility seats at 7 euros each, but it's certain that you're not going to see the stage" so I told Marty and Bree this, and that "you know it's a common practice to go get seats that aren't filled during intermission!" (and plus 7 euros is worth just hearing the opera!!!! and being at the Opéra-Garnier for an opera (they don't even produce them often at the Palais-Garnier, most operas go to the modern Opéra-Bastille, so when there is one, everyone buys tickets in advance cause the Opéra-Garnier is the prettier of the two) and so we bought them.

The tickets were third level, box six on the side, last three seats, which meant you saw the wall instead of the stage, but at intermission, we went down to the orchestra level and found empty seats. So, we were sitting in the 130 euro seats anyway! Audience participation was very interresting; at some parts the audience booed or cheered and screamed "bravo, brava" depending on what they thought of the performance. The producers had added a short song in French that is not in Mozart's opera, and though it was very funny, if you understood, there were some people who started yelling "Get back to the opera!" and "Get on with the show!" and things of that sort, while everyone else was laughing and/or applauding (cause it was a funny song). They are very opinionated I suppose, and speak their mind. Well, after the opera, we had a few problems, the metro lined that we had to take out of Paris and back to the hotel was closed because of rioting, and there is only one line, so I said lets take the bus around the riots (place de la bastille) and see if the line isn't running on the other side. Well, it was so late, that only the nite buses where running, and so they don't come often enough to have gotten to the other side of paris before the metro closes (and plus from the metro station at disney we would have had to take a cab to the hotel) so we checked out the schedule for the night buses, and there was one that went out, but not all the way, to our hotel, at 2:25 am, so we waited about an hour and a half outside with a bunch of strange people, and took it and rode it to the end of the line.

We got off, looked around, there were some hotels, so we walked (it was freezing cold) and asked the guy on duty if he could call us a cab or let us in from the cold, and he was like 'I don't have the right to do that' so we walked toward another hotel (all of these things where very spread out buy the way) and we found a 24 hour pharmacy, we asked the guy if he could call a cab or the police and he was like 'they aren't going to come out here for that' and he wouldn't let us in either, and so we walked to another hotel, and we looked in the windows at the lobby, and we didn't see anything, but then Bree saw a lady on night shift, and she runs up to the window waving her arms and yelling, the poor lady almost had a heart attack. We told her that we were lost and cold and needed a cab, so she let us in and she called a cab. We took the cab all the way back to the hotel and were in bed at about 4:00 am. What a night!

Other than that, one of the things that stood out in my memory was our trip to Omaha Beach and the American Cemitary with Grandma and Grandpa. It is a really pretty garden with trees and a small chapel and a monument to all who fought that had a belfry that whould chime the hour and then start playing patriotic tunes. When we went to Omaha Beach, there was also a Frenchman that came up to Grandpa and asked if he was an American and if he had fought in the war. When Grandpa responded in the affirmative, the monsieur thanked him for having done so and shook his hand. It was really moving.

A big humungous thank you to Aunt Marty for making everything possible and bringing Bree over and to Grandma for having arranged for the rental car. I am so glad to have seen you guys!

Tara

Happy New Year, Happy Birthday Mozart!

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote, changing families, Christmas, New Years, school, Rotary, meals, it all adds up to pretty full days. which is good, but not conductive to writing. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas break, mine was full of food, wine, families and more food, wine, cheese, it was good, though I missed being at grandma's house, with grandma's cooking, and the family, nothing can beat that. By the way, a big thanks to the people who bought me "The Guide to Real Ultimate Power" by that wacky Ninja kid (aka, Carney, Mrs. Carney, Caa$, Kat, Mandy, Sonal, Alyssa, Nathan, Chris, I don't know who else had a part or signed it, but I can say that the day I got the package from Dad and saw that book inside and started to read the inscriptions, I burst into laughter [that kind my sis and I call "The Giggles" where you just can't stop laughing histerically for no good reason at all] and after I had stoped, had to try to explain what a black, ninja book was making me laugh, and of course, he can't read it, as it's in English and full of expressions only Americans would get, so I just said it was a joke between my friends and I) I'd also like to thank those who warned me not to read it, though something so close to home couldn't go unread for longer than an hour.
Thanks also to Mom and Dad, for sending me the books, socks, the exchange, etc. and to Grandma and Grandpa for everything, the chai was a big hit with Anne, my new host mom, who also liked the Holiday spicy tea you sent (me too). Thanks to Bree for the e-mails, keep 'im coming, and to anyone else who had anything else to do with anything (my intro is like something from the Oscars).

So what have I been doing? Well, going all the way back to a week before Christmas break, I moved in with my second host family, Anne and Dominique Menez, son, Valentin, 15, daughter, Justine, 13. I barely had time to move in before I was going to the Garnier Opera House in Paris with a Canadian exchanger for "Demonstrations of the Danse School" basically all the students perform little skits, but the coolest thing of all was after the performance when she and I went to box 5 and asked a lady if we could see inside, she confused as to why we would want to, said yes all the same and unlocked it for us (phantom fans, I checked the collumn beside the box and it was unfortunately pretty firm).

I went to Dunkerque again, and we went dancing at a Folk dance ball, which was really cool cause it was like old times, there was a good mix of old and young, everyone was really friendly, and I got asked to danse so much I didn't sit down for more than two dances in a row. The dances were easy to follow even if you'd never danced them before, the only bad thing about the whole night was that at midnight it was over, and I was still good for another two hours! The next day, the family that we stayed with (the same as the last time we went to Belgium, Jean's cousin) was so nice, they gave me a book, in french, called "My life with Mozart" by Eric-Emmanuel Schimt that is a story about a suicidal kid who discovers the music of Mozart and decides that life is worth living. There's a cd that comes with the book, and on it is the "Aria of Barbarina" a pretty song, so I asked Jean-Marc, singing teacher, if we could study it, so he got the sheet music, and it's a cool piece.

Others things planned:
Joined a choir with Anne's dad. They're really nice.
Going to take part in a show at a Chateau with a bunch of other people
Skiing to the Alps with the Rotary Feb. 11
Grandparents coming some time in March
Euro trip the 10th of April
Parents coming in May

Tomorrow is Mozart's 250th Birthday, woo hoo!

More later, we're going to eat dinner soon.

Trip to Belgium, Amsterdam, and a lesson about the French

Ok, this is adapted from an e-mail to my Dad, but I don't have the time to brush up the point of view it's written in and I'll add little things here and there as clarification when needed.


We spent 3 days in Brugge and on our way, stopped at a fry stand and had some Belgium fries. They were, of course, really good and salty, and from the stand we had the good luck of being able to see the English coast (doesn't happen very often as it's clowdy), the white cliffs of Dover which are literaly white cliffs. That afternoon, we walked around Brugge, a very cute and quaint town, with canals and little houses etc. That night, we ate with Jean's cousin's family (Jean is the Rotarian who took me on this vacation, with his wife Cathrine) at a restaurant called "Mozarthuis" (literaly"Mozart's house"-did I mention they speak Flemish here and I actually felt like a lost tourist?) which proudly displayed busts of Mozart and other composers; who had dishes named "Beethoven salad" "Mozart salad" "Chopin salad" "Vivaldisalad" etc. but; who played "Carmen" (an Opera by Bizet, I find it has a lot of melody...) on the radio rather than any work byMozart. Strange. The food was good though, and many of the dishes were of aspecial kind in that you recieve uncooked meat and then cook it on a hot stone they put in the center of the table. Interesting but I prefered to have mussels (I've fallen in love with them, warm in a cream sauce, yum!).

Next day visited Dunekirk and it was really cold and rainy, but we walked along the beach, and in the morning, went to a store for shoes (did I mention I lost my tennis shoes in Italy?) and I found a replacement pair for 25 euro, and, more importantly, books in English! I bought four, "Jane Eyre" by Charolotte Bronte, "Emma" by Jane Austen, "Angels and Deamons" by Dan Brown, and the 4th Harry Potter (did you know that the film doesn't come out in France until December!). I also found in Amsterdam, three more books, the Diary of Anne Frank, "The White Lioness" which Jean had read in French and recommended to me, and "Pompeii" by David (or Daniel- I don't remember) Harris, suggested by our guide in Italy as a good read. I have devoured Jane Eyre, and only have a few pages left, I love it!

Next day we drove to Amsterdam, and visited the museum which houses an amazing collection of Rembrant and Vermeer paintings (they were so pretty in real life and full of such color!), after which we walked around (you must be very careful in Amsterdam, cars are charged a high rate to enter the city, and thus most people bike. There are separate roads for the bikes, which turn a simple four-way intersection into an eight-way intersection, and the bikers are hardly simpathetic to pedestrians) and ate. It was dark and late, and I was happy to get back to the hotel, as the rather obvious and impossible to overlook the presence of the legality of canabis made me rather nervous. Most of the tourist shops have socks, hats, scarfs, key rings, pipes, seeds, leaves, suckers (they actually put it in candy form), etc. and it gave the whole city a scandelous and immoral atmosphere.

The next day we took a canal tour (Amsterdam also has many canals) and stopped at the Van Gogh museum (he was born there) which successfully increased my appreciation for his art style. We then walked to Anne Frank's house, and the accompaning museum. It was very small, and I can't imagine living in the small apartment for more than a few days. We then hopped back on the canal bus and, as we had nothing planned to do, I asked if we could return to the Hotel a little earlier tonight (as I had not at all enjoyed being out at 11the night before-not that we were in actual danger- I think I was over-reacting,but all the same, I was much happier at the hotel).

The next day, we set out from the hotel, at which point Cathrine had to return because she left her watch after we had already gone a few stops on the metro, and we finally got off on the road close to lunch. Being near lunch time, we stopped in a little town, not far off, called "Gouda" where they make the famous Gouda cheese. It was a cute town, not too small, but all the same not too big, and we ate lunch at a lovely little restaurant. After that, we drove and drove and drove, I reading until the sun left us, and eventually arrived backhome. I was very tired of travelling, and luckily, though this is in no way against Jean and Cathrine, I am rather glad to have our plans to go to the Loire valley tomorrow upset by Didia's planning to go to Disneyland on Saturday.

Yesterday night, I arrived home to a package from Mom and a letter from Grandma. I opened Mom's package while everone was talking, and I, as well as everyone else in the room, was surprised to see toilet paper [I told her that the toilets in our school rarely have toilet paper in them], pj's, slippers, wonderfully soft socks, gloves, a scarf (both perfect, as it has started to get farely cold here), hand sanitizer (a necessity, I have learned, in Europe, if you wish to keep your American standard of sanitization thank you!!), and candy from Holloween. I did, however, have to sit through dinner afterwards, in which all of the family members made remarks about how you guys would next senda bathroom to go with the toilet paper. This discussion was cut short, however, by the growing subject of handsome men (started by Frederique and Cathrine, inthe presence of their husbands, who, likewise, started talking about women they liked) and eventually they got on the subject of the mostly-nude calender that the Men's French Rugby team does each year, which seems to be a popular gift from husbands to French (married) women. Frederique went to fetch her's, I complained, they told me I was being silly (and, consiquently, started discussing the "strange" Protestant views on taboo-ing subjects,) and claiming that it was "just natural". I protested that I was liberal compared to some and shut my mouth, but they weresoon calling me out to pass judgement on certain photos (thank God they weren'ttotally nude, a rugby ball stratigically placed replaced clothing) themselves commenting (again, in front of their husbands, with no restraint, no apology, and, with no apparent ill-will on either side) on this feature or that one. As a final and undisputable contest, I said, not loudly to interupt the women's discussion, rather for myself, that "To me, all the value of a man rests in his head and heart" to which the men nodded and the women did respond (I doubt they heard me).

It's important to remember that through out the world there are different view points and different ideas on what subjects one can talk about. Here, most everything is up for conversation. That doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong. Just a little lesson in the differences between French and American view points!

Photos from Italy

Naples

Jean and I in Pompeii

Capri...

...Capri...

...more Capri...

...and more Capri.

with Jean and Catherine

My first trip out of France: Italy

So, the Rotarians here are really nice. Ok, maybe that's an understatement, because "nice" doesn't really express the wonder with which I received their invitation to go to Italy with them for 5 days (the word invitation here means without paying)! Oh how I love Italy!

Our itinerary included a climb of Mt. Vesuvius (the one that covered Pompeii in ash and Herculanium in lava, perfectly preserving two ancient Roman cities, an unprecedented, archeological treasure!), the Museum of Natural History in Naples, the beautiful island of Capri, a guided tour of the Gold Coast, guided tour of Pompeii, and a quick guided bus-tour of Naples.

Italy:
Italy is awesome. I took it upon myself to learn a few words in Italian (mainly, Buongiorno, Hello; Buonasera, Good Evening; Quanto costa? How much? (though this can get you in trouble as it's no good knowing how to ask how much something is if you don't understand the numbers that follow in the response, so it's sometimes better to ask in English); Gratzie, thank you; Va bene which can be "That's good" as in "That's enough, thanks" or "I'm doing well"; Arrive Derci, Goodbye; and, most importantly, 'Una cioccolata, por favore.' or "I'd like a hot chocolate, please" and considering that Italian hot chocolate is literaly melted chocolate in a tea cup, -oh, so good!-it's a good phrase to know) and it's amazing how they warm up to you and go crazy (in a good way) if you just know a little. In fact, I think that all people feel that way (the French certainly do). It's a sign of respect to learn how to address them in their own language, and it helps dispel all of the 'ignorant and arrogant American' stereotypes. I was therefore surprise when the French declined (though possesing the knowledge thereof) to address any Italians in Italian, but prefered to continue in French. They also seemed critical of the breakfast served (the French, in general, are much more likely to speak their mind than give you the answer you want, a wife who asks her husband the classic "Does this make me look fat?" is probably going to get the truth; so when the bread, and I had to agree, wasn't of the same quality as French bread, and the coffee was stronger than French coffee, they were irritated). By the way, a "café" in France is a very concentrated coffee (an "espresso"?) in a tiny cup (I don't know how they drink it, I have problems drinking coffee in the States (the French Rotarians are always saying that drinking American coffee is like drinking water) and here I've only tried it twice, each time putting liberal amounts of milk and two packets of sugar and still I can't drink it all, I'm afraid I'll be sick afterwards) and the coffee in Italy is even stronger and you get even less (Far too strong, Italian coffee, the French said). Italian servers are also much more friendly and open than their French counterparts, chattering away in Italian etc. I found that the whole trip was worth just seeing the people. The weather is a lot better in Italy than here, it was a nice, 70° the whole trip, sunny, no rain, and there were tropical palms and olive trees everywhere. Italy itself is beautiful. As I soon found out, the entire Italian peninsula is a mountain range that juts out of the Mediterranean Sea, at perilous hights! We were staying at a hotel in Sorrento, a city just a few miles from Naples, but a whole lot safer, and to get into Sorrento, there is one, two-lane road in and out, that balances in between the coast and the mountains. Considering the traffic trying to flow through Sorrento, and the fact that there was only one lane, it took our bus an hour to move from the outskirts to the inner city (and it's not that big). Later in the trip, when we were touring the Gold Coast, the road was about the same, except that this time the road wound in and out of the mountains so much that our bus had to sometimes advance and reverse multiple times to get around a corner, and it was really bad when we met another bus along the way, only one could pass at a time. There are millons of scooters (an invention of the Italians) all over the cities and towns, that zoom in between cars, buses, and pedestrians, so be careful while you're walking. There were about 45 people in our group from three different clubs on our trip, just for your information.

Naples:
Naples is pretty dirty, with trash, clothes on lines, and homeless people everywhere, street venders selling cheap imitations of Gucci handbags and belts, not to mention dangerous with pickpocketers, but I loved it all the same. There are lots of beautiful churches to visit, plenty of little cafés to explore, pizza and pasta to be eaten (Oh my gosh is it good! Pizza in Italy comes as one for each person, (it's plenty big) with anything you could possibly want, from seafood to pruscetto to olives and it was born in Naples! And the pasta was exquisite as well, served al dente, or to the point were one would think it's not quite done, that is to say, still a little stiff). Tiramisu is another popular Italian dish, and is not exactly as I thought it would be. Tiramisu is a desert made of a light, whipped ice cream (vanilla flavor) with a biscuit and chocolate in the middle with powered coffee flavored chocolate on top, served in a bowl. It can also be a kind of layered cake with biscuits, ice cream, and powered chocolate. Either way, it's really good. Naples also has museums, most centered around the archeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum (unfortunately, if you're not European, or don't have a European passport, you don't get in for free and it'll cost you 9 Euros to get in [did you know that there is no Euro symbol on French keyboards? The keys aren't all the same either]).

Mt. Vesuvius:
The first day was spent settling in, and on the second day, Patrick (the president of the Bernay Rotary Club), his wife Nadia, their son, Melville, Fabian (a Rotarian), and I took a bus from Herculaneum to Mt. Vesuvius, and from there walked to the summit; about a twenty-minute walk. It was really pretty on top. Clouds everywhere, sunshine, and the volcano was still smoking a little bit. Unfortunately, because of all the clouds/smog around Naples, one can rarely see Mt.Vesuvius from the ground, nor Naples (or the sea) from Mt. Vesuvius. But you can see a the peaks of a few mountains popping up out of the clouds next to the volcano. There are lava slides, a huge crater, and a magnificent view. The rest of the day was spent eating lunch (pizza, so good!), getting lost on our way to the Natural History Museum, and, once we got there, speeding through the galleries as we had to get on the bus before 5:30 and it was already 4:30.

Capri:
Capri is an island not far from Naples, so on our third day we took a ferry to its beautiful shores (not kidding, check out the pictures!). The whole island is made up of gigantic mountains that shoot straight up out of the water and create a most amazing sight. Many times throughout our daytrip to Capri, the Rotarians would suddenly break out into song singing "Capri, c'est fini..." ("Capri, it's over...") and I was told that it was a song about Capri and a love that begins and ends on the island, well-known by the French, but that the author of the song had never visited Capri, yet chose the island's name because it rhymes with "fini" (pronounced "fee-nee"). He is now an honorary citizen of Capri. The whole island is supported by tourism, I'm sure, and it's not hard to see why. There are also a lot of up-scale boutiques like "Hugo Boss," "Prada," and "Gucci" in the town, lots of pretty jewelry etc. We ate all together at a restaurant called "Luna" and I managed to try everything, even the calamari (squid) that had been breaded and fried like onion rings, and the pasta containing shrimp, mussels (I actually really like mussels, in a hot, cream sauce, yum!), and the little tentacles of some kind of octopus or squid (needless to say, I pushed these to the side of my plate). We then visited the home of an Englishman who built his home on Capri (there's a book about it) in the 1800's and there is an Egyptian sphinx there that overlooks Capri, and it's said that if you touch it and make a wish it'll come true (if I had a dime for every time I've heard that!) but the rest of the house was really cool, with gardens, courtyard, house, etc. all built on the cliffside overlooking the island and sea. From the top, we could also see a football game being played down in the village.

*I'll publish this for now. More later...*