Southern Italy: The Amalfi Coast

The Bus Ride
The entire coastline from Sorento to Salerno (30 miles) is a jagged sheer cliff that shoots about 500 feet out of the Mediterrainian Sea with colorful houses crammed into the steep hills above the cliff. The road that connects the cramped little towns is an engineering feat. As the road snakes along the edge of the cliff we could peer out of the bus window to see only a foot or two between the bus wheel and the waves crashing against the rock wall. It was funny to hear the woman behind us complain to her husband about how crazy the driver was.

Real Italy
I went for a swim out to a big rock on a small beach near one of the cities on the coast. After the climb back up the cliff to the city, I got a real Italian lemon ice the hit the spot perfectly. Sitting on the ledge above the Bay of Naples I watched a docile Mt. Vesevius darken as the sun went down. To finish off the quintecential Italian experience Andrew and I had pizza from a brick oven heated with wood in the area that pizza was invented. It was in this area that cheese, tomato and oregeno (the colors on the Italian flag) were put on some dough and called pizza as it was served to someone named Magarieta.

Ruins
We visited Pompeii where in 79AD the busteling town was covered in ash preserving a snapshot into what life was like then. It was incredible. I will post a few pictures.
The Roman ruins in Pasteum were great as well and worth the train ride down.

Our Trip So Far
Andrew and I have visited 8 countries so far:

• England
• Republic of Ireland
• The Netherlands
• Belgium
• France
• Spain
• Switzerland
• Italy

We plan to visit the following 7 countries before our whirlwind Euro trip finishes:

• Austria
• Czech Repulic
• Germany
• Denmark
• Norway
• Sweden
• Finland

Tomorrow Andrew and I will meet Betsy and Maleah in Rome for 3 days. Then Betsy, Andrew and I will head up to Venice before leaving Italy.

The First Temple Outside N. America: Bern Switzerland

Temple Housing

We arrived in Bern last night and as we sat in the train station thinking of places we could lay our heads for the night, we decided to give the temple housing a call. Turned out we wouldnt have to hike around for hours looking for a place to camp where we wouldn't be found (by police or some dude more scragily than ourselves).

We got a nice place to stay and meet some cool people from Marseille and Italy. The Marseille family actually fed me because I was asking for directions to a place to eat after all the stores had closed in the little town that the temple is in. As luck would have it, we lost our beds because of miscommunication and had to sleep on the floor, but they gave us our money back, so we were happy about it. We turned around and lost close to the same amount when we dropped the 20 bones for temple clothing the next morning, though.

The Bern Temple

This place is rad! We all had a really good experience here. The temple is in a small town outside of Bern in the midst of small homes. Walking up to the ungated temple there were birds chriping, the sun was shining, and there was the smell of fresh bread cooking as we walked the 5 minutes to get there from the Zollikofen train stop.

We had some time before doing temple work, so the Temple president invited us into his office despite our unkept and shaggy appearance (only one tie between the three of us). He told us a lot of cool history behind the first temple outside North America. Also, it turned out that he was my stake president back in MI up until the early 90s and he knows my mom and dad...small world!

While thinking about how small the world is...I ran into a guy that took a couple Korean classes with me while entering the Picasso meuseum in Barcelona.

Climbing on things...and getting repremanded

So...I enjoy climbing on top of things much like goats like to do.

Here are a few pictures of me climbing on some things in Europe where I did not get scolded by some police officer.

Driving Like Jason Bourne to D-Day Beaches

We decided to rent a car from Caen, Fr to get to the beaches where D-Day happened on June 6, 1944. It was a somber and educational experience. We spent a couple hours walking along the beach, through cemetary and in the museum pondering the events of that important day when so many men lost their lives fighting for freedom, safety and peace. While there, I began imagining allied troops storming up the hill in the midst of gunfire as their friends fall next to them.

One of the perks of this trip was that we had to rent a car. It was a tiny little french car--and a good thing it was tiny because some of the towns we drove through left no room for error as they snaked in between stone homes 10 feet apart.

Here is a video of Andrew passing some slower traffic... using a bike path.