What a "Yummy Yummy" Life

Lemons from the Island... Some as big as a basketball

This last month has been quite a whirlwind of travel and fun. What I can't believe is already 2 weekends ago,  Natalie, Adair, and I traveled to the Amalfi coast to meet my parents. How spoiled I am to have them visit me twice! I am so glad they did because it was by far my favorite weekend of my abroad experience and can really only be described as "Yummy Yummy".

The weather was absolutely perfect, 80 and sunny. We spent Friday and Saturday on the black beach of Positano, the town where we stayed and my favorite of the different villages there. Our beach time was filled with people watching, delicious lunch breaks for the best eggplant Parmesan I've ever eaten, and of course lemon slushies. And when we weren't on the beach we were in the sandal shops where a little man sat and made custom made sandals all day long... Pretty sure we gave him enough business in one weekend to pay his yearly rent.

Sunday afternoon we traveled to Amalfi and then to Rivello, where we went to hands down the most beautiful hotel I've ever seen to have a drink looking out over the picturesque unbeatable view of the coast. I could not have been happier cheersing a drink with my parents and my roommates on top of the world.

Rivello

As if our drinks weren't enough for the night, we continued on to a family run Trattoria in Rivello where I laughed harder than I have in a long long time. "Auntie Netta", clad in her frilly plaid apron, awful mustard sweater, knee high nude stockings, and a big blue flower in her hair, along with her family loved messing with our table, and of course my dad loved nothing more than to mess right back. After an evening of messing with her as my father refused to eat an artichoke, and her throwing cake onto our table after us turning down dessert saying "You want it you eat it, you don't want it then just don't eat it" my dad felt it necessary to have a picture with Auntie Netta. As my mom struggled to figure out the camera Auntie Netta stood right up close to dad gripping around his waist, squeezing his side saying "Yummy Yummy" over and over again into his ear... lets just say none of us will ever thing of anything as "yummy" the same again.

Yummy Yummy... Look at that grip

As if the trip couldn't get better after that evening we set off to Capri Monday, with the 5 of us in a rubber boat, and a driver who looked about 17 with no chance of saving any of us if we were to drown. The tour around the coast was amazing, as we zoomed wayyy too fast into little caves along the exterior of Capri where the water glowed blue and the electric coral peaked in and out as the waves crashed against the rocks. It was so beautiful.

Rocks of Capri

Our last stop before our final destination in the Capri port was the Blue Grotto where we all 5 climbed in a rickety, way too small for all of us magenta wooden boat to row into the Grotto. As our driver sang at the top of his lungs we all layed down like packed sardines to avoid skinning our heads as we catapulted into the grotto where the water literally glowed blue. It was unreal. Pictures can't even do the image justice.

Blue Grotto

Skeptical of the wooden row boat

Capri was a beautiful jetset island, and very cool to see. Once we hiked up the way longer than anticipated trail in our flip flops to the elevated part of town, we wandered through all the streets packed with people and shops.

Positano

We returned to Positano where we had another beautiful evening of drinking mojito's overlooking the village at sunset and an amazing dinner in beautiful gardens, followed by the happiest moment of the entire weekend....

 Sitting at dinner, Ellie tried to reach dad and I multiple times regarding checking messages on our home phone. After getting in touch with her we learned that she was told by someone from UVa to be expecting a call. We did some research and figured out that waitlist acceptances were starting early, and phone calls would be going out that day!!!.... Well that prompted round one of the tears as we sat at the table in the middle of the restaurant all crying and eager with anticipation, causing a scene. Unable to go up to our rooms we set out to occupy the time until hearing from her. We settled for Music on the Rocks, the club in town to get a drink where we found an empty room with no one but a very out of context family... 2 parents and a break-dancing 3 year old... the perfect setting to lighten our mood/ suspense. We sat with our drinks, phones in hand waiting for Ellie's call when it finally came.... ELLIE GOT INTO UVA!!!!! Instantly we all burst into tears sharing excitement and hugs. It was by far the happiest moment of my semester. I couldn't be more proud of her and happier to say that I go to the same school. She wanted that so badly and I am so fortunate to have been able to have been with my parents to celebrate looking out over the beautiful moonlit Mediterranean sea. I don't think the reality of it has quite set in cause I still almost start crying when I think about it. But regardless it could not have been a more perfect way to end such a wonderful weekend, life just doesn't get more "yummy yummy" than that.

Little celebratory dance by the 3 year old for Ellie!

Ciao!
Mollie