Part II-No More Cheeze Pleaze!!

Never thought I'd say those words considering cheese is my drunk food of choice, but after this weekend it was true.

The only thing we were really told about our trip to Cilento was that we'd be eating a lot which was all I needed to know to get excited for it. I'm still unsure what Cilento is, its bigger than a city but smaller than a region...perhaps its a province? Regardless it was about a 4 hour nap coach bus ride from Roma.

First stop was a farm, naturally. There was also a bunch of little bambini there for some school field trip (we obviously go on very intellectually stimulating trips) and we all ate our lunch outside while some of girls eye flirted with the bambinos. Lunch was pasta, pizza and lots of cheese. Like huge balls of mozarella di bufala ate by themselves. I was loving it at the time, little did I know I wouldn't be able to look at it by the end of the trip without gagging.

After lunch we went to see some vines of like an extinct grape or something? I wasn't really paying attention, I just wanted to see the little bufala cows!!

hi dood

give me your cheeze

After farm time, we went to a port where the fishermen showed us all the sea creatures they caught that morning.

We quickly stopped at our hotel to drop off our bags before going out to one of the strangest dinners of my life. Of course one of the first things they brought us to eat were giant plates of our own personal balls of mozzarella.

soo much cheese

Shortly after a thing of pizza dough landed on the table...that's when I knew this night was going to be interesting. The owner came out and greeted us by throwing another thing of pizza dough at our table which knocked over Amy's coke glass, yet that didn't stop us from playing with it.

maturity

Our waiters kept bringing out the bottles of wine so our glasses were never empty. The owner came out again this time with a micrphone to begin karaoke, naturally. He began singing some of our fave Italian songs like "Cantare Volare". He eventually worked his way up to the Bocelli classic "Time to Say Goodbye", I felt like I was at the Catalina Wine Mixer or something. 

In the meantime there's like a bunch of these 12 year old Italian girls there for a birthday party and they start talking to us about America and telling us about their English test the next day. I felt bad because we were increasingly getting more and more intoxicated. At one point our program director told the waiters to stop bringing us wine, but being the cool dudes they were they kept on sneaking them out to us. 

two of my favorites at dinner!

After more wine and karaoke it was time to head back and go to bed for our 7am wake up call. The next morning we went to another bufala farm, where we surprise were given more cheese to eat. My digestive system was getting pretty out of whack already. 

Then we got a tour of the cows houses and it was like 10x cooler than the first farm. It was like the Beverly Hills of cow farms. They had like automated gates and milking machines, microchips in the the cows, and even a spa! Apparently the Queen of England requested mozzarella from this farm, maybe they'll serve some at the royal wedding?!!?

getting his brush on

Later in the day we went to a tiny little town for our independent lunch of the trip. Some of us wandered into a small little store that made sandwiches. After finally communicating our sandwiches orders the two Italian woman wanted to give us a gift. Take a wild guess as to what is was. If you guessed more mozzarella you were right! They were so excited and told us about how it was famous in that area (really I had no clue). Not wanting to be rude we took a few bites in there and brought the rest outside to the rest of our groups who all looked at it in disgust. 

Another activity that day was a trip to the Greek ruins of Paestum. They had a bunch of temples there that date back to 500 BC!!!!!!! Even older than all the old stuff in Roma. During our tour we saw probably one of the best posing with friends opportunities ever of this lady sprawled out like she was dying in front of a temple. Unfortunately we were in the middle of listening to the old man tour guide telling us stories in indecipherable English so we couldn't take the picture but we did reenact it.

That night was dinner at a pizza factory and out for our friend's 21st birthday. We raged in one of the only bars in Eboli and I enjoyed some super cheap tequila shots which I had been missing a lot. It was a really fun night but the 7am wake up call again the next day was not. 

Sunday we hit up some gardens, walked around Salerno, went to the beach, got lunch (more pizza of course) and headed back to Rome to meet up with Rojek, Breanne and Pow Pow! And so began Chi O pilgrimage to Rome for Holy Week. More to come on that later!!