Days 36 - 38 Sperlonga

The study abroad officially ended with BYU on Thursday, 3 Jun 2010. Friday (Day 36), I went to a few more sites in Rome, then Ryan, Carson and I took the train down to Sperlonga (but not before leaving most of our stuff with Denis, a friend of a friend of Carson. When we made it to Sperlonga public transporation had ceased to go from the train station to the beach, so we slept in the train station that night. Before we dozed off, we met Susana, a middle aged German woman on vacation. She offered to split a taxi, but we declined.

Saturday (37) we took the bus down to the beach and set about doing nothing. When we got there the place was empty, but by around 1:00 it was hopping with people. As the day wore on, we walked around the hill town and discovered lemons and aloe vera. we got some food at a local grocery store and set about having a pic-nic on the beach. Susana came walking by and she invited us to meet her friends. We waited till we were finished, done watching the gorgeous sunset, then headed over to meet her friends, two other middle aged Germans also on vacation, and the nicest people ever. We all went for some Gellato and sat around and talked for a bit when they invited us to crash at their flat for the night. Miss a night in a flat on the top of a tower in an Italian hill town? I dont think so! We all went back and snacked on some unbelievable local olives, meats, and artichokes in their flat before crashing in their extra beds.

Sunday (38) we realized there was no LDS church where we were, so we read some scriptures...and built a bamboo hut! The Italians all looked at us like we were crazy (and we probably were). We found bamboo in the hills behind the beach, and using some string, palm leaves, a knife, blankets, and an extra speedo we found as a flag, we made ourselves a nice little hut to hang out it. We also harvested some lemons and useing some sugar we made ourselves some lemon drinks by smashing up the lemon with a knife, adding some sugar, letting it stew for a bit, then drinking it straight out of the lemon. Oh man it was delicious! I proceeded to get a wicked sun burn from swimming in the mediteranian and could not hold anything on my back for a few days (thats when the natural aloe vera came in handy...they wanted 17 euros for a bottle of Aloe Vera in Rome...H*** NO!)