buon giorno!

hello friends and family. so sorry that it has taken me this long to post anything on here. we have had no internet connection

until now

(this was our hotel in rome)

Day 1: today started out all right. My sister, my mother, and I never went to sleep that night. We thought we were smart thinking we would adjust to the time change quicker than everyone else and avoid jetlag. But that’s not how it turned out. We leftat 4:30am and drove to the Sacramento airport. Soon we took off for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania around 9am. Unfortunately, Philadelphia was having some weather so we had to land in Pittsburg. We spent about 2 hours on the plane waiting for our turn to take flight while the air was clear for a short amount of time. But that never happened. Instead our plane was dismissed to the airport where we waited for about 3 hours. During those 3 hours, all the kids walked backwards, and forwards on the people movers. Finally we departed for Philadelphia at

12am east coast time. Of course we missed our flight to Rome, so we stayed the night in Philly. We got to our hotel rooms at 2am.

Day 2: 11am came extremely quickly and we all rushed out of our hotel rooms to check out and jump in some taxis. Oh, and mean while our luggage was either in Rome, or at the airport in a vault. No one could tell us which one. So imagine 12 people with all their carryons, going on historic tours, and having to have our bags searched at every new tour we went on. It took 100 years to do anything. But we got to see the Liberty Bell, the LOVE sculpture, a giant clothespin, the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed, the steps that Rocky ran up and Philly Cheese steaks. So it wasn’t that bad. Finally we boarded our plane to Rome at 6pm and arrived here at 9am. Everyone got their suitcases except for Allison, Sophia, and I and we found out that Allison’s suitcase were in Frankfurt, Germany. When we got through customs, we all got in taxi vans and traveled to our hotel. The taxi drive

r I had barely spoke English but we kept a conversation, barely, and he explained the old buildings we were seeing. It was a fun experience. As soon as we arrived and got in our hotel rooms, we all crashed. We had a tour of the Coliseum but only three people went on the tour. Everyone else wasn’t functioning. After they got back we all went and walked around town, found a gelato and wandered around in the humid night air. It is now 10:42pm here and 1:42pm at home, and we are all going to bed. Goodnight everyone

Day 3: This morning we woke up at 5:00 am because we could no longer sleep. Of course the day before everyone took 2-hour naps so that screwed us up a little bit. We went down for breakfast at 7 and it was really good buffet. Allison’s suitcase arrived this morning, but we still don’t know where the other 2 are. Today we went on a walking tour of the Vatican and Sistine Chapel and it was glorious. And extremely hot. Our tour guide was a lovely Italian lady named Vali who was extremely informative in everything. That tour was about 3 or 4 hours long but it was totally worth it. After the tour we did some souvenir shopping and headed back to our hotel for a nap of course. Then we went on the hunt for some gelato and the Spanish steps and the Fountain of Trevi later on. All of these places were extr

emely crowded with tons of street salesmen shoving roses and children’s toys in your face claiming they’re gifts but they still want a small fee. I am very thankful to have my uncle here because of his tallness and his ability to make angry faces at everyone so they wont mess with us. After we visited the Fountain of Trevi we went to a nice dinner and ate THE best Italian food I have had so far. (Besides aunt honeys) Now we are back at our hotel room and it is 11:54. We are extremelytired and giddy. Goodnight everyone.

Day 4: today by far was the hottest day. 9 of us went on a trip to Pompeii for the day and it was 97 degrees and the humidity was 80%. It was crazy hot. The tour of Pompeii was so fascinating and amazing for the fact that almost all of it is well preserved. The city back in the day was pretty modern. They had public bathes, saunas, massage rooms, and even Jacuzzi’s. They also had fast food restaurants and pizza ovens. It was pretty awesome to walk around there and touch and see pillars and buildings that are over 2,000 years old. After that tour we traveled along the Amalfi coast and saw the beaches, yachts, and beautiful scenery from our somewhat air conditioned bus. We also visited this near by town and walked around it and did some shopping then got back on our bus for the 3 hour drive to Rome. Of course we all had naps on the way home. Pretty much everyday we do as the Romans do and take a nap around 3pm then we eat a late dinner and then GELATO! The rest of our group stayed in Rome to do some shopping and hang around town since it’s our last day in Rome, and my dad arrived today. It’s been pretty fun here, but I am excited to see the rest of Italy. Tomorrow we head to Sicily at 6am and spend a week there. Sophia’s luggage still hasn’t arrived here, and she’s been wearing Natalie’s clothes. Which of course Natalie doesn’t really want to share her clothes and Sophia doesn’t like wearing them because they feel weird. *sigh* Well it is midnight here and we have to wake up at 5 to catch our flight at 8. Goodnight everyone

Day 5: today was wonderful. We flew to Cantania, Sicily, got on a bus, and drove to a port where we got on a ferry. The ferry took us out to Salina island and we got on another bus and drove to Malfa. This town is soooo beautiful. Our hotel is amazing! Me and Shanna have the cutest room and our porch is super. We even have a hammock chair. The hotel over looks the ocean, which is also beautiful. We went for a swim in the pool (because the nearest beach is 15 miles away), and drank some lemonade. It was great. My dad woke me up from a small nap and we got on a scooter he rented and drove to the rental place and got me a red scooter. We drove all over the island and found a lighthouse, a church, and another cute little town. It was fun. Then later tonight we had a family dinner, which was good. I had ravioli’s but they weren’t like your normal ravioli’s. They were more like pot stickers with thinly sliced carrots and cheese on it. The Natalie and Alexa ordered hamburgers and the look on their faces when they saw the food was priceless. All it was was hamburger and some scalloped potatoes on the side. But the hamburger was soooo good. Shanna ordered amberjack fish with potatoes on the side. She says it was really yummy. Then we all had gelato of course which was also really yummy. I am excited for what tomorrow may bring. Its 10:30 here and I can barely stay awake, goodnight everyone.

Day 6: today we swam in the Mediterranean and it was beautiful! The water is soooo blue and clear and it cools you off. (unlike the pool) We went to a beach that was about 15 miles away and it had black sand. My mom, dad, shan, and I drove there on the scooters and everyone else went on a local bus. We got there and ran across the extremely hot sand and jumped in the water. I was in the water for about 5 minutes when I got stung by a jellyfish on my leg! It hurt pretty bad so we walked over to a local scuba shop and they gave me this aloe stuff and told me to scrub the sting with sand and wash it with the water then apply the stuff. Then the rest of the family showed up and we warned them of the jellyfish. They’re actually quite small. Most of them were the size of my hand or a little bit bigger. They liked to hang out where we were swimming of course. My uncle found a small net and went jellyfishing, like on spongebob. We drove back to the area of where our hotel is and discovered a small harbor where the locals swim. What’s great about the Mediterranean is that there’s so much salt in it, it makes it easier to float. We were probably there for an hour or so. My mom and I both scraped our feet on sharp rocks, which was so fun. Not. We also found a cemetery which we will explore some more tomorrow, because we think we may have some relatives buried there. We ended the day by eating delicious pizza at a local pizzeria and gelato for dinner. And then we had a nice stroll back to the hotel. Now we are off to bed, I am so tired. Goodnight everyone.

Day 7: today is our last day on the island of Salina. It’s been my favorite so far, but I am excited to travel other places of Italy too. Today we rented 2 more scooters and a small car, and we all drove to Santa Marina to explore that town. We also drove to Lingua and swam there. The beach was a ton of big rocks, and for some reason the ocean was really wavy today, so we got mashed and scratched on the rocks. It wasn’t that fun. We shoped in Santa Marina and met a nice older man and his wife at a store that they owned. They were very interested in our Sir name LaMalfa, but they knew no one by that last name. My dad, mom, Kyle, Shan, and I all wanted to go back to the Malfa marina and swim there, and everyone else wanted to stay in Santa Marina and shop. The water in the marina was so nice and cold except it was super wavy. We swallowed so much salt water and got it in our eyes. Shanna kept freaking out because we were telling her all the crabs and fish we saw in the water with our goggles. So of course I was laughing extremely hard which lead to swallowing lots of water. We swam there for about 30 minutes and decided to swim back to the boardwalk and get out. Shan and my dad were swimming ahead and all of a sudden Shanna starts screaming, “Something touched my stomach! Something is on my stomach!” then she continues screaming and rolling around in the water. It was hilarious to watch. She was being stung by a bunch of baby jellyfish and so was my dad. But there stings weren’t that bad at all. Like they didn’t swell up or continue to hurt or anything. So it was all good. After all that we drove to Punta Di Perciato, which is the last town and the end of the road. We drove to this cliff and walked down 264 steps to a small cove that had these boat garages built into the cliffside. It was so cool. There was a lot of locals there swimming and enjoying the cool water. The water was so clear you could see giant massive rocks 20 feet below us. It looked a lot like scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean. We were there for a long while and soon we had to head back to the hotel because we had dinner reservations at 8. I am so tired, as usual. Goodnight everyone

Day 8: today was basically a travel day. We left the island around 11:30. It was sad. A bus service picked us up at 9 and we became friends with the drivers. One was from Romania and he was a lot friendlier than the other guy. He told us about this little café that had really good food. We had time to kill so we decided to go there and have something cold to eat. After that we caught the ferry and went back to the main island of Sicily. We rented four cars there and drove to Taormina which took forever. We got lost and turned around about 1,000 times and ended up driving up this mountain to a town called Forsa D'Argro. We thought that’s where our hotel was located, and thank God we were wrong. We were so far away from the ocean. But anyways, the town is the one of the towns that the God Father was filmed at. We all got pictures in front of the church where Michael and Maria’s marriage took place. It was pretty cool. We also met a bunch of old Italian men playing some card game and drinking beer. It’s probably one of my favorite parts of this whole trip. It was so fun to stand there and watch them all laugh and slap cards down and enjoy each other’s company. My uncle played a round of the game. It was funny because one of the men helped him play the cards and win the game. After all that we finally found our hotel and we ate at the restaurant here. They have really good ice cream. I’m off to bed now. Bene noche!

Day 9: oy. I could have skipped today. Lisa wanted to go into town to find a UPS store, find a bank, and a super market, and I was willing to drive there. But I’m not on our insurance or something so my mother and grandmother were against it and decided they would go with us. We ended up in Taromeana, which is up on a hill with tons of crazy drivers, hills, and one way roads. All the cars here are stick shift so driving up hills isn’t the most fun thing to do. We also got lost. A lot. And drove down the wrong way on a one-way street, which we didn’t know it was one. So we had to make a five point turn around as we blocked traffic because the roads are just wide enough to barely fit a car. Of course my mother and grandma were freaking out the whole time. It was extremely stressful. Finally, after an hour of searching and turning around, we found a stupid parking spot and got to walk all over the town. We were successful in getting items from our list, and we also found a delicious cup of cappuccino at a near by café. Now I have to tell you about the trip going back to the hotel. We finally found the highway after searching for a while, (the road signs here are extremely misleading and confusing because they aren’t in English!) and we began traveling back to the town where our hotel is. But me and my aunt wanted to explore the beach towns and see what there is to see. So we took an exit and drove around until we were ready to head back again. This time, it took us an hour and a half to find the road to our hotel, which is SS114 orientale. Some how we got on that road a few miles past the drive way to our hotel, and we almost made it to Messina. Which is an hour away from our hotel. When we figured this out, it was pure madness and frustration. I gave up on sanity and decided to narrate what was happening in a Puerto Rican accent. And my aunt joined me. It was quite fun after that. Like discussing what the people on their porches must be thinking as we drive past their house for the tenth time. Eventually we arrived at our hotel and went into our rooms and had a nice long relaxing ciesta. Around 5ish I got hungry and went down to the lobby with my grandma where we had a peach bessini, which was ok. (its some fruity cocktail with white wine) The adults decided on a restaurant somewhere so I went up to my room with my cousins to get ready for dinner. We all piled in cars and drove for I don’t know how long. And we somehow ended up in these mountains, in a extremely small, remote, town called Sverto. Apparently there is a restaurant up there that was in a scene of The God Father. We never found it. My uncle drove a mini van and my aunt and father drove two small sedans. Ok now picture extremely small hilly windy goat cart roads. Alright now picture a mini van trying to drive on those roads. Ya, it didn’t happen. We found out the extremely awful hard way that there was one way into town that lead to the only way out of town. There was no way in hell we could turn around anywhere. For a while we weren’t to sure if we were driving on walking paths or real roads that cars can actually drive on. Oh and by the way, there are stonewalls and buildings on either side of the car just waiting to eat our side mirrors and paint. A nice local man helped drive the minivan backwards down the windy steep road until he could get it turned around. Meanwhile my dad and aunt decided to be brave and drive the cars through the way out. We got to a certain point where it was so narrow that it scraped one of the cars. After that incident, we kept going because by that time there was really no way of going back. And when we thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. We came along a turn that was literally a right angle going left and the road was about as wide as our cars. We made it through that turn and found the next awful one that was worse. My dad had to back up at an angle then pull forward then back up again, just to turn down the last street. And he did it without a scratch on the car. It was extremely impressive. When we got out of that dreadful town it was about 9pm and getting darker and now we had to find another restaurant. Preferably closer to the hotel and away from mountain roads. We ended up at this little restaurant right next to the ocean and we ordered the longest pizzas. The pizza’s were about as long as one of the twins, and it was soooooo delicious. And it fed everyone at our table. Then of course we had gelato and now we are getting tucked into bed. And the power just went out. Hurray. Goodnight everyone.