Sam: The Paradigm Change We've Been Looking For

We took a train to Salerno and a bus to Amalfi. We weren't quite sure what we'd do about accomadations because we are pretty much broke. I walked up to a couple old local men and asked them were I could find some cheap accomodations. They just looked at me and laughed. Eventually they told me that if we walked to the next town over we'd find something cheaper than in Amalfi.

We walked to the next city over which is called Atrani. The whole city consists of a black sand beach, a central piazza and stairs up the sides of the mountains to rural homes. We stayed in a youth hostel called A' Scalatella. It was really nice. A couple of girls we met there said that it was the best place they'd been in all of Europe - and they'd travelled all over.

We did a little bit of hiking through the city - as you can see in my imaginary photos.

We took a boat from Amalfi in the morning. It stopped at POsitano and then continued on to Sorrento. It got super hot between Positano and Sorrento and the captain got on the loud speaker and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we're going to take a 10 minute break so that everyone can jump in the water."

I looked at tom and said, "Did you hear what I heard?"

He looks at me with a huge grin on his face and said, "YES!"

The boat came to a stop and me and tom ripped off our shirts and jumped in off the top deck of the boat. Floating out there in crystal clear bue water I looked at Tom and knew he was thinking the same thing I was - that in jumping off that boat, floating in the water, looking out over ancient waterside cities, we could see what life should be. I still can't articulate what it is I learned, but my whole way of looking at life - especially the speed at which I go from point A to point B - changed. As we walked back up to the top deck, Tom went up the the captain and said, "Grazie Capitano." And the captain looked at him with the look of a benevolent patron, as if to say, "When you are on my ship, you live life like this."