Friday was a tough day for us. We woke up a bit later than planned after having a lot more wine than planned the night before. We had about a 2.5 hour drive to Naples to then catch a 1 hour ferry to Ischia for our weekend excursion. Our drive ended up taking closer to 3.5 hours, which made us miss the 1pm ferry, so we didn't make it to the island until 3, and once we did our fly by the seat of your pants planning sent us to Florio, the island's most "bumping" town.

It was not bumping. Instead, Florio was both very crowded and very very very closed. One could imagine it's an awesome summer destination with all the cool beach side bars and restaurants, but unfortunately for us, our options were  basically nothing. We had hoped we could knock out a hike from Florio for the afternoon, but made it there without any info on hikes, and everyone we asked was (1) not helpful (2) not helpful and (3) not helpful. So instead we set up at a bar to have some drinks and snacks. Liza asked the owner, Rachel, if it was happy hour time, and she said, "ehhhhhh.....I guess." After an aracini and some beers, we moved to another bar down the street called Violet that we choose for one really great reason: it was the only other place in town that was open. Inside the person that I have to assume was Violet was alternating between yelling into her cell phone and setting up various perfumes to sell to her customers (the only of whom were us) and giving us a random assortment of snacks. To try to describe the bar and the proprietor as anything but weird would be an understatement. So at that point we decided to get the fuck out of Forio and head to Ischia Ponte to have dinner by the castle. And you'll never EVER guess this, but in Ischia Ponte -- EVERYTHING WAS ALSO CLOSED. Italians take their tourist seasons very seriously.

We finally found the only open restaurant in town (we know this because pretty much the entire town was there) and had a great seafood dinner - some anchovies and some octopus and some mussels. And feeling slightly more energized we made the last trek to our apartment in the hills, which had been rented for the weekend by some of Liza's colleagues to celebrate a 30th birthday. These colleagues (and their beaus) were a mix of German, Croatian, British and Cyprus-ean (??). As I had looked for places in Ischia to stay, all of them just had that grandma's house vibe of randoms decor and old sheets. But all of them had one thing in common, including our villa - a ridiculous view. The international crew went into town for dinner, and Liza and I stayed in and crashed early. It was at this point that I realized the root of our long difficult day - IT WAS FRIDAY THE F---ING 13TH!!!!!!!!!! But as Kelly Clarkson once said, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" (and also "since you been gone" and other good stuff)