Since I wasn't able to fly back home (Malaysia) for Eid this year, I thought I'd join my best friend of 16 years, Mira (picture above far right) and her friends from university; Myung (far left) and Tommasso (not in the picture) on an almost 3 week holiday around Italy. Since the three of them are architecture students, I was excited at the prospect of travelling with them. Seeing all the historical sites in Italy with them. I'd be able to view the historical buildings in a different perspective! I was sooo excited. I couldn't sleep at night because I just couldn't wait for the trip to start. Before I could day dream about sipping hot espresso shots on the Spanish steps and eating a Quattro Formaggi pizza in Naples, I first had to get my hands-on a ticket to our first destination; Naples. 

Luckily for me, I managed to get a cheap ticket from London to Naples last minute since I only decided to join their holiday a few weeks before the actual departure date, phew! Lucky me.

Prior to the departure date itself, I was puzzled on how I was going to pack enough clothes for almost 3 weeks in my small normal sized Samsonite carry on bag? I had a 15 kg limit. To some thats a lot, but to someone who wants to pack her whole closet and all 12 pairs of shoes, how could I possibly do so?? You need to pack for all sorts of occasions so that you're prepared. It would be a miracle if I could fit my actual closet in it! Not to mention my "almost Korean face routine" facial items. I thought to myself that I could not possibly bring different clothes for each day, its never going to happen. That just wouldn't happen for me with that baggage weight limit. 

I was forced to pack light. 

Which meant that I could only bring a maximum of two pairs of shoes and only a 2 week or less worth of clothes. I would have to find a way to clean and reuse them. Thankfully, Tommaso said that we could do our laundry at his house. That solved all my problems at least. I just had to plan and choose which clothes I wanted to wear on which day wisely. 

Our flight that day was at 6 am from Stansted Airport. 6 Bloody A.M. OK.... Getting to the airport itself was a long way for me. More so because I went to Mira's house first to break fast (since it was fasting month), help her pack her bags and then around midnight we made our way to Myung's place because she and Mira were supposed to share a large suitcase and then leave Myung's house to Victoria Bus Station to catch a coach to Stanstead. It was a looooong journey I tell you..... Long and tiring and none of us got any sleep. Forget beauty sleep, a 10 minute nap would do for us at that moment. We arrived at the airport and went straight to the bag drop counter. Mira's bag was stopped because theirs were overweight. OH NO I started freaking out but its okay. My bag was underweight by a few kg's. We moved some of their stuff into my bag and some into their carry on. Yahoooo it passed and we managed to get our boarding passes. It finally hit us. We were going to ITALYYYYYYYYY!!!

CIAAAAOOOOOOO

TOUCHDOWN  IN ITALY and it was blazing hot! Even at 9 am.

Coming from London where summer is only a week long, Italy felt like a desert! Tomma picked us girls up from the airport and made our way back to his place. But first, CHEESE. He received a call on his way back from his dad asking him to get some cheese for lunch. So we went to his usual cheese shop to get some buffalo cheese. We got to his place about two hours before lunch time. We had time to roam around the town, unpack our bags and freshen up before meeting his family for lunch. His father was so nice, he made us lunch - Spaghetti Al Pomodoro. It is a type of italian pasta prepared with olive oil, fresh tomatoes and basil.  And for dessert, we had the cheese we bought earlier with reaaaaaal juicy home grown tomatoes and of course, our first espresso of the trip. 

Dinner filled me up completely. A part of me wanted more but I just know that If I had another slice of pizza I wouldn't be able to fit my swimming suit when we head to the Amalfi Coast. I felt like Humpty Dumpty. A pizza filled Humpty Dumpty. We stopped by a gelato shop on our way back to Tomasso's house in Scafati. It was is his favourite gelato shop in his town. I had to bite my tongue and not order anything because I was that full. That was so not a Sara thing to do. 

I never I repeat never say no to ice- cream or gelato unless I have a sore throat. But I just physically couldn't not have another bite of anything. But Mira took one for the team and order a cone. She had a mixture of Pistachio and Chocolate. The texture of the gelato was different and the flavours weren't took sweet or over powering which made it stand out from the other gelato shops there. Typing this all out, I regret not having a cone to myself now....