The south of Italy...

So, since I was staying with host families in the north I got to hear a bunch of complaints about people from the south. Northerners say they are lazy--they never work, they don't pay their taxes, etc... And, open minded me thought they were full of it. But the more I see of the south the more what the northerners said makes sense.

We are currently in Bari which is the second largest city in the south (second after Napoli) so Bari is lively enough. But everyother town we have been to thus far is completely dead during the day. None of the shops open until 5pm and most of them close by 9 or 10. Meaning that people here only work like 4 or 5 hours a day. It isn't quite as bad in Bari as elsewhere--about half of the nearby shops are closed now, but they will most likely open before 5. It is just so strange walking around large cities here (Matera, Trani, Alberobello) and not seeing anyone in the streets. Then suddenly around 4.30-5, the world comes alive and you finally see other people for the first time that day. Inga and I are under the impression that they must stay up really late and sleep all day, but honestly we have no clue. The one thing we are sure of is that nothing is ever open when we want it to be.

Anywho, Matera (the above picture) was cool. It is a whole city carved out of the mountain--just a bunch of cave houses. Eventually they started laying brick around the caves to give them more protection---but you can go inside the buildings and see the cave dwellings that have been inhabited for more than 9,000 years. Awesome.

After that we headed to Bari (where we still are). We have been doing day trips. The first day we went to Trani (and of course everything was closed so we just had a very long lunch and went swimming in the ocean). Yesterday we went to Alberobello which was lovely but pretty boring. Today we slept in late and I'm feeling sick so we are taking it easy. But tomorrow we are heading to Lecce and on Monday to the Grotte di Castellana (the largest underground cave system in Italy). Tuesday evening we head to Croatia. Yay!

I have uploaded pics from the rest of the teaching camps...to view them, go here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2309596&id=6710589&l=d966383040

I have also uploaded my pics from Lucca and some from Firenze, here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2311238&id=6710589&l=f532bde8b6