Postcardsfromthewalshes

Praiano, Amalfi Coast, Italy

Brendan and I didn’t know much about the Amalfi Coast when we got here. Brendan’s mom helped us book things, along with the help of a wonderful travel agent who knew the area and gave us suggestions for our trip. We are SO grateful to them!!! When we arrived, we stopped first in Praiano, a very small town on the coast. The town wasn’t touristy at all, with only around 5–6 shops selling little trinkets and hand-painted art. We stayed in a beautiful hotel with a view of the sunset from our room. The hotel staff was so hospitable; they treated us like we were family. It was a very relaxing and slow start to our trip: shopping, Mass, going to the pool, and going out for dinner.

Some highlights would be:

• Dinner at Il Pirata, at the bottom of a sea cliff. Dinner and drinks were delicious, and they had a club attached that was inside a cave! It was so cool!
• Breakfast with a view every morning at our hotel, Hotel Tramonto d’Ore.
• The staff and guests at Hotel Tramonto, that we made friends with: Omar from Ghana, Lucia from Sicily, Sofia from Naples, and Patty and Shanel from Ontario. We went out with them for drinks on two different nights and got to know them really well, considering we didn’t know them at all and only spent three days with them. The group of us hung out so much that we talked about meeting up again in New York sometime. Sofia, who graduates from university next year, told us to come to her graduation party in Rome. The whole group was so genuine, and it was beautiful to talk with them and listen to their stories. Learning about other people’s lives from around the world reminds me of the beauty and diversity of the world and how uniquely God made all of us. But, we can still connect with anyone, no matter how different we are, if we are just open to new friendships.
• Spritzes. Spritzes in the afternoon, spritzes with dinner and after dinner. Spritzes all the time.
• Mass at Chiesa di San Gennaro for Carlo Acutis’s feast day! A little context — Mass was at 7 pm, it was pouring rain when we left the hotel, and we had dinner reservations at 8 pm at a restaurant a 20-minute walk away. We arrived at Mass late, with our feet and clothes soaking wet, so it was sort of a fight to get there because of the weather and plans. Every time I moved during Mass, I felt and heard my shoes squishing with water, and there was no internet connection for us to look up the readings in English, so we just sat there listening to the Italian readings. I remember hearing “Jonah” a few times, and I was like, okay, okay, trying to call that story to mind since I had no way of understanding what they were saying. Brendan left halfway through Mass because, 1. he had a gin and tonic after Communion fast, and 2. he didn’t want us to have to walk 20 minutes uphill in the rain to get to our dinner reservations, so he left to call a cab (king). So I stayed, received Communion, and watched them expose the Blessed Sacrament for adoration right after. As much as I was a little stressed, wet, and not able to participate much, I knew in my heart that this moment was significant — being in Carlo’s home country and language, in front of Jesus in the Eucharist, which was Carlo’s passion and what he made his whole life about. Even though the moment itself didn’t feel very momentous, standing in soaked shoes with water dripping off my dress, later that evening I felt an overwhelming amount of gratitude for where Brendan and I are in our lives right now. Over the last year before our wedding, it felt like there were a lot of obstacles to connecting with God and each other. He was working two part-time jobs and going to school full-time. I was working as a case manager at KVC, having late nights and experiencing quite an emotional toll from my job, which made Brendan’s and my time together and our connection suffer frequently. Now, Brendan isn’t working either of those jobs, I just accepted a new job at a foster care nonprofit that is a very good fit for me, and we are connected to God and each other. I don’t feel worthy of these kinds of blessings, and often I feel sad to think about how my life is so vastly different than those I used to work with at my old job, and others who are suffering immensely emotionally, physically and spiritually around me. One of our friends we made at the hotel shared that her husband went into the hospital for back pain early this year and they diagnosed him with cancer, and gave him 30 days to live. He passed in January of this year. She went on this trip to Italy to remember him and to live her life, and she encouraged us to be present to the love in front of us. She said you never know what God has in store, so to just enjoy what we have. That really helped me to accept the gifts God is so graciously giving us, because if God is giving them to me, it means He wants me to have them! How rude would I be if someone gave me a gift, and I opened it, but was adamant that I didn’t deserve it so I didn’t accept or enjoy the gift. When I think about it that way, it sounds ridiculous. So I will revel in God’s grace and generosity, and give him glory for his kindness and abundance!!! Allora, (a filler word Italians like to use), that was our time in Praiano, kicking off our first several days in beautiful Italy.

Thanks for reading! My next post will be about the town of Positano, where we are now. Enjoy some pictures below, ciao for now!