Sperlonga!

This past Saturday, I went to the first beach that I can remember that was not the Jersey shore. They're pretty much the same thing.

JUST KIDDING, Y'ALL.

Differences between Sperlonga beach and the Jersey shore begin with transportation. The road to Sperlonga is quite unlike the road to Long Beach Island. We traveled to Sperlonga by train, passing by small mountain towns, farm land, and a surprising amount of goats along the way, before transferring to a bus that took us up a winding path to the town. The town is quaint, to say the least. You couldn't drive a car down any of the roads without knocking out shop walls and running over people and cats, and you wouldn't have to; a walk around Sperlonga took no more than ten minutes without a destination. Compared to this, driving to the Jersey shore is like traveling in a clown car packed with luggage on a straight, dirt "sidewalk" that smells like a truck-stop bathroom with New Jersey drivers who aren't actually driving because how do you merge? Strike one, Snooki.

So, what next? Well, at Sperlonga, you vacate the bus and walk about the town, maybe picking up a small, refreshing gelato along the way to a set of [hundreds of] stairs that lead you down to the beach below, where umbrellas and towels are neatly organized on the clay-like sand and are available for rent (if you're Donald Trump; strike one, Sperlonga... but maybe just a mini-strike). And the water? It's so clear, I bet even the fish are afraid to pee in it. I swear, it even sparkled. As for the Jersey shore, well, I'll just leave this here:

But imagine it with waves. I'm not at all sorry to say that this is strike two for the "Dirty Jerz," and strike one for me for using that vomit-inducing term.

I guess it's just like Michael Scott said: "Fool me once: strike one. But, fool me twice: strike three."