Italia- day 1:

This morning at 7am, Nikki and I had the bright idea to film a segment of our geohazards documentary with Vesuvius in the background. While it definitely was a kind of good idea, it was wayyyy too early. But anyways, I woke up to the BIGGEST castle I’ve ever seen (probably the only one…) parked smack dab in front of the ship. It was awesome and I hopefully will get there on day 2. Naples is gorgeous. People say it’s a dump and sketch, but it’s absolutely beautiful. The buildings are super old and rundown, but it looks awesome (but there is trash on the streets just DUMPED).

So at 9:30 this morning Nikki and I headed out to our first FDP of Pompeii and Herculaneum. By this time we were completely pooped, so we kind of crashed on the drive over (bummer). I did catch a few glimpses of the countryside though! Super old and beatup, but perfect. Pompeii was awesome though. It was HUGE. I never knew how big it was till we spent 3 hours in there! Our tourguide was great, she knew tons of info about EVERYTHING. The buildings were super old (obviously. It did get buried in 79CE!), but my favorite was the walls. Most we made of really old rock, but the best were made of brick. It was crazy to think that about 2000 years ago some man built that house or that shop! The roads had stepping-stones across them, since the roads were filled with filth and trash. The columns were pretty dang well preserved; you could still see some of the intricate outlines of designs! They were all pretty worn, but you could see the outline of a leaf or cow or something! They even had fountains, many of which still worked! My absolute FAVORITE of all was the flooring. It sounds weird, but it was totally amazing. They had tiny bitty tiles covering a few of the floors that were either a single color or a pattern. There was the two famous tile works: the “HAVE” (Latin for welcome, according to the tourguide) and the “beware of dog” sign. That one was completely blocked off and shadowy, so it blew.

The bodies were not that impressive. They were like 10 feet away behind a fence, so you couldn’t really see them too well or get close enough. They had one in a box that you could go right up and see, but there were probably about 50 other people in that area. The body was cool though cause you could see the dude’s bones sticking out. The skull, teeth, nails, and toes were all visible… sorta. Behind like 80 Asian tourist’s heads. That was what I HATED about Pompeii, there were thousands of people there. I hate when people are in my photos, but it was IMPOSSIBLE to get one without them in it. So bummer.

Herculaneum was WAYYYYY cooler. The place was basically empty. It was awesome. And all the artifacts were preserved so much better! It was crazy cause I took a pic of the town (Naples is literally right next to it!!) and you can’t tell where Naples ends and Herculaneum begins! Although, that may just mean Naples is a tad worn… hahaha. But yeah, it was awesome. You walk up to this perfectly preserved marble monument (minus an arm). It has wayyy more detail carved in that is still visible and even perfectly decipherable writing on it (if you can read ancient Latin that is!). Herculaneum of course, was like the vacation spot of roman millionaires while Pompeii was the working class town. So the houses are super impressive. Most of them still have their roofs on, while Pompeii’s got caved in from ash and pumice, so it’s bizarre. The roofs look like the terracotta roofs everyone has now! The floors… zomg. Marble and rock, and PERFECT mosaics. Soooooo much better than Pompeii. Even the walls are perfect paintings. You can actually tell what is painted! They have marble floor/ceiling boards, which are all intricately carved and perfect. They have perfectly preserved sculptures and the most perfect mosaic art piece I’ve ever seen, along with the greatest Hercules painting. Like wowzahhh. Pictures will be posted. They didn’t have the casts of bodies, since they weren’t covered in ash, but they have skeletons from when the hot volcanic ash completely incinerated their flesh and instantly stopped their organs. Yummmm. It was perfect. They even had a few original doors and shutters and door supports, all scorched and charred of course! It was crazyyyy. Basically, Herculaneum is perfect. Small, but perfect. More perfect than crowded Pompeii at least!

I’m glad I went to Pompeii, just to say I did, but Herculaneum is a wayyy better tour. I got completely scorched (no sunscreen… bad move) at both. Yuckkk.

After, we went out for Andrew’s 20th. Thinking it would just be us, it was actually like 28 people ahha. Someone’s popular! It was like 25 girls and 3 guys… about the same ratio on the ship! Hahahah. Anyways, we got pizza and wine. It was at a fancy place (it had a cover charge, 2 cups and 3 forks!!) so we thought it would be expensive. Wine was 6 euros for a bottle and the pizzas were huge and only 7!! So the bill was like 8 a piece for a super tasty meal! After we just walked around and talked to people we could understand… Italian is rough. I feel like people are getting mad at me and yelling, but I think that’s just how the language is! I thought our waiter was gonna hit us cause we didn’t know what to order, but then 30 minutes later he was taking pictures with us! Bizarre.

Day 2-- Today Amanda and I woke up at the buttcrack of dawn for our Mount Vesuvius hike. We were on the bus at 7:30a and up the mountain by 8:10. Sad thing is that the place didn’t even open till 9… bad planning SAS. We got going and the walk was steep but nothing like I imagined. I thought we’d be climbing through the forest, but it was a marked dirt path. They even gave us walking sticks! But up there was a super great view. The volcano was pretty sweet too… not much to it, but there was nice sulfur gas coming out from the underground chamber! That was cool. I would hate to be around when that monster blew… hahah. I was kinda upset that I lost my geohazards prof the first 10 minutes, so I never got to learn anything about it :( but oh well. We walked up and around and walked down within like an hour. Then, when we went to give our sticks back, the dumb people wouldn’t let us pass unless we gave them money! How rude! So I gave them 20 cents hahah and they gave us a rock and were perfectly nice after that. Then we sat and taste tested the lemoncello (ewwww) and Vesuvius wine… it was the first wine I’ve ever liked! I was called “Christ’s Tears” (Lacryma Christi del Vesuvius) and it was only like 5 euros a bottle! Mother, look up how much it is to ship it back!! It’s super tasty cause you can taste the grape stuff. Delish. After that we passed out on the bus ride back. I woke up once, and it was to the bus driver blaring the horn at someone driving up. The road was so narrow and so steep on the side that we were seriously 2” away from the other car! He was quite good driving!! Then when we got back we met up with Andy and David and got pizza. We walked like 15 minutes away from the boat and got it for 5 euros. So we got 2 pizzas, a bottle of wine (since it is Italy), and spaghetti. It was super tasty. The pizzas were great (but you have to get margharita doc to get the pieces of tomato, otherwise it is just skimpy cheese pizza!), the spaghetti was completely stellar, and the wine was ehh. I like the other stuff was more. Then we walked back and we have been packing for Rome.

6 days of clothes in a backpack is surprisingly easy. Though I probably messed up somewhere…. Hahaha. Now Amanda is sleeping and I’m doing this! Were still waiting for Kellie and Nikki to get back from their daytrip to Capri! I’m totally jealous… but we are spending 10.5 euros on a train from Naples to Rome and meeting Mckenna in the station at 11:30p. And then the real adventure begins!!!