We also found that a "traditional Italian breakfast" is a stale croissant and drink like juice or coffee, but their coffee is different too. Whereas you'd expect a full cup, they use espresso shot cups for any kind of coffee you order. It's not cheaper of course, but you only get about three sips. It's so strange. There aren't even tables at most coffee shops. As opposed to France, where they give you a normal cup of coffee and it is a social event, you sit and drink it with friends. I thought Italians were famous for their cuisine, so how do they eat such a nasty breakfast?
That night, at the hostel we watched Bridget Jones' Diary with about 12 other Americans. When you live in England, things that make fun of English people are ten times funnier. You realize that the English really do those things!
4.15 Capri
The day before, a girl at our hostel told us that Capri was an all day trip and that there were two parts of the island, the beach- Capri, and the historical area- Anacapri. This day did not start out right and that should have been a sign. We meant to wake up early so we would indeed have all day. None of us woke up to the alarm. After waking up late, we pack up swimclothes headed out to the train station. We really wanted to go to the beach. I mean we are in Italy, where three sides are surrounded by water. Guess what? We took the wrong train after directions from the man who sells the tickets. At this point we are getting tired of people and their erroneous advice. We'd be better off figuring it out for ourselves. We had to get back on a train and go back where we had to get on another train and go to the port at Sorento. Naples' train system is strange, all the trains take off from one point and then they all run parallel so if you get on one line and want to go to a stop on another line you might have to travel 20 minutes back to the main station and get on another train to go to your destination. Naples, as we were informed, is not a very nice place, and apparently there is a lot of crime.
We finally got to Sorento where we have to take a ferry to the island of Capri. We are really excited even though the ferry cost 30 euros! We got to Capri and we are thinking small island with just beaches everywhere. As Jan said "like in Castaway." That was not the case at all. We had to search for a beach. When we found it, it was a small one with rocks. Not small pebbles but actual golf-ball-sized rocks which dug into your back if you laid down. There wasn't a cubic inch of sand to be seen. I was content with it, sunblock in hand, but Stacy and Jan are originally from California and expected to find better beaches than their home beaches. Someone else had told me that European beaches were rocky, so I wasn't surprised. I was happy that it was something different. However, we didn't stay long. We decided to check out the "historical" (as we had been told) part.
This involved taking a death defying bus ride on a road that had 2000 foot, shear drop off into the ocean with only a 1.5 foot plastic fence to hold us back. All this was taking place on a 1.25 car-width-wide road at about 45 miles per hour on the curviest road you've ever seen. It was a harrowing experience. No joke, these two old ladies crossed themselves and then they prayed for the entire ride! We were freaking out. And often, especially while in England, I find myself thinking WE ARE GOING TO DIE but I look at the buses and see that they are old and yet there isn't a scratch on them and then rationalize that the drivers must just be that good at what they do. So I looked at our bus we were on in Capri and all those from the same company and not one was in good shape. They all had huge sideswipe marks on both sides and deep gashes. I started to freak out. And the plastic fence with a cliff into the ocean, ya that fence was ripped and torn and the poles were bent, clearly it had been hit a ton.
We got to Anacapri and there was nothing historical at all. There were little shops but they close for three hours for lunch. Nothing was really open and it was just streets and apartment style housing. We didn't have a map or anything because we thought it was just a little island and would be easy to navigate but that was not the reality. We thought you'd just show up and there would be beaches, we werent really planning to see any sites. Instead it was more where you go and see things but with the weird busses and one windy road we couldnt figure out how to get to those things once we were there. There also wasn't a ton of food choices on the island so we decided to head home.
When we got back to our room we found out that we had a new roommate, Kevin from California. Well, origionally from Oregon, which I loved because I feel like those in the Pacific-Northwest have something in common and I find that I don't always have that in common with Californians who might as well have their own country. He goes to school at USC and is studying in London. Once again, small world. He and Jan hit it off. I think Jan was tired of hanging out with us girls. They talked about weight lifting and sports and manly things. We invited him to come with us to Pompeii the next day because that was on his list of things to do too.
We used the free internet to look for Rome hostels only to find out that they were either booked up or really really expensive. Hostels are supposed to be cheap, some were almost $100 a night for just a bed! We started calculating and a week in Rome was beginning to look pretty expensive. We were also just exhausted from traveling and we were supposed to get back at about 2am Sunday morning only to start school on Monday. We decided to look into leaving earlier and found that we could leave out of Pisa on Wednesday night for a reasonable price. We decided to do that. Now, knowing that we were going to go home a little earlier made us perk up some.
4.16 Pompeii
When Vesuvius errupted in 79 AD (there is evidence it had errupted many times througout history) it covered the city of Pompeii in 60 feet of ash and sediment. Recently, this site has been excavated and it uncovered some architecture that was fully intact and some that was worse for the wear. The city was composed of many temples, as the Romans were pagan. The town was origionally composed of Etruscans, which is why there is a huge wall surrounding it to defend against the Romans. However, after Pompeii was annexed by Rome in 89 BC, the wall was obsolete. The other main feature
We thought we would just go and have a look. We didn't realize so much of it would still be standing. However, after awhile, without furniature, artwork, appliances, or anything else to differentiate the rooms, it was hard to tell what was what. Even the statues they recovered were moved to a separate museum. Imagine taking all the buildings in your neighborhood and subtracting everything but the walls, this includes removing the floor and roofs. Pretty soon it is hard to tell the difference between houses, stores, and businesses. They all look the same. We didn't realize that the ruins are huge, it is literally an entire city for a population of 20,000 and covered at least a square mile of solid architectural structures. The first two hours was really interesting, minus having to have an audio tour. But after that, the structures got somewhat repetative. They had several temples, several ampatheatres, and much of the city was composed of huge houses where many families would live along with all the slaves and servants that it took to keep the houses running.
The audio tour was difficult because there wasn't much to see so imagination was 95% of the tour, and whoever set up the audio guide didn't label the structures very well. While we were listening to something about the temple of Venus and the audioguide would tell you to notice the pillars and statue, we would realize that we were looking at a fountain. Then confusion would ensue and there was limited signage and no posters that you could just read concerning each site. Luckily our new friend Kevin decided to come with us and we had our own fun just guessing what each thing was.
While touring Pompeii, we saw a lot of construction. It rubbed Jan and I the wrong way for two reasons. 1. You want to just think about what had happened, focus on the audio tour, observe the strange little details of the ruins, and ponder what life was like in that time. However, the sound of a jackhammer and yellow caution tape everywhere does not really allow for that to happen. 2. At some point, if you replace everything that is crubling, you will have replaced the entire city. I mean they are called "ruins," should the city really keep repairing things that are beyond repair? Jan and I had a hard time telling what was old and new. For example, the door frames were starting to collapse, so they put concrete reinforcements in, but, like most archeaological reconstruction, they did so in a fashion to mimick the origional somewhat. However, the origional door frame was wood. Since there are no markings to distinguish what was a necessary addition and what is origionally part of the ruins, I found myself asking if they had also discovered concrete way back then before I realized that that was a new addition because they had disguised it to look old. This happened many times with things that they had tried to reinact or mimick. My conclusion was that obviously the city needed to do some things to preserve Pompeii and reinforce structures to ensure visitors' safety, but at some point they need to let the ruins fall and just prohibit visitors.I would rather read about it in a text book than go somewhere where they have just recreated the scene but none of it is actually real. That negates the whole point of seeing something unique.
4.17 Naples
I woke up in the morning with bed bug bites! Bed bugs are not a myth and are no joke. Different people react to the bites with varying intensity, and I, unfortunately, get huge, red welts wherever I am bitten. I know so much about bed bugs because we had a huge problem with them in our apartment in San Jose last semester and ended up doing a lot of research before the manager finally called the exterminator. The hardest thing with them is transmission. They lay eggs too small to see on anything and a bed bug can live for up to two years without having bit someone. They could hide in things we had with us like our clothing, shoes, and bags. They are almost impossible to get rid of short of calling the exterminator, so it was really important to me to be sure not to bring any back to Hatfield and certainly not back to the US.
I had begun to develop a cold, had huge, itchy welts, and just didn't really feel like going out to see Naples. Of course we find out from our Italian friend when we are leaving that Naples is not a good area, especially where we were staying. The trio and Kevin went out to see the port. We could see Mnt. Vesuvius from there. It was relaxing watching the mountain and listening to the water. After hanging out there, the boys went to Herculeum, which is a lesser known site of ruins affected by the volcano. Stacy and I went back to our hostel and watched movies and slept. We hated to waste a day, but without taking this day of rest, we would have ended up only half-heartedly doing the last few days. The next morning we woke up, packed, and had a short train-ride to Rome.
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