Ok, to clear the air a bit and mention another highlight of our first day (see comments) Justin timed a perfect call for our arrival at the Sandy hostel. Not 10 minutes after we first checked in, Greg, the hostel manager, let us know that we had a phone call. To which I (Michelle) brilliantly said "On the phone?" and then mentally said to herself "Here's your sign". Of course, Tim, Duane and Brandon were not too far behind in their support of my cultural difficulties. Greg was also quick to follow with a "Yes, even in Italy we have phones" Douh!
The call was from our friend Justin, who has been on many a European adventure and helped us plan ours. It was good to hear a familiar voice, especially after having just arrived in the country. Thanks Justin!
Ok, onto our adventures today. We woke up at 7:00 with the best of intentions of getting to the Vatican and St. Peters Basillica. We took our first metro trip today and learned that during rush hour, those metro cars can hold A LOT of people. Once you think the car is full, in comes 10 more people. There is no such thing as personal space on an Italian metro train! We arrived at the American Express office to find it closed until 9:00 am, which just happened to be in 10 minutes. To pass the time, we walked to the Spanish Steps and enjoyed the view. We successfully dodged the pressure washers. Future notes, it is the walker beware in Italy!
In the American Express office we learned that we missed the tour for the Vatican and St. Peter's Basillica for the day (you have to book a day in advance), but that we could get tickets to Pompeii. So we quickly booked tickets for the Vatican for tomorrow and reserved the train to Naples/Pompeii. After a quick dash home (and another metro ride, this one much less crowded), to change out of pants (required for the Vatican tour), we filled water bottles got snacks and we were off.
It was another hot day, so we must have smelled nice after we hopped onto the train. Luckily it was air conditioned, so we were soon presentable again. Our seats were not together, but were across from each other. In between us were some very nice Italians, only one of whom spoke English well. His name is Alfredo, and he is a train conductor for the same train company we were riding on. He was going home to his wife after a long night of working, but did not mind talking to us the whole ride there. Tim was the first one brave enough to speak to him, and they carried the majority of the conversation. One of his three sons is in the B class of professional soccer players for the team in Naples. He was in the paper that day as he had just been signed. And like a proud dad, Alfredo had bought a copy of every paper with his son's picture in it. :) The B class is like our AAA baseball teams, almost in the big league but not quite there. Except their B class pays MUCH better for their players than our AAA salaries. His annual salary is close to 280,000 euros. Since the dollar is now trading around 1.477 for every euro, I will let you do the math. WOW!
Upon reaching Naples, we asked for some final directions from Alfredo and were surprised by an invitation to ride in his car! It turns out that he lives about 1 km from the ruins, and offered to drive us right by the entrance. Of course, we jumped at the chance to ride around the crazy streets of Italy by a true Italian! It was just that, absolutely crazy with cars weaving in and out only a hairsbreadth separating them. The craziest part was that 5 people fit into what would be a subcompact car in the states. A tight squeeze to be sure. Alfredo let us know that there are not many cars without bangs (dents) in them, but there are rarely fatal accidents. Oddly enough, they don't expect people to follow the rules in southern Italy so when they don't they can typically compensate for it. In northern Italy, where they expect others to obey traffic laws, they have more fatal accidents because they cannot easily adjust when others disobey the traffic laws. Alfredo safely dropped us off (no bangs for us!) near the entrance of the ruins and we exchanged e-mail addresses. He would not accept any money from us, but we offered to let him stay with us if he and his wife ever come to the states.
We had a nice lunch at a small eatery outside the ruins, amongst some of the biggest lemons we have ever seen. About the size of a small child's head, they were hanging from mesh baskets on the ceiling. This was our first panini (sandwich) in Italy, and it was amazing. We headed over to the entrance of the ruins, where we were barraged by local tour guides (we think everyone in Naples may be a tour guide in addition to their normal jobs). We finally selected one, who lead us through a hour whirlwind tour of the ruins, then went 15 minutes over the hour and wanted us to pay him more. We firmly told him that his lack of time keeping was not our fault, and that we were not giving him any more money. After a lecture on proper etiquette, and this coming from the guy who made sure to point out all of the pornographic features in Pompeii, he left in a huff. Which was fine, because we were ready to move on.
The ruins were amazing, especially the fact that so many rooms have been restored since Michelle was here 13 years ago. And they are continuing to work on them as well, as a few of the places had been sectioned off and you could hear workers in the background. One of the most impressive things was to see the modern houses that they had built over the ashes, which gave you a perspective of how much the ruins had been covered over by ash. Imagine building your new house and never knowing there was another entire house below yours. That was the sight we saw today, as well as hitting the major highlights of the rest of the ruins.
Did we mention yet how stinking hot it was. If Rome is hot, Pompeii is an inferno. We now know what it feels like to be in Mt. Vesuvius. :) When you have been so hot or so long, and sweating all day (yes mom's we did drink plenty of water) that you no longer care that you are sticky and gross, that is where we were today. Even now, at 12:30 am (yes, AM people!) we are all sweating. We all will be glad to head further north, if only for the cooler weather (fingers, toes and anything else we can cross is crossed right now).
We took a good train ride from Pompeii to the Naples station, then explored a bit of what Naples had to offer. This was the land of near misses for us, as the Palace we wanted to see was under restoration (no tourism happening there), we tried having dinner at a pizza place that Alfredo had recommended, only to find it closed for the afternoon, and the boys bought watermelon gelato, which they have loved at every other stand, only to find this one with some added chocolate chips in it. Not a good combination. And in our haste to get out of Naples and into a cool train, we walked onto the wrong one and evicted two people from their seats before one woman pointed out that this train was not going to our destination. Woops! We go off about 3 minutes before the train pulled out of the station. Praise God we were not on it. While waiting for the real Naples-Rome train, which was 30 minutes late, (ironic isn't it) we had more than enough time to relive the highlights of the day. Upon arrival to Rome we ate dinner at a kebob place. If you remember nothing else we have written about Rome, be sure to eat gelatto and kebob. We will probably repeat this meal another time during our trip.
Well, off to bed and getting ready for another day! Ciao for now!
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