They're actually just molds of dead people

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We left Rome fairly early on friday morning to catch a charter bus with the class directly to Pompei. Upon arrival we immediatly began to take on the composed little k-9 friends that are now ancient Pompei's primary residents. Everywhere we went we continued to gather more and more dogs who seemed satisfied with our company and needed nothing else. I didn't really mind as I didn't find them too distracting, which is great because I really wouldn't want to miss any of that city. The ruins were incredible and amazingly well preserved. It shouldn't have been so suprising as that's what Pompei's known for but even with knowledge of what we were to see it's still astonishing.
We ate lunch in Pompei then finished our tour. Although we had the option to return to Rome with the bus most of us opted to be dropped of at the train station to go our separate ways. My roommates and I headed for Napoli while many of our class headed for Sorento and Capri. Napoli struck us, as we emerged from the train station, as some sort of Italian urban landfill project. We had begun to think we'd made a poor decision in the travel planning portion of the operation. We checked into our hostel after trudging through mounds of garbage only to find the most helpful and friendly staff we could hope for. They knew where everything was that we wanted to see and had our minds full of suggestions. We took the recommended metro to the other end of the city and walked along the coast all the way back. This was a very different Napoli. It was a beautiful urban coastline. It's amazing how the city just smoothly transitions out of the water almost as if the city doesn't even stop for it.
We spent Saturday checking out some specific sites we wanted to see. We went and saw the Castle and although it was very cool and offered great views of the city it had nothing on the underground city. The catacombs were layers of city. The bottom was the greek layer and the not quite as far down was the ancient roman layer. To explain, when many ancient Italian cities expand they simply build on top of the old layer. After the catacombs we mad our way through old town stopping only for some tap wine and these fizzy lemon drinks that an old lady was making at a stand. After the walk through the old town we were back in the nasty part to catch our train back to Rome.

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Photos

me and ret at the bakery
makes sense

Me and "The Suve"
that's my nickname for Mount Vesuvius

Comments

[Stuart]

awesome
I am so going to Italy. Hope you're having fun man. I'll shoot you an email sometime soon.

[dana]

trey and ret are so cute! hope you are having fun in italy!

[The dirty Italian who's not in Italy]

fuckbags
Words cannot express how badly I want to go to Italy now. But really...looks sweet. Your dad alleged that you and Ret had "nearly drank Rome dry". This was nearly a month, mind you, so I'm fairly sure it's happened by now. Give my greasy brethren a break. They're not used to dueling alcoholics.

[Nate Han]

Oomp
When we were there, this old man went into the bathrooms before they self-cleansed. Funny shit, watching old people getting soaked. Hope you're having fun. CDC is rocking my face off!!