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Published: July 13th 2008
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Over the volcano
I managed to get a fellow "Byron" to snap this photo of me overlooking the crater of Vesuvius. A good soldier recognizes the different sounds made by his enemy's weapons and reacts accordingly. So to have I come to recognize the different sounds made by vehicles approaching from behind as I sprint from doorway to doorway down the narrow streets of Sant' Angello. If it sounds like a truck, the side view mirror will be at head level so I duck. If it sounds like a Smart Car, I cover my crotch.
Sant' Angello is one train stop before Sorrento on the southern tip of the Bay of Naples. I thank the me of three months ago who, at the last moment, selected a hotel here rather than Sorrento. I vaguely remember thinking that Sorrento might be a bit too trendy. It turned out I was right. Love Boats daily disgorge their cargos onto the streets of Sorrento.
On top of the Volcano Of course the Bay of Naples is dominated by Mount Vesuvius. When it erupted in 79 AD its ashes quickly covered the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserving them for archaeologists and tourists who wouldn't come along for another 19 centuries.
Even well preserved ruins can be difficult to decipher, so I
Positano
One of the amazing villages that cling to the cliffs of the Italian coast. agreed to pay a guide 10 euros to show me around. He told me I only had to wait five minutes for him to round up a few more customers. I began threatening him after about 30 minutes. His English quickly deteriorated when the subject shifted from sales to ruins.
Everyone's favorite stop in Pompeii is the brothel. Tiled pictures on the walls showed which positions the prostitutes specialized in, how much it costs to participate, and how much it costs to watch. Yes, watch. Apparently privacy wasn't a big deal. The protocol was to have the madam look over your equipment before going in. If she determined that you had syphilis, then you were sent to the balcony to watch. Luckily, the volcano destroyed most of the balcony.
(My interest in visiting these sites comes from the two letters written by Pliny the Younger to the historian, Tacitus. PY was a 17-year-old boy living on the island of Capri when Vesuvius erupted. The first letter describes how his step father, Pliny the Elder, met his death when he sailed to Pompeii to reassure the panicking residents that everything was going to be okay. The second letter describes
Mother's Milk
You can fill up your water bottle at any of the ornate fountains in Italy. the horrific ordeal he and his mother went through trying to escape the ash, which was so thick that it had "turned day into night.")
Of course I also had to climb the 4000 foot Vesuvius, which used to be 8000 feet. Good thing I waited until it erupted. I hired a driver to take me to the trail head. Along the road we passed mountains of trash stacked in front of every home. Although the trash strike has ended in Naples, I guess the clean up crews haven't gotten out this far. I pictured climbing Vesuvius would be something inspiring that Byron or Halliburton probably would have done, but the trail was crammed with hundreds of "Byrons" and "Halliburtons".
Hostile Reception It amazes me to think that a person armed with a laptop and a few guidebooks borrowed from the library can sit in his bed in Santa Cruz, click a few button, and months later walk in to a hotel on another continent and have the clerk say, "We were expecting you."
So how does an underpaid professor tour the great cities of Europe when the Euro pushes the dollar around like a schoolyard
Under the volcano
View of Vesuvius from the ruins of Herculaneum. bully picking on a pudgy weakling? The answer: hostels. I lucked out in Rome by discovering the YWCA. I'm not Y, W, or C; I was the only male resident, and the room lacked air conditioning, but it was clean, simple, quiet, and centrally located.
I paid twice as much for my room in Sant' Angello, but it had a king-size bed and served fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast.
Naples turned out to be a lesson in reading the fine print. I couldn't find a Neapolitan YWCA, so I decided to be bold and checked a box saying that I would be willing to share a room, but a double room, not one of those dorm rooms that sleeps ten drunk and horny teenagers.
When I arrived I was handed two pieces of distressing news. First, the hostel was being fumigated, so I should leave immediately and not return until after 8 PM. Second, my bunkmate would be Catherine, a lovely student from the south of France. Forty years ago I might have thought this was great news, but forty years ago I considered a college dorm with male and female floors a hopelessly radical idea. And
A Peck of Pickled Peters
In ancient Rome the phallus not only symbolized good sex, it also symbolized something like good business. poor Catherine, I thought to myself, wouldn't she be horrified to discover that her bunkmate would be an avuncular college professor with a weak bladder instead of a drunk and horny teenage boy.
I swallowed hard and asked the proprietor if there were any protocols governing issues such as what one wears to bed. Were shorts acceptable, or did one sleep fully clothed? "But sir, you are so much older than I," he replied in a tone somewhere between sarcasm and respect, "surely you should be advising me on how to behave around women."
When I met Catherine later that night I told her that this was the first time I ever shared a room with a woman I didn't know. I told her I was a little nervous. She smiled and blinked uncomprehendingly. Apparently this was nothing to her. I solved the dress code problem by sleeping in my sarong.
That night both of us faced a common enemy that overshadowed our gender differences: traffic noise. Good God, were trucks racing motorcycles right outside our window? At 3 AM I decided to climb out of my top bunk and fetch my earplugs. If anyone should be
adept at negotiating ladders late at night while wearing a sarong, it should be me, but I managed to step on my sarong. It fell to my ankles. I was stuck. I couldn't go up or down without risking an embarrassing fall. I prayed that Catherine was asleep. She smiled sweetly at me this morning over a breakfast of tang and toast, so apparently she was.
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gerintyxec
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As savo kudikius maitinau iki dvylikos metu net ir ta nieko blogo nera,o viskas gerai.