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I just finnished writting an amazing bolg and it all dissapeared on me. I am going to try again but i don't have much time to do it as well. Things I forgot about Rome. We saw this really cute cat shelter located in a square of ruins. They take in all of the stray cats and fix, vaccinate and feed them. then they let them wane\der about the ruins. It's really cool. We got one hour of sleep our last night in Rome because we had to tke the late bus back to the camp site. We waited for the bus from 11pm until 1am along with tons of people that had just gotten out of a fee concert. There were more people squeesed into that bus than I ever thought possible. We then had to change busses. Luckily Caren found us a local Guide who showed us where to get off. We were told that the next bus wouldn't come until 3:15. He also told us that only 25 of the 40 people waiting would fit on the bus. About 15min brfore the bus was supposed to come he got up and started running motioning us to follow. He lead us to the stop before the one we had just been waiting at so we were able to get on the bus before everyone else. We got to the campsite at around 4am. We took showers which were desperately needed after the bus ride and went to bed around 5am. We had to get up to catch our ride to the train station at 6:30. We arrived in Pompei at around 11am and bought ourselves passes to pompei and eurculanos (which we thought was the volcano. We spent 5 hours wandering around the ruins. I was completely unprepared for the sheer size of the city. it was really amazing how well preserved everything is. You walk into a house and you're standing on a tile floor that was made thousands of years ago. all the paintings on the walls are increadibly well preserved. it is very easy to imagine what the houses would have looked like when there were lived in. it was really great to see all the stuff that my Roman Art teacher spent half the semester talking about and showing slides of. We slept very well that night. The next morningwe hiked up to the volcano which we found out was not included in our pass but it was really cool. We then decided to check out this thing on our pass which turned out to be another set of ruins. i am really happy we made the mistake because we wouldn't have seen it otherwise. This city was also preserved by the erruption but it was even better preserved. It still had the second level on most of the houses and you could see the remains of the wooden beams that held up the rooves. also chared wood framed the doorways.

After eurculanos we hopped a train to Naples to see the museum where ther brought all the stuff they found in the ruined cities. it was a really goos exhibition. It was all translated into engish which was nice. It explained that most people got out of town before the erruption and then went on to descripe exactly where the victems that didn't escape were found and showed us what they were carrying and what can be infered about their lives because of that. The plaster casts were really creepy. They found holes in the ground and filled them with plaster to discover that they were where the people had beenand the lava had hardened around them. Some of them were so detailed you could see facial expression, fingernails, and reamaind of clothing.

From Naples we took a night train to Brindissi. We had a 3 hour stop over somewhere in the middle of the night in a trainstation that had no bathrooms. we got to Brindidssi at around 8am and made arrangements to for the boat. Brindissi is a beautiful little port town. we walked around for a while, got something to eat, then took a much needed nap in the park.

The boat to Greece was awesome. We left around sunset which was beautiful, then we got to sleep lounged out on the deck which was way better than the train. It would have been a great night's sleep if it weren't for the short length and the small sprinkle in the middle of the night. We got showers too which was really cool since we had spent the previous night on the train. We got to Corfu at around 5am and were imediately confronted by people trying to get us to go to the pink palace. Aparently the only reason 20 somethings go to Corfu it to party at the pink palace. It really reminded me of some weird sci fi movie where they make it out to be the best place on earth in order to attract large numbers of young people to feed to their alien queen. Anyways they didn't understand why we didn't want to go. We made arrangements for an overnight bus/ferry to Athens then went to the beach. This beach looked like a paradise vacation brochure. We went swimming, rented a peddle boat and ate awesome gyros.

The bus/ ferry to athens actually turned out to be a bus/ferry/bus/ferry/bus to athens. Not much sleep was had that night. We got to the hotel and dumped our bags hoping to get some sight seening done. We have this wonderful view of the city from our hotel window which includes the thick layer of brown smog covering it. We went to the agora (the old market)and found it somewhat dissapointing. It looked like a bunch of piles of marble blocks compared to Rome and Pompei. We went back to the hotel to tak e a2he nap before going to the Archiological museum. We didn't make it to the museum because we slept til 8pm. When we woke up Lauren decided we should hike up this randon mountainous hill to get a view of the city. I was somewhat sckeptical but it ended up that there was a cute little trail and a wonderful lookout point that was pretty popular because there were a good number of people. there was also a really fancey resataurant up there. The view was great(you can't see the brown smog at night). After we hiked back down and got dinner. then i called Jack to wish him a happy birthday and we all passed out from exhastion on the much appreciated beds. This morning we saw the Acropolis which was a littl better than the agora buit still nothing compared to Rome. Greeks also seem to be really protective of their ruins. In pompei and Rome we got to walk around everything, here we are roped off. and the blow whistles at you if you get too close. Also everything is under construction. the old olympic stadium was closed but we got to walk by it. We went to the museum that we were suppoed to go to yesterday this afternoon only to find out that it has been closed since October of last year and will be closed until April of next year for renovations. Boy am I glad we didn't get up yesterday to go. We are using the extra time now to do much needed laundry and internet. It is increadibly hot here. Tomorrow we go to delphi and then to some islands. Sorry no time to edit.

Lauren and Rob say hi

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