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Published: April 20th 2005
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Have been wandering around Pompeii for the past hour. It's amazing archaelogically of course, but also from the perspective of humanity. Everything is so well preserved that it's quite easy to play my little game-all I have to do is duck off the beaten path into a house and I'm in someone's yard, someone's kitchen. I've been wandering in the rich part of town, where the houses large and airy, full of beautiful mosaics and fountains and deep wells against the dry season. A lot of the really amazing things have been taken to the museum, so everything's a bit more bare, but you can still imagine the lords of the city commissioning these artisans to spend hours beautifying their houses. It's also a bit sobering to compare the tiny cells of the poor to these palazzos and realize that they were all incinerated alike. The bodies themselves are heartwrenching - further evidence, along with the mosaics and graffitti, that this really was a living breathing city before the mountain exploded. I think about when I was four and the volcano across the bay erupted. I remember playing in the snow outside after the ash had fallen, leaving white footprints in the black, laughing at the reversal of the natural world I knew.
However well preserved it is, there is still the air of a tomb about this place. An echo of civilization, I guess.
...
So, a funny story. Funny in the sense that I can't believe the scrape I have yet again managed to get myself into. I'm not a very savvy traveler it seems.
Anyway we've had a bit of a disaster with our train tickets. Italian train tickets are not exactly designed to make sense, so we ended up missing our connecting train to Brindisi, and are now in this little town I can't remember the name of. We got to this station and were informed that there were no more trains to Brindisi, at least not until 2.30 am. A veteran of spending the night in airports, I didn't really think a train station would be any better. Nick concurred, so we trekked out into the dead streets in search of a hotel that wouldn't bleed us dry. We stopped at one of the first ones we came to: 72 euro for two people. We fidgeted, we cleared our throats, we looked pathetic. We managed to convey in Italian that we'd missed our train, we were only staying till 2 am, we were unable to pay that amount. In the end the woman had pity and charged us what we said we could pay: 40 euro. Of course then we whipped our our American passports and immediately a pinched look came about the woman's face. "Ah, Americans. So rich!" Ha. We wasted a few words trying to convince her that we were not rich, we were students, and then gave up. At any rate the bargain was already struck, and we now have a place to lay our heads and a trickle of warm water. Of course the shower is the italian style - drain in the middle of the bathroom floor with a handheld showerhead. Senza curtain, senza barrier between the "shower area" and the rest of the bathroom. The shower area really is as far as the spray will reach, which if the door was open would be Nick watching Italian dubbed Looney toons in bed. I'm telling you, its impossible
not to soak the entire bathroom with these things. I've developed a technique however of keeping the showerhead in its holder 2 feet off the ground and sort of crouching under it. I think they should invent some new yoga positions from this. It's even better than trying to shave your legs in a 2ft square cubicle. So now, after this quasi-shower and sucking down a few yogurts (I got a gelato mini-spoon, but they are not for the hungry) I can crash for a few hours before we can finally leave for Brindisi.
P.S. some of the highlights of Napoli- went to the really famouse conservatorio and music library. Incredible. The collected books and scores of the scuola napolitana. And then dinner, at the cheapest of cheap places, and the food was amazing! Fresh seafood for the first time since Mexico, great wine for 8 euro (montepulciano d'Abruzzo Colli Urbis - Rosso, dont remember the year), and being with friends from Milano again. Dinners with good friends are really the greatest thing in the world.
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