Day 8

August 8, 2011

This day, we left Naples, finally. My mom and I were excited to leave. We took a train to Florance, there we had a nice hotel on the street next to the main train station and Santa Maria Novella. That afternoon we walked around and enjoyed Florance. We walked around and enjoyed the sights.

And I don't remember the rest, school is killing me. I'll update this when I look into this day more. Or ask my mom what happened. :)

Day 7

Day 7

August 7

I’m writing this sitting on a train in England, I’m feeling bad that I haven’t kept up with all of this, but traveling with mono is not advisable. Not only are you tired from all that you do and all the sightseeing and traveling, you are exhausted all the time. So I’ve been using all my spare moments to catch up on sleep or just turn off my mind by reading before the next school semester starts. Eventually, I will be cought up because I will have stopped traveling J

So, August 7, 2011.

Today we took a train out to Pozoli, a little town outside of Naples. We both needed a break from Nasty Naples, as my mother termed it. We got there, and walked down until we could see the coast and sat and had a little snack. It was beautiful. Under the shade it was not nearly as hot and it was just a better overall atmosphere.

After chilling out for awhile, we walked to the sulfatara, Pozoli’s claim to fame. It is basically a volcano crater that you can walk around and see mud pots and some hot jets. A little tiny Yellowstone if you will. Well, without the huge bison in the road (but at least your dad can’t roll down your window when you’re right next to one in the road to freak you out…).

We finally made it up the hill to the entrance of the Sulfatara and bought our entrance tickets. Then we walked around the guided path. It was lovely, until you got into the open part of the crater. Then it was insanely hot. Not only was it humid outside with the sun beating down on you, there were hot stem jets around you at about 310 F and the floor was much hotter. So you had heat from below and above. Mom quickly lost interest in it and wanted to leave, but I left her on a bench looking for rocks, while I ran around to all the information signs and interest points. It was interesting, they claim that all the sulfur in the air helps to give you better… probability of having children. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, people actually put brick buildings over the steam jets to create a type of sauna to go to get their dose of aphrodisiac.

After the sulfatara, we headed back to our hostel, stopping before our trip down shoe row at the main station to pick up a quick bite to eat. When we got back to the hostel, we took a shower and headed to bed after some more farkle.

Oh yeah, this is the day…. We were almost the victims of pick pockets. As we were getting on the tram, 4 guys surrounded my mom while she was getting on, and tried to pick her pocket. Thankfully she had nothing in there but dirty tissues from our horrid colds. Then once she got through, I headed in. At this point I had no idea what was going on, until I looked down and saw someone’s hand in my purse. I yelped ‘stop it’ and shoved the guy with his hand in my purse into the pole you hold when the tram is moving. Then went and sat with my mom. The two main guys in this whole charade had gotten back off the tram at the stop where we got on, but as the train started moving, we noticed two more guys that wouldn’t stop staring at us. We sorta freaked at this point, but when they got off at the next stop, we turned to each other and just laughed at the situation we had just been through. Another adventure!!

Italy Day 6

Day 6

Saturday, August 6

Today was another adventure.

We bought tickets from the tobacci shop to take the transportation around the city and to Pompeii. Well, we made it as far as the main train station where we were supposed to catch a train to Pompeii. We found the right platform, but when I stepped on the next train that came through, my mother, who was right behind me, hesitated. In that moment of hesitation, the doors of the train closed and the train started moving. Without my mother on board. I talked to a guy standing behind me and he said to get to Pompeii, I had to get off at the next station and take the next train that was on the same track.

So at the next station I got off and when the next train came thru the station, I looked in some of the windows and waited to see if my mom happened to be on it and peeked her head out.

I saw no head peaking out, so I crossed to the other platform at the station and hopped on the next train that went into the main station. When I got back there, my mom was not on the platform. So, I decided to go back to the hostel and wait for her to show up, because I knew we both knew where the hostel was and how to get there.

At the hostel, I read a book and had a nice nap and 3-4 hours later, she showed up. Turns out that my mom had been on the train that passed me and had gone onto Pompeii and was waiting for me there!

Adventures are good J

We ate some crackers and cheese that we had in the room, and went onto Pompeii for the afternoon. It was faster getting there, because my mom knew the way!

At Pompeii it was really cool to see all these buildings and streets that had been unearthed. The streets amazed me. In the first century, the had these incredibly even and straight streets running everywhere. I think I wasn’t giving our ancestors enough credit for everything they had accomplished during the time they were living.

Pompeii was a lot of fun to walk around, the whole thing was amazing. We even saw some plaster casts of some of the people that were there.

I must tell you, even though I work with dead bodies, these casts really kinda disturbed me. At work, there are no expressions on the faces. These plaster casts had even preserved the look of horror that was on the victums faces when they were buried. It really got to me.

After taking the train back to Naples, we ate at the cafeteria (like a café) at the train station because it was the only thing open around that wasn’t McDonalds (which I refused to do in Italy). We actually ate here a lot while in Naples.

After dinner, we walked down shoe row to catch the tram to our hostel and played a hand of cards and took showers before falling asleep.

Funny thing about our stay in the hostel, we were roomed with two teenage German girls. They were a pain in the butt. Made our nights miserable because they would turn off the air in the middle of the night then huff and puff all angrily at us if we got up to go to the restroom and they hated mom’s snoring. After the first night, I didn’t bother to have mom stop when I heard her. The last night we were in the hostel, we wound up hiding the remote to turn off the air conditioner under some of the clothes that they had left out just so that we wouldn’t wake up in a super stuffy room in the morning. It was so hot in Naples!! 30 degrees C and it was so humid!

All of Italy was hot and humid, requiring lots of water to be drunk. One of my favorite things about Italy was their free ‘water fountains’ which were actually water fountains. All the water in the fountains was potable and you could refill your water bottle from there. There were even some cool fountains in Pompeii where you could refill your bottle.

My mom and I became tap water conesures for all of Italy, and at one point we had the Italy stops ranked in order of tastiest tap water. I think we both still favor Rome’s water the most.

Italy Day 5

Day 5

Friday, August 5

This day, we left Rome and took a train to Naples. The train ride was pleasant enough for me, but mom had found an Italian guy in our compartment to try and talk to about all that we were going to do in Naples. They talked and talked. The guy knew a little Spanish, a little English and Italian, and my mom knowing Spanish, English, and a little Italian, tried to respond. It wound up being mostly sign language! She really enjoyed it.

Once we had arrived in Naples, we tried to find the R2 bus to take us to our hostel that we had reserved a room at. It took us awhile to find it, and we had to walk up against this feense surrounding a bunch of construction in the plaza. We promptly named it shoe street because all along the fense there were random shoes! And not just broken shoes, but shoes that worked. High heels, tennis shoes, flip flops, you name it, it was discarded there. We finally found our bus, then there was the problem of getting a ticket for the bus. I stayed on the bus, that had no driver and a few people sitting on it, while my mom braved the street and found the tickets.

We started to ride the bus and were counting our stops (the directions said 7) and then asked a little old man who was standing near us if he knew of the place. Thankfully he did and told us to get off at the right stop and which street we needed to walk down in order to arrive there.

We arrived at this tall building and had to walk across the cort yard and ride the tiny rickety (mom hated this) elevator up to the 6^th floor where the sign had said the hostel was. When we got there, we checked in and found out we needed to go one floor up to arrive at our room and the commons room.

We took awhile to settle in and I rested (like I said, the mono is kicking it into high gear and I get tired quickly.). Then, we set out to find a place for dinner.

Naples is nasty. It’s really dirty, and no one feels safe. All over the main train station they had warnings in every language to watch your stuff because people will steal it. Because of this, we didn’t walk far for dinner. We made it up and around the block before we walked back to the place on the street corner near our hostel. It was good pizza, but the waiter had a horrible ‘americans suck’ attitude, which was not helped by my mothers gazillion questions.

After this, we went back to our hostel and played a couple games of farkle before going to bed. Neither of us sleeping well on the rock hard beds.

Italy Day 4

Day 4

Thursday, August 4

The catacombs, and the national museum.

Today, was an adventure. :)

We took the metro to a station near where we thought the catacombs would be. When we got off, we asked someone where they were, and they said to keep right.

We kept right. Right up a hill. Right down a hill. Still no signs or even other tourists, so we asked someone. She just happened to be going there so we followed her. After we got on the bus, she said 'mamma mia!' and had us get off. It turns out that we were on the right bus but going the wrong way. The trains, busses and metros are all messed up in August apparently. So we found the correct bus got on and it let us off right at the end of the driveway to one of the catacombs.

It was a beautiful walk up the driveway to a group of buildings. All around us were fields lined by trees, a little haven in the middle of the city.

Mom and I discussed it, and wound up buying a ticket only for me because of my mothers claustrophobia.

So, they called for all the English speakers to follow the tour guide and we were guided into the back, through the gate. There, they had our little group sit on a wall in front of pictures while they explained some of the history and told us about what we would see. These are the highlights:

- At one time 6 popes and 8 bishops were buried here

- This place was started as a free cemetery for Christians

- 40% of the people buried there were children

- There were half a million people buried there

- There are 4 levels but we only went down to level two

- The bottom two levels were sealed off to preserve the bones that still rested there to protect them from being pulverized by conditions

- It was about 14 degrees centigrade down there

- Although it was a safe-haven, no one lived there to escape persecution because it was seen as a sacred place, like base in tag. The only time people were killed there was when they were holding illegal mass there.

- It was passed from proprietor to proprietor until it wound up in the hands of the Catholic Church, who turned it over to these monks (?) or group of people to lead tours and maintain the place.

- It was used from the 1^st century till the 9^th century when the bones of the popes, bishops, and saints that were buried there were removed for safety reasons. Then the catacombs fell into disrepair, only to be ‘discovered’ again in the 19^th century and start being maintained in the early 20^th century.

- There were certain patterns that were repeated on the seals to each niche in the wall where the body was placed that would tell about how this person was led by the good shepherd and is now in heaven with Jesus and God

- The word cemetery means ‘sleeping place’ and was only used to describe where Christians buried their dead because they believed that we will live again. Necropolises were used to describe pagen places of burial.

- The word catacombs means ‘ beside the dip’ or something like that and started to be used because the cemeteries just happened to be near a rock quarry.

- They used to wrap the body in a sheet or shroud, then pour calcium carbonate or something to help the decomposition process along, and fill the niche with vases of good smelling things to help mask the smells.

- People used to want to be buried as close to the popes, or other holy ones, as possible so that their bodies could feel some of the spirit that resided with the bodies of the holy ones.

- There was a girl buried there that was martyred for her faith at 16 or so. Her body apparently never decayed. They had a sculpture of her body where she used to lie. It showed with her right index finger pointed out and her left hand holding up 3 fingers. This was to show her faith even as she was dying. 1 God, 3 parts. She was able to show this on her hands because when she was decapitated, it was not complete. And although she could not talk, she used her hands to show her faith. Her body was moved to her own basilica in Rome.

- They would dig the paths from the top down. They would dig five feet, then burry until they had no more room in the walls, then dig deeper and burry more over and over until they decide to create a new level.

- There are over 20 kilometers of tunnels in this catacomb

After all this explanation, she led us down through a gate with a shed over it. On the walls of the shed were different pieces of marble that had been used to seal each tomb that showed how they would engrave their name and symbols in it. From there, we walked down even more stairs until we were 12 m below the surface and saw the ‘popes’ room’ aptly named for the popes that used to be buried there.

We continued on and saw some 3^rd century frescos. Then walked along and took in the surroundings. Our tour guide had asked us to walk in silence for awhile to feel and hear as others would have long ago. The floor was pounded dirt, almost mud like and the walls felt the same. There were empty places where bodies would lie everywhere. All that kept going through my head were how many shorter (2-3 feet) places there were for the children to rest in. I almost lost it when I came up to 5-6 niches that were sized for babies.

After this walk, we saw one of the little chapels that had been set up for people to come visit and pray at. Our tour guide, who is a teacher in a Scandinavian country, has written our psalms on lines of paper and asked us each to take one to remember our time there. Then we were led up a tremendous amount of stairs and out of the catacomb.

This whole experience was so amazing. After I left, I felt peaceful, and in awe of what I had just seen. When my mother asked if I wanted to visit another catacomb nearby, I declined stating that I wanted to have this experience as my catacomb experience to remember.

After this we went back to the hotel and slept.

Then we set off to find the national museum which was down by the main train station (termini) so we walked down to where we thought it was and couldn’t find it. So we kept walking. And walking. And walking. We finally asked at a café for the directions and they pointed us back the way we had already been. Turns out we had just made a big figure 8 around it! Today was not our day for directions.

By the time we got there, there was only an hour left or so for the place to be open. Luckily we had already scoped out what floors we were most interested in with our guide book. We went straight to the frescos and mosaics. Which were amazing!! They had whole rooms that had their walls frescoed and their floors mosaiced from the bathes of CaraCalla (which we had seen and walked all the way around on our morning adventure)

Then we went down to the basement where they had jewelery that had been found in Rome from the roman era and the coins that they had found. Most were found in votive wells which were used as offerings to the Gods. It was cool there because you could use a magnifying glass and see how intricate the ancient roman coins were. They were quite amazing. Also on this floor was a mummy of a 9 year old and what they had found when they unwrapped him. It also had a video playing about how they are using mitochondrial DNA to find out more about him.

After we were done at the museum, we decided to call it a night. While we were walking back to our hotel, we walked down a side street that we had come to call ‘restaurant ally’ that led to a church and had tons of sidewalk restraints and had some food for dinner. I had a margarita pizza and mom had pasta with shellfish (muscles and the like). I was immediately reminded of Melano, because my mom’s dinner smelled like his breath J

Italy Day 3

Day 3

Wednesday August 3

Wednesday, we went to the Vatican and it’s extensive museum.

This place was amazing. They had everything from an Egyptian mummy to modern works of art. It was honestly mind blowing. It took us the better part of 4 hours to walk through with our handy audiotours. I took forever in the Sistine chapel. Even with a million people in it, it was amazing. It was super intresting to hear about how it was painted in stages by different people, not just Michael Angelo. The restoration process was interesting to hear about too. This was just a highlight of the tour, there was an amazing mosaics, statues, and painted rooms and motifs. These were all amazing to see and hear about how the Vatican acquired them over the centuries. The funniest thing I saw was a huge stone toe. That’s right, you read that correctly. A huge stone toe. It was random toe underneath a stone sarcophagus. I am very curious as to what statue this is from and why it is randomly placed there.

The amount of history that I saw that day within all those things really was defining. Between all the history in the ancient things we had seen in Rome the day before and now I was seeing their art. These people really started to exist in my mind as people. Not just as things of the past.

After our long long tour of the Vatican museums, we walked out of the Vatican walls and around to the front of St. Peter’s Basilica. We would have loved to go it, but it was the heat of the day and the line was super long, it was up one of the arms that stretched out from the basilica, doubling back a few times here and there all the way inside. We hung out around the fountains that were in the court yard and took in the entire experience while reading about the history of the building from my handy dandy corner kiosk guide to Rome. While sitting there, I could not imagine how many thousands of people that sit there and wait for the smoke that comes out of the chimneys of the Sistine Chapel when the bishops of the catholic church. So. Many. People.

I’m not sure that I even want to imagine it.

After this, I’m not sure you can guess what we did.

That’s right, we took a nap. My mono is starting to really annoy me at this point. Thankfully, we can use the heat of the day when we would otherwise be relative unproductive in our sightseeing adventures.

For dinner, we went to a resturant near the main bus terminal. We decided it was time for a nice dinner, not just food. To begin with, I had prujuito and fresh montzerella. AMAZING. Then I had a simple plate of spaghetti with meat sauce. Again, AMAZING. I ate until I was stuffed. And then finished it. Yum. Good memories.

Italy day 2

Day 2

August 2, 2011

Today we went to the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, and name of fountina/overlook I need to look up.

The Coliseum:

We started the morning by walking from our hotel to the Coliseum. When we arrived, there was a line of only a few people. As we were leaving, the line wound a quarter of the way around the Coliseum and wound back and forth for a part of that.

We went on a audiotour (one of those hand held things where you push the number corresponding to your location and it has information about that specific thing/place) around the entire thing. This worked out really well, because there were not many information panels to read along the way.

Our first stop was on the second level at one of the shorter sides. At this stop, we heard about how the Coliseum used to look, where people used to sit, and how there used to be tarps above the entire place. The Coliseum used to be covered in marble which was taken down and used to build other places after the Coliseum ceased to be used. It used to hold 40-70 thousand people at a time, each using their own entrance and having their own seat as indicated on their ticket. Special doors were used for certain people, such as the gladiators, and senators. There were 3 main sections of seats and within each section, people were segregated by social status. The higher the social statuses the closer to the bottom you were. (personally I find this crazy, If I were a senator, I would want more people between me and the exotic animals that want to kill you than trying to be as close as possible to their sharp teeth…) What was most interesting about this part was that each senator had their name carved into the marble in front of their seat.

The second stop was on one of the longer sides. . Here they explained about the games and how the floor used to be, showing a partial recreation over part of the under chambers. It was interesting to hear about the gladiators and how they trained in an adjacent area and lived in a barracks. It was also intresting to hear about the ancient Roman’s use of trap doors. Apparently, once they used the trap doors to make a life size dead whale appear on the floor of the Coliseum and had 60 bears come out of its mouth. This was in commemoration of a dead whale washing up on the Italian beach.

Last side talked about how a pope consecrated the Coliseum as sacred, not necessarily because of the Christians martyred there, but more as a deterrent to tearing it down for stone.

The Roman forums:

Ok, I found these mostly boring. It was cool to be in a place where you know people have been walking for thousands of years, but it was just a bunch of stones in the ground. Some of the pillars were still standing. We were also there at the heat of the day and hadn’t had lunch yet. Low blood sugar might have also been a reason for me not finding this place particularly interesting.

After this we went back to the room and took a lovely nap.

­­­­­_____ plaza and _____ fountain.

That evening, we went to fountain and walked around, exploring. On one of the cute side streets, we found an H&M and I got a larger purse that could accommodate a water bottle easily. Also, this expands the number of countries I have shopped at an H&M store in. We ate dinner at a little café. This food was better than Mondays but still not anything special. After this, we walked up the hill behind the fountain so that we were then on top of one of Rome’s five (?) hills. It was a beautiful skyline. You could see the tops of the basilicas, and as the sun started to set it was beautiful.

I just noticed my glasses are bent out of shape, which is better than I can say about mom’s glasses, which have completely broken in two. She thought ahead and brought an extra pair at least. I didn’t think that far :$