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.