“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

Monday, February 8, 2010

Naples, Pompeii Day Three

Herculaneum Ruins

View to Naples from Mt. Vesuvius

At the Pompeii Ruins

Overlooking the City of Naples

Naples, Pompeii Day Three- Sunday, February 7th 2010

Today we didn’t get out of bed until 9 AM. We packed up our stuff, got breakfast and checked out of the hostel. Today we walked to the train station first, where we bought a ticket to Mt. Vesuvius and Erculano- the city where Mt. Vesuvius was. When we got their we ran into a new problem: the park was closed due to ice and we couldn’t walk to the top because there was a car accident that was going to take a couple days to clear. This definitely was not what we expected, and I was not excited to hear that it was going to cost us 20 euros each to take a bus to the parking lot where the park was- which was still pretty far up the mountain, but not what we were planning- we wanted to go to the top! I made the decision to just start walking to the top- even though it was 20K to the top, I was willing to walk as far as could and turn back when I got tired. So that’s what Bryce and I did- we walked through the city up the volcano as far as we could before we had to turn around. Our train departed from Napoli at 2:30- so we turned around at 1:00 and headed back. We got pretty far up the mountain and took pictures before we turned around. The city was very dirty and it wasn’t much fun hiking up hill for nearly 2 hours, but at least we didn’t have to pay for a tour bus. That’s for amateurs who lose sense of adventure.

Walking back we got lost. Very lost. We must have walked for 5 miles around the city before we found the train station. And no one knew English, so communication was very hard- considering the fact that we knew very little Italian. If you are going to live in Italy for 5 months, make sure you learn the language beforehand. Never do what I do. Haha.

So we got on a train from Napoli to Rome, then Rome to Florence, and we didn’t get back till 11:30. That’s nine hours of traveling on a train. By the time I got to Florence, we had an hour to spare before the superbowl started. We got ready and went to a bar called Naima where we met up with a group of kent students, bought pizza and beer and watched the game on a flat screen TV. It was the first time I heard English on a TV in one month. It was great. While most people spend their superbowl Sunday in there hometown, eating chips and drinking a beer, I went to Pompeii and climbed a volcano, took a nine hour train ride back to Florence and watched the game at midnight until 4 in the morning, when I went back to my apartment and cooked pasta before daylight. Sounds like a good superbowl Sunday to me.

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