I'm starting to get bad at this. The farther I get behind the harder it is to catch up. Soooo I'm just going to write a really long post today and then try to keep up...ok?
So last weekend we went to the south of Italy, which consisted of Pompei and Sorrento. We went with our school and the Arcadia group, so all we had to pay for was our hotel, which was amazing since it costs almost 100 Euro to get there and back.
We left at six on Saturday morning, so my roommates and I all decided to stay up all night. I know it sounds like a really stupid idea, but I slept the whole six hours it took us to get there, thank you Dramamine. So after my good nights rest, I was awoken to the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. Actually that's a lie, because we stopped for "lunch" at a gas station about an hour from Pompei.
Ok let the tour of Pompei begin...this will be a good test of my memory, and if anyone who has been there is reading this, please excuse all of the things I will probably get wrong.
This is a temple or place of worship they used back in the day for ceremonies. Our crazy tour guide (who I wish a I had a video of, and maybe a picture of her hairy armpits), always told us to imagine what it would look like. All of the brick was covered with plaster of all different colors, lots of red, and the floors were made of marble. PROBABLY, of course they didn't have digital cameras in 79 AD.
The south of Italy is much more poor than where I am staying in Florence, so there were stray dogs everywhere. It was really sad.
These last two pictures are of what a restaurant may have looked like. The first one is a close up of a "burner". These were actually to-go places, imagine a Subway...
The picture on the right is me (obviously) and a view from the center of Pompei with Mount Vesuvius in the back. Mount Vesuvius is the mountain that erupted and destroyed Pompei.
The bottom image on this wall is what a street sign looked like. The one above it is modern. But instead of having names of the roads, they just had these diagrams or some kind of image relating to the direction they were headed in.
One of the amphi-theater. I'm pretty sure this is one of the biggest ones we saw, but there were alot.
Yess...this is what it looks like. Of course thousands and thousands of people were killed when the volcano erupted, this is just part of the history.
This is where trials were held.
Eek...I don't remember what this was, but it was important so I took a picture of it. I'm a horrible tour guide!
An ancient trash can...
Ok...I took wayyy more pictures than this. I just figured it all pretty much looks the same to you, so why bother putting them all up? If you're really interested though, I will let you see them all when I get home! If you want to learn more about Pompei, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii. I'm lazy and copied a Wikipedia link, your professors worst nightmare, but this isn't school, is it!? It actually has some cool info...so take a look.
Mediterranean Coast is one of the best places to grow lemons and oranges, so I tried a frozen drink with both lemons and oranges in it....delicious!
After leaving Pompei, we headed to our hotel which was somewhere between Pompei and Sorrento. I'm not sure of the name of the town, just know that it was off of the Amalfi Coast, which means that it was goreous.
Be jealous, because this is a view off of our balcony in our hotel room.
The group of us before we went out for dinner. You can kind of see the dog in the lower left hand corner. He saw us all sitting there and came and sat next to us and posed for the picture.
Our hotel room. If you know my love for taking baths, you'll know that I appreciated this tub! The shower in my apartment is barely big enough for me to shower, so this bath tub was quite luxurious.
We went to this little restaurant for dinner and ate seafood, it was really good. However, McKenzie ordered shrimp and couldn't eat it because it had faces on it. One of the girls from my school brought her mom on the trip. She was super cute and reminded me of my mom, which made me miss her even more. After dinner we thought about going out, but instead we just got gelato and went back to the hotel. I had always heard that the farther north you go, the better the gelato was. We tested the theory, and it's true. The gelato was not as good as it is in Florence.
After our disappointing gelato, we went back to our hotel room and Becca read her tarrot cards. Ever since I had my palm read, I've been really interested in all this mystical stuff. Some say you're messing with the Devil, I just think its fun.
This is the pool in our hotel. Even though we were right on the sea, we got to look at this pool for about an hour while the director of our group was talking to the people at the hotel. Apparently some people in our group decided they wanted to take a little piece of the Amalfi Coast with them and took flowers from the hotel. The newly weds were not very happy that a bunch of American college kids took the center pieces off their tables. Don't worry though, it wasn't me, my theft days are long over.
Another picture from our hotel room. I would have loved to stay at this place for a week and woken up everyday to this!!
Welcome to Sorrento. If you thought pictures of Cinque Terre were beautiful...
Sorrento!! It was a such a cute little town with beautiful views of the sea. The little shopping area had stores with every kind of souvenir you could imagine with a lemon on it. They're also known to have really good Lemoncello in Sorrento. Lemoncello is pretty much a lemon liquor made with fresh lemons. We sampled a bunch while we were there, and I thought it was disgusting, but some people love it.
Oh just another lemon tree.
Looks just like my dads :)
Our very rushed lunch before leaving Sorrento. We were suppose to meet at the bus to go back to Florence at 1:15, so we could leave at 1:30, but we sat down to eat at 1:00 and had a ten minute walk back to the bus. Now I'm not very good at math but... Anyway, if anyone knows how much I hate being late, this was obviously a very stressful situation for me. However, my bruschetta was great, and we got back to the bus just in time to wait twenty minutes for our teacher lady, Iris.
I'm beginning to realize I really didn't take very many pictures in Sorrento. Believe it or not, I might be getting a little sick of taking pictures. I didn't think this would ever happen. There was alot of absolutely gorgeous scenery, especially on the bus from Pompei to Sorrento, but you know how I am about pictures on buses.
We didn't have near enough time in Sorrento, what with the whole flower ordeal at the hotel. I'm beginning to feel that way about everywhere I go, there's just not enough time!
PS Abbey, this is what happanes when you don't come on trips with me. I take way too many pictures by myself. You were missed...
Final view of the Mediterranean Sea, you all need to go see it. Pictures can't capture how beautiful it is!
So, I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween. I personally missed the parade of tramps down Welch, doesn't quite match up to the streets of Florence. However; I did see some very cute Italian kids running around with witch hats on.
This weekend was pretty much my last weekend in Florence while I'm here, we have trips planned for almost every weekend after this. If you want my itinerary...
Nov 7-9: Venice
Nov 12-15: Paris & MINE AND ALYSSA'S BIRTHDAY!!!!
Nov 20-22: London
Nov 28-30: Rome
Dec 3-7: Dublin
Dec 8-18: Trying to pass my classes
Dec 21: Home sweet home
I hope everyone is planning on voting. I sent my absentee ballot in over a month ago, but it probably got "lost" in the mail somewhere. You know how we love to rig elections in the United States. May the best man win...
peace&love
vivi
