Mount Vesuvius, don't you blow your top again!

This past weekend, I went with my Etruscans and Romans class to Pompeii, Herculaneum and Naples. Sadly, our professor couldn't go with us because he had a case of pneumonia/flu and got bit by a poisonous spider and therefore couldn't walk :(. Poor guy right?? So we we get to the train station around 7:30 am to catch our train to Naples. Before we start our 3 and a half hour train ride, I decide I should go to the bathroom. After being unable to find one in the train station ANYWHERE, I decide to go across the street to a bar. The guy behind the counter kindly lets me use it, but to my dismay, I discover not a toilet, but a squatter. And what I mean by that is a ceramic hole in the ground with a place for you to put your feet. Needless to say, that wasn't going to happen for me haha. I have NEVER seen that in my life before though! Boy do I miss american toilets haha.

Anyways, so we get to the Naples and head out to our bus, which was supposed to be called "Pleasure on Wheels", but to our disappointment, was not. We then are told that because there has been a hiccup with the scheduling, we will not be going to Boscoreale to visit the Villa Rustica and Museum. So, we head straight to Pompeii. Before we explore the ruins, we get lunch at a local pizzeria. Taylor, Liz, Jenna, Sam and I each share 4 pizzas and 2 salads. It was good, but too salty for me. I was dying for water for the next couple hours, especially since we were in Pompeii and there was dust blowing EVERYWHERE. Right before we were getting ready to go into the city, Jenna sees a place where we can get fresh squeezed blood orange juice. The guy offers to let her squeeze it herself, so of course she does. I decide to do the same. It was delicious! I LOVEEEE blood oranges :)

So, after lunch, we head into Pompeii where we stayed for 4-5 hours. WAY too long and I was dying of thirst the whole time, but it was very interesting. I saw a bunch of the preserved people and the dog that our professor had shown us in class prior to going. We also got to walk into a few houses and into 2 theaters. And of course, we went into the brothel and saw the pictures describing what type of sex act was performed in each room. Very amusing. Sadly, I did not see the penises on the ground (aka the first record of advertising), but I heard that a bunch of old ladies were seen crowded around it laughing, so they do exist! Then we finally were able to get some water and fuel since we were exhausted, before heading off to the Villa of Mysteries in the same place. It was cool. There were also dogs EVERYWHERE around there and this one dog kept following our group around. It was so cute!

After Pompeii, we got back on the bus and headed to Sorrento to check into our hotel. We somehow convinced the teachers that we should get a dinner on the school, since they mislead us in the itinerary, so we got 15 euro from the school for dinner. Erin and I got a price fix for 15 euros and we had a good meal. We went to Zi'Nntonio, which apparently has been in the Michelin Guide for a couple years in a row.

The next day, Sunday, we checked out of our hotel and headed to the Villa Oplontis, which is where Nero's wife Poppaea Sabina lived. We learned about the first, second, third, and fourth styles of paintings, which was pretty cool and walked around the area. There was a HUGE swimming pool that used to be there. It was maybe about twice the size of mine and apparently always had fresh water running into it and old water draining out. Very cool. After that we took what was supposed to be an hour bus ride, but ended up being 15 minutes long, to Herculaneum.

I really liked Herculaneum. I think it was a lot easier to take in than Pompeii, and although we didn't see any of the preserved people there, I still think i was pretty cool. We got to explore in the houses again, look at art, and even go into this cave where they used to bathe. Apparently, around like 3 pm, everything would stop in the town and everyone would just go out and bathe together. Can you imagine something like that in the US today?! Apparently they had a really good drainage and aqueduct system, which is what permitted them to maintain this setup.

After Herculaneum, we set off to go into the heart of Naples to have lunch. Michaela, Jenna, Erin, Will, Lilly, Lee, and I went to a pizzeria to try Naples' pizza. This was mine:

It was good, but a little too thin. I miss my NY pizza :( haha. After lunch, we headed over to Naples’ Archaeological Museum. We were a little short on time, so the TA Townsend gave us a quick tour of the first part of the museum we had missed, and then caught us up with the rest of the tour group. However, he was a HILARIOUS tour guide and I wish he could’ve given us a tour of the whole museum. He showed us a statue of Hercules and told us that you ALWAYS have to go around the back of a Greek statue, and this is why:

HAHAHAHA just look at the butt on that thing! :P After that, he showed us a statue of mother nature which had many breasts so she can feed the world:

His comment for this was that a lot of motorboating! HAHAHA. Then, he showed us a statue of Zeus and a pretty boy Zeus fancied. The myth behind this is that Zeus transformed himself into an eagle to come down and seduce the boy. He then took the boy back up to Mount Olympus to serve the G-ds.

Before Townsend showed us this statue he said, “Are you guys ready for some gender-bending fun?!” HAHAHA.. so much better than the rest of the tour.

Once we got back to the rest of the tour, we saw a few more sculptures such as Athena, Hermes, Cupid, and some others, and then looked at some paintings. I saw one that really interested me. It is the painting of Cerberus, the 3 headed dog, and the person who played the lyre in order to sedate the creature. Harry Potter reference anyone? Haha. Also, while we were in the museum, Michaela kicked my butt and I thought it was Jenna, so I kicked hers back, and of course we laughed over this. BUT, the guard didn’t seem to like this, so he SHHHHHHH’d really loud in our faces and then followed us around for the rest of the time. :shakes head::: Oh well. After the museum, we got back on the bus and headed to the train station. It was then that we got to see all the trash that Naples is famous for. JEEZ was it dirty!!

Now it is the last week of classes. Anna, Vicky, Jenna and I made a video this Monday for our mythology class called “Olympus Shore”. It is a combination of the Jersey Shore and ancient mythology. It is HILARIOUS. I’ll link the youtube link here once we post it. Should be good though :) And hopefully tonight I’m headed to an MTV concert in Santa Croce and going out to celebrate Liz’s birthday. Should be fun!

Ciao!

Good Week :)

So this past week, Jenna’s parents were here. Monday night, they came over for dinner and Anna put on a show as usual. It was okay, because we got AMAZING food and my favorite cake again! (the same one that she made when my mom came over for dinner) I also tried the tiniest bite of prosciutto, which I didn’t really like too much. Anna randomly started speaking random words of English and we joked around saying that she has known English all along and just pretends not to know any. Even tonight, she said a few new words in English. I think one day she is just going to start speaking fluent English haha.

On Tuesday after class, I met up with Marsha to return my leather coat that didn’t really fit too well/ wasn’t really good quality. I ended up finding a dark brown one with a slanted zipper that I’m absolutely obsessed with! Marsha even got a coat herself that is somewhat similar after the guy sufficiently flirted with her. He kept on wanting kisses from her, kissed her on the lips 3 times and tried holding her hand. SO CREEPY. She got a good price though, and I didn’t have to pay anything extra! J

On Wednesday, for my Italian class, they had a bunch of Italian high school students come to chat with us. Joe and I talked to them for about an hour. It was a lot of fun. They also made sure to tell me that they were not like the people on Jersey Shore, ha! After, Jenna and I booked more of our trip for after school! :D We booked Ventimiglia from April 28^th to May 2^nd in this person’s apartment. We are going to relax by the beach, maybe hop over to France for dinner J (since it is the last city in Italy before France and therefore very close to the border).

Later that night, Jenna’s parents took all of us, including Anna, out to dinner. We went to La Gostra, which had a really nice atmosphere and decent food. Jenna had cheese and pear ravioli, which was interesting and I had gnocchi with ricotta and spinach. For dessert, we ate the tiramisu that Jenna made in class. It was SO good! After dessert while Jenna was packing to go stay with them, Jenna’s mom French braided my hair J It was funny because Anna was fascinated by it and wanted to learn so she could do it to her granddaughter’s hair.

Thursday was a GORGEOUS day. After barely doing anything in class (we watched Troy in mythology), I worked on an internship application while sitting outside in the gorgeous weather. It was so warm and since there was not a cloud in the sky, I actually tanned haha. I currently have a pretty funny watch tan line (since I wear my watch all the time). I wanna draw the numbers on there so if anyone asks me what time it is I can just pull out my arm and be like THIS time hahah

Friday, I got up early to meet up with Jenna and her parents in a small town side outside of Siena. I think it is called Poggibonsi. We then drove around the area looking for local vineyards and did a little wine and olive oil tasting J I think we went to a total of 3 places. After, Jenna and I played in a little playground and became 5 years old again while we were waiting for her friends from home (Ellen) to come in on her train from Rome. We ate lemon ice popsicles while on the seesaw, swung on the swings and went on those animals on the springs, which make you feel like they’re going to throw you off!

Saturday, I got up early AGAIN to catch a bus with my school to go to Siena and San Gimignano. We went into Palazzo Pubblico (where I got these really cute moon and star earrings that are TOTALLY me :P) and then into the Cathedral. Their Duomo looks a lot less impressive from the outside, but so much better than Florence’s Duomo on the inside! It was decorated all over with stripes, stars, lots of gold and colors. We went into the Piccolomini library, which was in the church and saw these big books that I think were hand painted and absolutely gorgeous! We also saw the Piccolomini altar done by Michelangelo. Apparently he was a douchebag about it and was commissioned to do like 15 sculptures and signed a contract that he wouldn’t work on another project while doing that one. Then he pretty much immediately started working on The David instead haha. He kept on putting off this project and would not return the money. He eventually did the sculptures but I think did about 8 instead of the 15, and they didn’t get the money back that Michelangelo owed until after he died. What a fail.

After Siena, we got back on the bus and headed over to San Gimignano. I did not feel like going into another church, so I went with Jenna, her mom, and Ellen to this really good gelato place. I got passion fruit, blood orange, and rosemary baby (raspberry and rosemary). It was AMAZING. It was also refreshing considering it was scorching hot outside and we needed something to cool us down. After we just explored the shops around the area (Jenna and Ellen took pictures of them posing with guns) until it was time to get back on the bus. Jenna and Ellen came back with us because IT WAS JENNA’S 21^ST BIRTHDAYYY!! WOOO!! We freshened up and then headed out for apertivo. It was 8.50 euros for a drink and all you can eat buffet! I told the bartender that it was her birthday and he poured us 4 free shots. One for him, one for me, one for Jenna, and one for the random guy standing next to us (that I’m assuming he thought we were with haha). Jenna’s first drink of being legal to drink was a Cosmopolitan, which she liked (and had never had before). After, we headed over to Shots café and met up with a lot of people. While we were there, I got hit on this guy who I like to call the leprechaun, not because he was short, but because he had the beard and face that made him look like one haha. He was so creepy; he came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder and was like “Do you like my friend? He’s very nice. OR do you like my other friend?” My response: (points at Jenna) It’s her birthday!” hahaha. So this guy then starts taking pictures with us and asks to buy us another pitcher of what we were drinking. When he comes back, we realize that was a bad idea and say we don’t want one anymore. Some more time goes by and this guy is still by us and I’m talking to some other people and he has another one of his friends come up to me and he says to me “Lui te piace” which means: he likes you. My response: I have a boyfriend. Hahaha. He would NOT leave me alone! When I tried getting away from him at one point, my friend Sarah was like I’m going to go out for a smoke, and I was like I’ll go join you, and he calls us out on this trying to ditch him! Ridiculous! Anyways, we eventually left and went to this other bar for a couple of minutes. Then we went to this club, which was pretty awesome. Then we chilled in the streets for a little bit before we split up. A bunch of people went to go get falafel, while Jenna, Michaela, Tori and I went to some club with Michaela’s two guy friends. It was 8 euro to get in so we bailed and met up with the people who went to go get food and then went home.

The next morning, we were supposed to go on a bike tour in Chianti for Jenna’s birthday, but we canceled the night before because we would’ve had to have been there at 9:30 am…. and that just wasn’t going to happen haha. So, instead we slept until about 12ish and then went to go to the American Diner for the first time J. I got fresh squeeze blood orange juice (delicious!) and a bagel with cream cheese and lox. SOOO GOOODDDDD J We just walked around, went into a department store (got really cute teal earrings), I got ice coffee to go (yay American day!) and just chilled for the rest of the day. It was nice not having to run around Europe this weekend J

Next weekend we’re going to Naples, Pompeii and I think one other city for our Etruscan and Roman’s class. Should be fun! J

Take The Gun, Leave The Cannoli

Early friday morning, we woke up around 3 am to catch a bus at the school to Pisa. We were told we were going to have about 10 minutes to get to our gate because RyanAir changed not only the destination of our flight, but made it 30 minutes earlier. So, an hour later, after we make a deal with RyanAir to make sure we got on our flight, we find its 3 hours delayed. -____- I guess it all worked out for the better since we made the flight and got free sanwiches and drinks out of it. Since we were over 2 hours delayed, I remembered a clause they have that you will be compensated for it. So, we each got $5 (limited) vouchers to to use at the bar, about 5 minutes before we left. Oh well.

So, we arrive at Palermo and everything is gorgeous. Since we lost 3 hours, we cut out visiting the Palatine Chapel in Palermo and head straight for Erice. The one thing we discovered about Sicily is that it is HUGE. It is at least a couple hours on our bus to get anywhere we needed to go. So, after winding up a very large mountain, we get to Erice around 12ish. Our professor explains how there is a great tower there because it is the center of a huge physics research center (Dan I thought of you haha). Then we went into the center to find lunch. Most of the people went to this sort of touristy looking place in the center of a square, but Jenna, a couple other people and I went to this small little place a couple of feet back and got grilled vegetables and my first sicilian cannoli!!

(yum!)

Then we visited the Castle of Erice. There was SO much fog, at times you couldn't see anything! Our professor explained a couple of funny facts about the castle: there were holes in front of the entrance that were used when they would be defending the castle. Either they would defecate on you, or they would pour boiling lead (I think it was lead) on top of you. Also, towards the back, they had little areas where you can sit and below there was a gated hole. The soldiers would poop there and have it land on anyone trying to invade them. Again, very funny.

(the "stall")

After Erice, we got back on the bus and headed to Segesta. There we saw the Tempio di Segesta, which apparently was one group of Sicilian's ways of trying to appease the Greeks by making a temple in their style, so that when they would take over Sicily they would be pleased by it. However, the Greeks were defeated and never got there, so the temple remains unfinished. It is however in AMAZING condition! Then we took a small hike up to the Teatro di Segesta which was pretty cool. There were huge steps all around the stage and behind the stage was an amazing view of the mountains. The acoustics were really great there too. A couple people joked around on the stage and we tried singing Harry Potter Puppet pals.

We then got back on the bus and headed to Corleone to go to our hotel. The hotel we stayed at, Hotel Belvedere, is apparently where the cast to the Godfather stayed while they were filming in Sicily! There were some pictures of them being there on the wall and everything. After settling in, we headed up around the corner to get our dinner and meet the farmers of the co-operative that we would be working with tomorrow. They didn't speak ANY english, but it was okay because Liz spoke pretty much fluent Italian. They then tried to teach us some Sicilian, but it was pretty hard. This dinner had unlimited wine and a lot of courses with a DELICIOUS birthday cake for somebody at the end. The rest of the food was okay; one of them was like fried chicken with fries. Either way, we went to bed stuffed.

The next morning we got up early because we were going to work on the field! We drive about an hour and a half to two hours to get there, and end up on a random field in the middle of no where. We were told we were going to be "zapping", which is basically just turning up the dirt around the grape vines that were sprouting up through the soil.

While we were doing that, one of the girls was riding with one of the farmers on a tractor. All of a sudden, we hear her calling for the professor saying it was an emergency and holding her hand. We all think she has a cut, but later on we find out that apparently the tip of her index finger got cut off. Thankfully, they found it and reattached it in surgery at the hospital, but it was very scary for awhile.

After we worked for a bit more on the field and got our share of sunburns, we had lunch in the middle of the road. We got HUGE sandwiches, some fruit and some snacks and had to fend off the flies and ants while we ate them haha. Then we headed back to the hotel to wait for the girl to come back from the hospital and while we did we washed up from working on the field. Then when she came back, we took a hike to Castello Soprano, which was WAYY up on the top of a cliff.

Then we got back on the bus and headed to Portella della Ginestra to talk to survivors of the May '47 massacre. The Mafia had hired a man to kill the people gathered at this place on a hillside (like they did every May 1st) because they were trying to work on the lands that had been confiscated from the Mafia. A bunch of people ran away, but 11 were killed and 26 people (I think, or around that number) were injured. There were rocks with messages about the massacre written on them and also the rock where the speaker at the event who was standing on a boulder was shot down.

After listening to the stories of the survivors and shaking hands hands with them, we made our way to the farmers' co-operative in the city to have dinner. On the way there on the bus, we saw the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. It was so colorful and it was through the mountains. I wish I got a picture of it, but with the bus moving fast, me being on the wrong side of the bus, and trying to get it through the windows- it just didn't work. Finally, we get to the co-operative as we are all very scared. One of our professors had told us that there was going to be more food than the previous night and it was rude to not eat it all. It ended up not being like that, but we were very full by the end of it.

(this was the loaf of bread they had waiting for us when we got there!)

The next morning, we got up and got ready to go, but had to wait around the hotel a bit because the girl who had surgery and another girl who got the stomach flu went to the hospital. So, we passed the time by playing Ninja and card games :) While we were waiting for them, we also walked around and went to an old Monastery that had gorgeous garden that overlooked a view of a waterfall. Then we headed back to the hotel, got on the bus, and headed to Monreale. We had to cut out Martorana and San Cataldo from our trip because of the 3 hours we lost waiting around. However, Monreale was more than gorgeous to make up for it. We first got lunch, and then headed into the Cathedral Facade. It is apparently lined everywhere with gold. Then, a bunch of us got cannolis (our last :( - but delicious!) and headed back on the bus. Next up was Castello della Zisa, which apparently was an old party house where the Normans had a lot of orgies and figured out how to have natural air conditioning. Basically, it was an ancient frat house haha.

After that, we went where we all had been waiting for: the beach! We got there and it was gorgeous and had smooth sand! (not that rocky stuff like we've been seeing in other places)

I even put my feet in the water! (only for a couple minutes, then I started to feel a reaction so I took them out) But it was so refreshing. Jenna and I got gelato and had a bunch of people stare hardcore at us as we waiting to get it. Apparently, according to our professor, Sicilians love americans. I'm not so sure, but we did have these two guys listening to us and eventually they asked if we were english, to which I replied no, we're american haha.

Anyways, after that we headed to the airport and had our long journey back to Florence. We ended up getting in around 1 pm to our apartment, exhausted as hell.

Very enjoyable weekend, minus the mishaps. Sicily is truly unlike anything I have ever seen. Also, got a lot of thinking done on all of that time on the bus :P

Time to head into il centro (aka the Duomo area) to meet up with Marsha... ciao!