Carnia Campania

So this week was quite a doozie full of a lot of firsts for a lot of us.

The previous week, leading up to this past Wednesday was spent preparing for my oral history presentation. Sounds ordinary but it was far from it. First off, I was feeling a bit of pressure because this is really the only class that matters/counts for my major and I want to do really well in it. Secondly, I was in the first group to present. Luckily, I had two amazing partners (Kelsey and Kate) who made this project far better. Most importantly, this presentation was worth 25% of my final grade in the class. And it’s me, so we all know I was just ridiculous about it. Main point of the story is that it went amazing! We rocked ‘The Diabolical Sect’ and our proff gave us lots of positive feed back, which is always a good sign. I really loved standing up in front of the class, lecturing about the week’s reading and leading discussion. It was a good sign that I would enjoy being a university professor, but I’d prefer a much smaller class (got to love those small liberal arts colleges, lol). It went well and I am glad it’s over with.

This entry is mainly about the weekend and all of the spontaneous/semi-adventurous things I did. So on Friday, Evie, Sarah, and I headed out for Campania. The trip started out quite nice, seeing as how our train was a Eurostar (you don’t get much better than that, well other than first class seating on said train). The ride down was really relaxing and we arrive in Napoli before we knew it. And here begins the interesting parts of the trip. So we really didn’t know where to go once we got off the train. The plan was to go to Pompeii, but we were not entirely sure how to get there from our platform. Time to put my “intermediate Italian” to the test. So I went up to the info desk and had a chat with the lady there and she gave us a great deal on a weekend pass and told us what line to take to get to Pompeii. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, speaking or trying to speak the native language of a country gets you so much farther than not trying at all. From the train station we caught the right line and headed out to Pompeii on the intercity train. I’m just going to come out and say it: Napoli (Naples) is the ugliest, most sketchy place I have been to yet. All of the trains/metro have graffiti on them and it’s just not the best place to be if your female, don’t speak Italian, or are a tourist. That being said, we sucked it up and got on the sketchy train towards Pompeii, while making our best ‘we’re hardcore, we speak Italian, so don’t try anything on us’ faces. But honestly, there were three of us, my Italian is getting really good, and we’re not stupid people/we are aware of our surroundings so there really weren’t any problems. Plus I was wearing my trusty Rick Steves hidden money pouch, so they didn’t have a chance at getting anything from me.

We arrived at Pompeii, had delicious thick crust pizza for lunch, and then went in to explore the city. It was amazing!! My inner (who am I kidding?), My Outer History Nerd was in heaven!! The experience is still so surreal to me. First of all, it’s a lot bigger than you would expect, and once you start walking around you find it hard to believe you’re there. It took me a good amount of time to realize I was not on a movie set, and that I was walking around a city that was bustling all the way back when (well up until 79 AD when the eruption happened). I saw their Temple of Apollo, the Basilica, the Forum, the Forum Baths, their Temple of Jupiter, the Villa of Mysteries, the Great Theater, the Small Theater, the House with Venus in the Shell, and the Amphitheater. It was just crazy awesome. While walking around you would just look up and see Mt. Vesuvius just chilling in the background. I saw this a wondered what the inhabitants of Pompeii saw when they lived here. The mood would grow somber whenever we would come upon one of the preserved bodies, and it made you remember what had to happen here for this site to be so well preserved and subsequently famous. But then to liven the mood, we pretended to be gladiators in the big amphitheater and took funny photos. After our long day of walking around and marveling at Pompeii we got back on the sketchy metro and headed out for our hotel, which was in Sorrento.

Sorrento is a beautiful little seaside town that is so welcoming. We also had the best luck in the world, in that we got off the metro and walked into the nearest hotel to ask for direction to our hotel. And then we realized that the hotel we had chosen to ask for directions was really the hotel we were looking for. Great luck! It had a great view of the water and Mt. Vesuvius was framed perfectly by it. Once we had settled in, we went out into the town and had dinner at a great little place overlooking the sea. The food was so yummy, and we got to try the world famous Limoncello. I was super excited to try it, and let me just tell you it’s so gross! Granted I am not a fan of alcohol, but other agrees with me that it tastes like a combo of to sweet lemon drops and rubbing alcohol. But now I can say I have tried it (and for free I might add).

On Saturday we headed out with a fairly open agenda, main point was to explore the Amalfi Cost. I can now say that I have seen the most beautiful coastline and I appreciate it because of the trials it took to get there. Our original plan was to go to Capri, but we decided that we were too cheep to pay the overpriced tickets for the boat ride out there. So we walked around the main part of Sorrento and then decided to use our passes and take the bus along the Amalfi Cost. Here’s something I didn’t know about the cost: it’s super windy, and steep along the cliffs, and you get from place to place on these giant tour buses that sway back and forth. Needless to say, it took a lot of effort for me to take some of the photos that I did, so do look at them and enjoy them. The first city that we visited was Positano. It was really great to walk up and down the streets, and to get off of that nauseating/frightening bus. It’s definitely a beautiful place, with cute little shops that you can drop into. I loved this one little dress shop, and all they had were these lightweight, white stitched dresses and skirts. I wished I looked good in white, and had more euros to spend.

From Positano, we headed back on the buses towards Amalfi. There was a great church with a lot of gold lief and that we walked around, and more cute little shops, a lot of which sold little bottles of Limoncello (eew). We bought some delish gelato and headed out to the pier to sit along the ocean and eat it. I know, this is the life. Right after we finished our gelato, the weather decided to get a bit harsh and start raining. So we caught the bus and headed on a long ride back to Sorrento. As we were driving the rain just got harder and then the thunder and lightening started. Guys it was seriously frightening: the lightening almost lit up the whole sky meanwhile were on a big bus on a small windy road below which is the ocean! Yeah, that’s what I thought. But we made it back to Sorrento and headed to this restaurant for dinner. We decided to go there cause they had two huge tvs and we wanted to watch the big game on tv with the locals: Napoli v. Inter. So we start eating and watching the game, but it’s storming so bad outside that the power goes out. Needless to say there are some pretty upset people in the restaurant. After a short while the power comes on, but the tv is not working. So the owner puts the radio on so we can listen to the game. Some more time passes and then the tv finally works, so we can finally watch the game. I’m going to be honest, I could barely tell what was going on while listening to the game on the radio. Napoli ended up loosing 1-2 to Inter. It was exciting to see, and I now know what a dangerous team Inter is. You should seriously never take your eyes off of them, I did for a second and they made a goal. Even though they lost, it was a good experience to sit around with the locals and cheer on their team (we were definitely the only Americans in the place and 3 of the 6 girls there).

Sunday was very restful. We checked out of the hotel and made our way back to Napoli. The good thing about the rain was that it cleared out the sky, giving us great views of the bay in the morning. Once we made it back to Napoli we decided to visit the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (I’m sure you can figure it out from the title). In the museum they had such a huge range of works that it was hard to see everything. I was happy with what we were able to see in the few hours that we were there. My two favorites would have to be the mosaic of Alexander’s troops fighting Darius’s troops. It was epic huge and it just took my breath away. I also liked the copy of the Doryphorus (only copies remain, the real was has long been destroyed) who just makes every other statues and person look so out of shape. Seriously, no one looks like him, but that’s why the style he’s in is called Idealized. The rest of the exhibits were also fascinating, but we did have a train to catch to get back to Florence, so there wasn’t much more time to see the rest. We then headed back to the station and made our way back onto what I hope is the last of my sketchy train rides. But it wouldn’t have been a true trip to Napoli if someone did not try to jack our stuff. Basically there was this guy behind me (and his friend apparently tried to do the same thing to Sarah) and I felt my backpack get tugged/moved a bit. And I instantly went oh no, he is not trying to get my stuff! Well first off all he’s an idiot and all he would get would be my dirty clothes and the most expensive thing in my backpack is my history course reader (cause as I said earlier all my valuables were in the front of me). So I recognize what he’s trying to do and I swing myself around and he subsequently gets hit with my backpack rather hard and he then proceeds to run away. My only regret is that I did not hit him harder! Needless to say we were even more cautious after that. But the ride to the train station was fine, and then Eurostar ride home from there couldn’t have been more relaxing. It was a very memorable and exciting weekend. These next few weeks will be more low key, seeing as how I have to start studying for midterms (boo). But as soon as those are over: FALL BREAK = ENGLAND AND SPAIN!! I’m not going to be having many more big weekend trips until then. I’m going off to Rome for a daylong site visit with my art history which should be fun and educational. Alla prossima.