Pompeii
We docked this morning in the lovely port city of Naples, Italy. I had never ventured south of Rome when I was in Italy, so this was new and exciting for me as well. In all of my classes we learned that the south of Italy was much poorer than the north, and that was evident as soon as we got off the ship. Naples looks sort of like a run down version of Rome, but it was still quite charming in its own way. The people were always yelling “PRONTO PRONTO!!” or other Italian words that mean “Hurry!” I liked it there and I wish I could have spent some time enjoying more of the city, but that’s for another journey.
Today, we found ourselves drawn towards Pompeii, the site of an ancient city that was buried by the ash and lava of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Now, the Pompeii I imagined was much like any other site with ruins I had seen – flat ground, a few buildings here and there, and maybe some of those bodies everyone had talked about. But the real Pompeii was quite the opposite. It was literally an entire town with hilly roads and entire buildings. It blew my mind. There was even an entire amphitheater. The walls were covered in ancient graffiti and frescos depicting the bustling city before the volcano erupted. I could have spent all day roaming around through the ruins of temples and basilicas. Except that it was about a thousand degrees. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hot. We took in as much as we could (I’ve been quoting my dad/National Lampoon’s Vacation the entire trip, saying, “Take it in! Take it all in!”) before we got back on the train to Naples.
I’ve been reading “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert since we took off from CVG, and in this book, she describes a pizza place in Naples near the train station that sounds like it has the best pizza in the world. I wanted to try it ever since I read her description of it, and to which she says her and her friend felt like they were having an affair or metaphysical crisis over the pizza. Sadly, no one wanted to venture off the path more to find this holy of holies and so I will just have to save that for another day.
It was our last night with Chris and Jack, and so we wanted to spend it the right way – with a movie and then dancing. We went to see “Everybody’s Fine,” which may have been the worst movie choice for this sort of night. We were all sad to be leaving each other, and if you have not seen “Everybody’s Fine,” just know that it is a good movie, but it is one that is very sad and nearly had all five of us in tears, which obviously was not the way we wanted to remember our last night together. We tried to leave early even, but we were so drawn into the movie that there was no way that was happening. After an hour and a half of the saddest moments on film, we dragged ourselves to Skywalkers for one last night together. We danced to the same songs we had been dancing to for the past week, which will forever bring back memories of our times here together on the Crown Princess.
Today, we found ourselves drawn towards Pompeii, the site of an ancient city that was buried by the ash and lava of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Now, the Pompeii I imagined was much like any other site with ruins I had seen – flat ground, a few buildings here and there, and maybe some of those bodies everyone had talked about. But the real Pompeii was quite the opposite. It was literally an entire town with hilly roads and entire buildings. It blew my mind. There was even an entire amphitheater. The walls were covered in ancient graffiti and frescos depicting the bustling city before the volcano erupted. I could have spent all day roaming around through the ruins of temples and basilicas. Except that it was about a thousand degrees. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hot. We took in as much as we could (I’ve been quoting my dad/National Lampoon’s Vacation the entire trip, saying, “Take it in! Take it all in!”) before we got back on the train to Naples.
I’ve been reading “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert since we took off from CVG, and in this book, she describes a pizza place in Naples near the train station that sounds like it has the best pizza in the world. I wanted to try it ever since I read her description of it, and to which she says her and her friend felt like they were having an affair or metaphysical crisis over the pizza. Sadly, no one wanted to venture off the path more to find this holy of holies and so I will just have to save that for another day.
It was our last night with Chris and Jack, and so we wanted to spend it the right way – with a movie and then dancing. We went to see “Everybody’s Fine,” which may have been the worst movie choice for this sort of night. We were all sad to be leaving each other, and if you have not seen “Everybody’s Fine,” just know that it is a good movie, but it is one that is very sad and nearly had all five of us in tears, which obviously was not the way we wanted to remember our last night together. We tried to leave early even, but we were so drawn into the movie that there was no way that was happening. After an hour and a half of the saddest moments on film, we dragged ourselves to Skywalkers for one last night together. We danced to the same songs we had been dancing to for the past week, which will forever bring back memories of our times here together on the Crown Princess.
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