Saturday in Roma

Well, on Saturday we were up at 5 am and down to drop our stuff in the luggage room by 5:30am. The hostel worker who was in love with me (from here on out: Alli) opened up the kitchen 1 1/2hrs early for us so we got a quick breakfast and juice and then we were to the train station by 5:45am and on our train at 6! I thought the ride was only 6:12-7:40 to get to Napoli; however, we fell asleep at 7:45 when we weren't there and woke up again at 8:45, 10 minutes before pulling into the Napoli station...It was a little bit longer than I thought. We got on an aboveground metro for a 30 minute ride to Pompeii scavi (scavi means excavation or ruins, I'm guessing). Turns out we got on the wrong train, because one stop before ours, we went off in another direction, so we got off at a random stop down the rail, not knowing what to do except wait for a train coming in the opposite direction. We also found bathrooms in the station there where you have to squat and there are foot traction marks to help. LOL. We made it back to the train we needed and met a neat older couple from England who helped us out and told us neat things to see in Pompeii.



Me at the strange station, when we were slightly lost on the outskirts of Napoli.

The ruins at Pompeii were very neat and much bigger than I anticipated. I was exhausted and starving by the time we came out the exit into the town of modern day Pompeii. We definitely experienced the ruins, probably doing many slightly illegal things (I don't believe Megan was supposed to climb inside the baking ovens..). We also pretended to run away from the "lava" and captured our fun in pictures. After leaving, Megan and I grabbed 2euro calzones, which were greasy and delicious, and walked back to the metro station. We got back to Naples at 2:30ish, bought tickets back that left at 4:30, and then went off to find more pizza, since Naples is the city where Pizza was invented. We found some good pizza that was huge (think medium sized Pizza Hut pizza, but only 5euro) and took half of it back to Rome with us in to-go boxes.

We weren't planning on leaving Naples so early, but our plan to go to the crater on Mt. Vesuvius was ruined when we found out the bus that normally travels there was shut down because of the snow on the peak. The only way to get there was a 50euro taxi ride, and that wasn't even to the summit.

A very friendly man from Naples tried to be friends with us on the train, but he spoke maybe 20 words of english and we knew 5 words in Italian. It was awkward and we claimed we needed to sleep; he then periodically stared at us so we just looked out our window. When the conductor came by to check tickets, we were made fun of because we didn't slide them into some machine before getting on the train (how were we supposed to know that?). He did this by saying lots of things in Italian to the other passengers and then laughing loudly. He then asked if we were from California (the blond hair, maybe?) and proceeded to pinch Megan's cheek and say "Ciao bebe" before moving on to other passengers. We were back in Rome by 7:15ish and ate the remainder of our pizza for dinner. We then decided that we would be really lame if we spent Saturday night in our hostel room so we threw a nice shirt and make-up on and went to a bar close by. We had a lot of fun, surprisingly, and found out a lot about the bartender (a 25yr old from North Carolina. It's amazing how we meet americans where ever we go). He told us we should see the Colosseum lit up at night, so when we left we hopped on the metro and went to the Colosseum (which was beautiful at night) and then went home.

When we returned to the hostel and went to our room, I found that someone was sleeping in my bed and my things were on the floor...very confused, Megan and I went to the reception to complain and also to get a place to sleep for the night! Who was working by Alli, and he claimed that the room was not overbooked, although we had our beds reserved until the next morning. He got us into another room with only one person in it, although it was not a female dorm room. Before he left, he gave me a bottle of wine as a gift, which I said thank you for and good night. Megan then shut the door in his face. The next morning, we left the wine on the table in the room with a note, giving it to the random guy who was still asleep.

To be cont'd...