Adventures Overseas 14/16

These sixteen updates will be the condensed and often more erratic version of my adventures overseas, comprised of the updates that I sent home to my family at the time.

Author's Disclaimer: The following were written when I traveled overseas with my sister. They were the short and sweet version of what was going on in my daily journal. Often, I watered things down so that our parents wouldn't know how scared we really were or how bad a hostel really was. We didn't want to scare them. Also, I wrote these updates on my iPod, and in the interest of authenticity, I haven't edited or changed the formatting much. This may be less to do with authenticity and more to do with all those darn buttons I'd have to press if I edited it all. Anyway, there are plenty of little typos to go around I'm sure. I'm sorry. They bug me, too.

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Update 14: November 23, 2018 – FRIDAY

I left you off on an unexciting travel day from Assisi to Pompeii last Friday. We got to Pompeii around 10:30, then we waited at the bus station for the B&B management to come pick us up. Sister had been in contact with a Katerina, so were looking for some Italian woman to come by in a car to get us.

I know I always joked that we would get into a white van with some nice guy that offered us a ride, but I didn’t think we’d actually come that close to doing something like that.

As it was, a nice older gentleman pulled up in a small silver hatchback, rolled down his window, and asked us, “Sweet Home?”

That may seem like a really odd opener, but that is the name of the B&B we are staying at. We were relieved that they had remembered to pick us up, as we’d been waiting a while, but it did not escape our notice that we were hopping into a vehicle with a stranger.

He looked like a sweet enough kind of guy, though, and I don’t think he would have said ‘sweet home’ if he was trying to abduct us (if he was, his face would surely have betrayed more surprise when it worked and we hopped in).

Anyway, I wouldn’t be writing this if it didn’t turn out. We got to our room safe and sound.

On Saturday, we got an early start, thinking we would just wander around Pompeii a bit. After we fuelled up with some coffee, though, we decided to take advantage of the sunny day and wander through the ruins of the city.

I thought the Pompeii ruins would be, like, a couple of roped off areas where some un-exciting, crumbling ruins would be available to see for an egregious fee. As it turns out, the entire walled city is pretty much available to wander semi-freely through, once you pay a not-all-that-egregious-fee. It’s not like there are whole buildings, but the walls are about 1/4-3/4 as high as they would have been originally, and there are many frescos in the buildings that are beautifully preserved. They have somehow made plaster casts of some of the victims; these, along with statues, artifacts, and floor mosaics made the whole place pretty surreal.

We shared an audio guide as we went around, and we stayed within the walls from 9:30 to 4:30. After being overwhelmed at the start, we had highlighted a bunch of places on the map that we wanted to get to. We certainly didn’t see it all though.

We managed to speed-walk our way to the other end of Pompeii in time to go to the big church there for 5pm Mass. I’m happy to say that the church was full, too!

Outside of the church, there just happened to be the gelateria that Sister had planned to pay a visit to, anyway, so, opportunists that we are, we got some. I think it was one of the best ones we’ve had yet, but we will continue our selfless research.

Sunday was supposed to be a ‘beach day’ of sorts. We planned to get a train to Naples, as Sister had found a public beach there (we’re right on the ocean in Pompeii, too, but it’s all industrial docks), then eat some of the famous pizza that was birthed in Naples, enjoy some sun, sand, and shells, then come back. The earliest train to Naples didn’t leave until 11am, we discovered, so we ended up walking down to the water here in Pompeii for a while as we waited for the train to arrive.

Once we got to Naples, we discovered a metro system that we decided looked better than walking all the way to the pizza place. It worked perfectly, dropping us just a few blocks down from Starita, the restaurant we had chosen. We chose it because the reviews looked great, but also, they were chosen to present the pope (JP2) with pizza, so I guess they’re kind of a big deal. We’d heard about possible waiting times, but we were lucky enough to go right in and enjoy some delicious pizzas as well as dessert (little pieces of pizza dough, deep fried, drizzled with a pistachio version of Nutella). When we walked out, we walked past a rather hungry-looking line.

Apparently there’s this association for pizza-makers called the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. They only get this association’s certification for ‘traditionally made’ pizza if they follow specific guidelines for ingredients and cooking methods. For instance, they just use mozzarella cheese, either from a cow or a buffalo. They must also cook the pizzas in under 90 seconds. For a full list of the strangely specific guidelines, Here is a link...

http://www.pizzanapoletana.org/en/ricetta_pizza_napoletana

Anyway, it was delicious. After the pizza, we started off to the beach.

Wanting to save ourselves the clash of pizza and exercise, we went back to the metro and tried to find a way to get closer to the beach.

We were successful in getting closer, but still had to walk about 2 kilometres to get there. If we could have takes stairs directly to it, it would have been quite a short walk, but Naples does not see fit to install stairs, so we went on the switchbacks with the insane Italian drivers. We made it a game to try and find a parked car that didn’t have some sort of ding or scratch in it. We found two. There were a lot of parked cars, and we were only walking past one side of them.

When we finally got down to the beach, we discovered that it looked vastly different than Google Maps led us to believe. It was only about 50’x50’, and if the dead pigeon in it didn’t convince us to keep our shoes in, the high concentration of smashed alcohol bottles surely did. Still, we managed to scrounge around and find some shells so that it didn’t feel like a total waste.

It wasn’t even the worst part of the day. Let me tell you.

Using that useless Google Maps app, we tried every route we could find to get back up to a station of some sort. Up, up, up, the map would take us, doing switchbacks and stairs, then we’d come to the dead end of an apartment. Once, we climbed up and came to a gate that looked like it was supposed to be locked. But it wasn’t. We went on in and made our way up, only to find an apartment building. The only way out was back where we’d come from, so we made our way back down. Sister was pretty worried that the gate may have locked us in, but I didn’t honk it would, so I was pretty calm. When we got through, I was going to illustrate that it would have been fine, so I pulled the gate shut with a little ‘click’.

I am. SO. Glad. That I decided to do this when we were safe on the other side of it. Sister was right; a little bit of a nudge on the gate, and we’d have been locked in.

Anyway, the sun was setting on our efforts as our map led us up, up, up what looked suspiciously like another apartment complex. Fortunately, we were saved from that disappointing journey up and then back.

An older gentleman was just taking his dog out for a walk as we were passing him. His dog had gotten away from him, picked up its own leash, and was marching pretty proudly away from him and towards us. Nothing that cute would ever bite, so I pet it when it came up to me. The man said “Buona sera,” as we passed (good evening), and I mumbled something that maybe sounded kind of like that in return.

The playful pooch dodged around its owner when he tried to grab the leash, and came hopping up to us instead. We stopped so the man could come and catch the dog, and when he did, he started to talk. In broken Italian, he asked where we were from and where we were trying to get. We told him we were trying to get to the metro station and he saved us the trek up to what was probably another apartment complex. He directed us to the correct street and made sure we turned correctly. We didn’t end up getting to the metro we had been looking for, but it was good enough. It got us back. I am very grateful to that dog, and to that guy, too.

The endless wandering through dead-end streets and windy paths that only made us turn back have kind of soured our opinion of Naples, not even to be salvaged by the excellent pizza (pretty unbelievable, I know).

On Monday, we planned to see what the weather was like before setting any plans. This is different than our usual standby of just not setting any plans because we’re bad at planning. It’s not really different in functionality, but there’s a certain difference between not making plans and planning not to plan, you know?

Anyway, despite a gloomy forecast, the day dawned sunny and warm. We decided to not miss out on this opportunity to do what we had intended to do ever since Sister flippantly said, “Hey, let’s go to Pompeii!”

Climb mount Vesuvius.

This has been the best part about travelling independently and with not many set plans. We had never intended to go to Venice, but it was a crazy awesome experience to see the floating city. One evening when we were planning out our route, Sister said jokingly that we should go to Pompeii. I looked it up and discovered that it wasn’t an outrageous suggestion, so we did it.

Anyway, since I discovered that one can actually go to the top of Mount Vesuvius, I’ve been pretty excited to see it, and it was my primary goal for this part of the trip.

But you know what’s even better? THERE IS A BUS THAT TAKES YOU TO THE TOP!!! (Except for an easy-peasy 30-minute hike along a road wide enough for a car to travel). In light of all the hikes that are never that fun, we were pretty pumped to be riding in style up the mount for the superbly reasonable price of €3.10.

It was a leisurely walk up to the crater, where we could walk about 1/3 of the way along the edge of it, admiring the deep dish on the inside, with little pockets that were steaming along the crater walls. It was magnificent! Once we got to the top, there were some rain clouds closing in, so we decided to beat the rain by catching the next bus out.

Just as we reached the shelter by the bus station, it began to rain heavily. For once, our timing seemed to work out, and I’m not saying it was because I did the planning for this excursion, but I did the planning for this excursion.

Anyway, thanks to not being stuck hiking up the mountain, we had a lovely outing. The mountain really does have a fascinating beauty about it.

Since I had immaculately planned the morning, we got back in plenty of time to go see some more ruins in the city. The first was Oplontis, which was some rich person’s villa. It was in better shape than most of the buildings we saw within the walls of Pompeii, so it was pretty cool. After that, we went to a museum. The museum was called Boscoreale, so we naturally assumed the train station to get off at was Boscoreale. Nope. After taking a train to that station and walking for an hour, we realized it would have been closer to walk from the station we had left from.

Thanks, Circumvesuvia train line. You’ve been real helpful.

Anyway, that was just a small museum of bits of Pompeii.

It was dark by the time we got back to our area of the city, but after spots of showers all day, it seemed pretty clear. We got some carbohydrate-rich supper and then, since it was right down the street, got more delicious gelato. As we stepped outside the gelato shop, it began to pour. Lighting was flashing, thunder was cracking, and the rain was coming down hard. There was not much we could do but find an overhanging roof to shelter under and finish our delicious gelato. So that’s what we did. After that, I put our backpack in front of me and zipped it under y jacket: we were going to make a run for it.

It was 2km back to the hostel, and considering we each had a belly full of pasta and ice cream, we kept up a decent jog.

On Tuesday, we were expecting it to be raining all day, so our only plan was to sleep in. It turns out, it was hot and sunny. We still slept in.

Having had pizza in Naples, toured the ruins of Pompeii, and climbed Mount Vesuvius, we had no other plans for the city. There was a free ruin that we decided to go see, called Villa San Marco. We took a train there in the morning, as it’s 8-10km away from our B&B. It’s a really nice ruin; probably the best we’ve seen yet, with beautiful frescoes, high walls, and even two floors in places. It’s crazy how massive the place was, too, and it would have just been a vacation home.

After that, we decided to walk to a mall that was halfway back to home base. For 5km, Sister led us through winding back roads. At least we could admire some of the agriculture here, though. There were loads of greenhouses, orchards, and plots of fields hosting all sorts of vegetation. They must have a long growing season, because some of the vegetable plots we saw were very young plants.

By the time we got to the mall, we were pretty hungry. Bypassing all the fancy-looking places, we squandered our functioning arteries on KFC. It’s still a cultural food, because Italians made it... or at least they took our order.

By the time we walked the rest of the way home, it was dark and we were tired from all the walking.

Wednesday was our last full day in Pompeii. Again, we didn’t have anything in particular to do, so we went searching for a journal. The wander through the shops in the city took up most of the day, and for the rest of it, we decided to go to our B&B’s balcony and do some research on Rome.

A fun thing we discovered that evening was that our rooms bathroom had no toilet paper. Technically, I had used the last shreds of it, but when Sister tried to make me go ask for more toilet paper, I told her that was a bit like putting milk back in the fridge when there’s only a thimble full left just so someone else has to go get milk.

We sat in quiet for a while, fiddling on our devices. Abruptly, Sister got up and said she was going to ask for toilet paper.

Now, she was being a good person about this problem of ours, but I sensed that it was going to come back to haunt me if I just let her go.

Also, I am an incredibly nice and fair person. I can’t even dictate how nice, so I’ll just tell you what I did:

I offered a game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who would have to ask for toilet paper.

It might be worth noting that, when she accepted, I instantly regretted it. I was thinking that maybe offering would be enough of a sacrifice and that she would appreciate it so much that she would decline and just go get her selfless sister some TP.

Nope.

Here’s the thing about rock, paper, scissors: I never seem to beat Sister. You may think it’s chance, but it’s really not. It’s a reverse psychology game; a reverse-reverse psychology game; a reverse-reverse-reverse psychology game, if you will. Sister gets inside my head and has me double crossing myself in a vain attempt to outfox her.

And the agony doesn’t end at one quick death-match, because it must be best out of three.

The first one is bad. It’s the one most down to chance, but can drag on if you draw (that is, if both of choose the same rock, paper, or scissors... wait, is there really anyone that doesn’t understand this game?). When Sister and I draw us when she really starts getting in my head.

“Scissors! We both did scissors! I get another chance! But will she do scissors again? Or will she think I’m going to do scissors again so she’ll do rock? I’d better do paper! But what if she thinks I’ll do that and does scissors?! I’d better go for rock. NO! That’s typical Me; she’ll see that coming a mile away...”

So you see, it is rather a terrifying game.

Sister won the first one after a few draws.

I won the second one quickly, which is the only way I have a chance, as she doesn’t have an opportunity to get in my head yet.

The third one was nerve wracking. It was for all the rice in China, or at least, for one roll of toilet paper in Pompeii.

Sister knows that I tend to avoid paper. Paper is flat and flimsy, and I am a person of very basic understanding: I like rocks.

I, however, know that she knows this; I will surprise her, and not choose rock. I still cannot bring myself to choose paper, though. I choose scissors.

Sister knows that I know that she knows that I like rocks, so it is no surprise to her that I will not choose a rock. She takes a gamble, thinking I will probably do the opposite of what my natural tendency is. She chooses scissors.

A draw.

And she’s in my head.

She starts calling the next round, so I have to think on the fly. “Will she do scissors again, because she knows I am scared to do rock in case she switches it up and does paper? Will she do rock because it is the opposite of scissors? Will she do paper because I’m scared now and may revert to the false safety of rock???”

If some of these sentences are hard for you to grasp, or just don’t make sense at all, welcome to my head.

Anyway, I know you’re dying to know, so I’ll tell you. A few more frenzied draws with scissors, and Sister finally smushed me with a rock (did NOT see that coming).

I had to go ask for the toilet paper.

On Thursday morning, we had ourselves our morning coffees, some fruity breakfast (fruit tastes amazing here, and is so cheap. We got two small oranges and four big pears for €1.30 the other day!), and walked down to the FlixBus station. It was only a few hours to Rome, and thus ended our last FlixBus ride (probably)!

We got ourselves a 7-day metro card, as we’re here for a while, then managed to find our way to our hostel. We’re quite a long way from city centre out here, but the metro station isn’t far at all. When we got settled in, we went our grocery shopping, since we have a fridge and stove here. Looking for bread, we went into this tiny bakery that just had one small display case of sweets in it. The guy had gone out of his way to let us in and serve us, though, so we kind of had to get stuff. It worked out all right, because we got about eight different little pastries for 1€. I think it must be pretty dead around here; they seemed excited to make a sale. We went and found more nutritious fare after that, and went back to the hostel to plan the next day and eat some vegetables for the first time in too long.

Back at the hostel, we discovered that the combination lock we have been using for the past two years of college, as well as for the last three months, has decided to lock us out if the locker we put Sister’s laptop in. When I went to Master Lock’s page of frequently asked questions, I was pleased to find that someone had my exact question. I’ve copy and pasted it so that you can follow along with my emotions.

“Q: The password no longer opens the combination lock, I remember my password so it appears the lock is broken. What can I do?”

Do you know what the smarmy-as answer was??? This made me mad. Really, really mad.

“A:

99% of the time the lock is working perfectly, but consumers have forgotten their combination. If you believe your lock is defective please visit our Contact Us Page and fill out the contact form. A customer service representative will contact you within 48 hours.”

I didn’t. Forget. The combination.

And I will not be filling out a contact form so you can ask me to my face if I forgot the combination - just so you can not believe me when I tell you I did not forget the combination!!!

Anyway, we’re still locked away from the laptop, but I’ll keep you posted.

Though we may do some day trips out from Rome, it is the last stop in Europe! We have a few days in Iceland as we make our way home, but we’re in the final stretch! Just 12 more days! This Friday is day 75, and we return on day 87!!!

Today was a pretty busy day; there is certainly no shortage of things to do in the Eternal City!

We actually made plans for the day. Well, plan. We got up early, had some breakfast and coffee, and metroed to the Colosseum. We’ve been in the Colosseum before, but had never toured the Forum ruins beside it, so we got tickets for that. The tickets are good for the Colosseum, too, so we’ll do that tomorrow. By getting there at 8:15, we were pretty much at the front of the line, and were able to go right on in. Hopefully it works that slick for the Colosseum, too, because when we left after lunch, the lines were huge.

The Forum was really neat to see; there seemed to be a temple or five on every block. The Temple of Maximian (or Constantine) was the most impressive. It was just a simple structure that looked like a block with three arches, but it was massive! It must have been about 2/3 the height of the Colosseum!

The structures that are still standing, like that temple and some other arched buildings, really make you feel dwarfed. We spent around 4-5 hours there, wandering the big area. By the time we got out, the lines for the Colosseum were crazy long, and buskers had descended on the area. Most of the buskers in that area were selling tickets for tours in the two sites. They were everywhere. Sister proposed that they should carry stickers, so that once we turn one down, we can have a mark on our foreheads that will ward the others off.

We made it out of that area alive, and only had to listen to the full price list spiel once.

It was out of the frying pan and into the fire, though.

The selfie-stick buskers are probably my favourite. They hold one out to you, but you either want a selfie-stick or you don’t. There’s no salesmanship about it. No talking.

The bracelet people are the worst.

They are wolves in the friendliest darn sheepskin I’ve ever known.

A young black man approached us, telling us he was from Africa and asking us where we were from. He shook our hands in the familiar, brotherly way that I imagine gang members do. Not that I know.

He acted like we were the exact comrades he had been waiting to meet, and offered us, of course, some bracelets. We both refused, but when the man insisted on putting the bracelet right onto Sister’s wrist, she allowed him, for some reason unknown to man.

As he was doing it, she was meekly saying ‘no thank you’ while holding her wrist steady for him. Mixed messages. He tied the strings in a knot and tightened them good and snug. Sister smiled and shook her head because she knew it would be difficult to get off. Seeing her in what seemed to be an increasingly undesirable and uncomfortable situation, I began to drop all associations with the girl and sidled my way away from the both of them. I wasn’t able to get far before the guy was trying to fit me with my own shackle. To my great credit, I didn’t budge. Stoutly refusing, I tried again to get away, but this was the point in the interaction when he casually mentioned his wife and newborn child. Pulling out his phone, he showed us the lock screen, which was a picture of his son, Fatima. Now, I’m not going to pretend to know a lot about how foreign names work, but I’ve never heard of a boy being named Fatima. I let it slide, because I was still trying to toddle casually away from the ordeal.

I managed to get a few yards of space between us, largely because Sister was the target. She had the bracelet on her wrist and was refusing to pay for the trinket that he had said was “A gift from my heart,” when he put it on her.

I have to give it to her: a lot of tourists are sucked into that ‘gift from my heart’ crap, but not many of the tourists actually walk away with a free bracelet.

Sister did.

We can’t go back to that street now, though.

We felt a little bad for the baby Fatima until we met the second bracelet-seller. Though we refused his wares, he still told us about his wife and newborn daughter, Fatima.

“Oh, your daughter, Fatima?” I said, to make sure Sister heard. She did, and began to snicker.

I had to do the talking after that, as Sister was giggling too much about the poor baby Fatima.

Aside from avoiding buskers, we wandered through that area of Rome to various sites. We went to the big war memorial for the first king of the united Italy, then on to the church of St Ignatius of Loyola. There, we happened to sit down as someone was preparing before Mass, so we decided to just stay for Mass, too. After that, we made our way to a huge city square, sat down to listen to some music as well as admire a fire-wielding street performer. It was dark out at this point, but we wanted to see the Temple of Hadrian and the Trevi fountain still. I got us lost on the way to the temple, so it is thanks to me that we arrived at the temple just in time for the light show that was projected across it. With blaring music and fun light effects, we got a brief history of what the temple has looked like over the years.

After that, it was on to the fountain. We each threw coin over our shoulders and into the water. It is supposed to be left hand, throw over right shoulder. Or vice versa. We forget which it is, so we each did one. We’ll see who gets back to Rome.