My Awfully Beautiful Weekend

Friday morning, all of the AIFS kids met at school at 8:30 to drive to Pompeii. When we got there, we grabbed some lunch, and I bought an umbrella because it was raining off and on all day.

Pompeii was really cool. However, like most places, I was disappointed at how touristy the place had become. I expected the ruins to be more in their original state. Most of the artifacts and body casts had been removed and put in museums. But, I did see three different casts behind a gated area, so that was pretty cool.

Temple of Zeus with Mt Vesuvius in the background.

My favorite body cast we saw.

Probably my favorite thing about Pompeii was in one of the houses, there was a tiled floor with a dog on it that said, “Beware of dog”, which is very similar to something people have on their houses today!

"Beware of Dog"

That night we drove to the hotel, which was about 40 minutes from Pompeii, and a bunch of us girls crammed around two tables and had a big dinner together! You could tell the restaurant was a little overwhelmed with all us English-speaking girls, so I accidentally got veal instead of my chicken. But I ate it anyway! (PS- I have had my fill of veal on this trip already and would prefer to never eat it again, thank you.) Afterwards, we all hung out on a third floor balcony, which overlooked the Mediterranean Sea, surrounding towns, and Mount Vesuvius. It was gorgeous!

I took this on the drive to the hotel through the bus window. Isn't it pretty?!

Saturday morning, we had a 20-minute bus ride and 40-minute boat ride to get to the island of Capri. Capri is known for their beautiful grottos. Unfortunately, it rained the entire day, so the boats going to the grottos were closed. It was quite the let down. And, the second I stepped off the boat, a huge gust of wind and rain turned my umbrella inside out! Being the piece of cheap crap it was, it broke instantly, so by the end of the day, I had half a working umbrella!

 

My thoughts on my umbrella being half destroyed.

Since the grottos were closed, there isn’t much else to do on the island. So basically, we were stuck on an island in the pouring rain for 6 hours. Haha! We had some very grumpy people in the group by the end!

Ten of us climbed to the top of the island to take some cool pictures, and then I met up with some other people and we walked around for the rest of the time. In between the two, we grabbed some lunch. I ordered fried calamari and shrimp, and I learned a very valuable lesson. NEVER order shrimp in Italy. It came with the heads still attached. When the waiter set the plate down in front of me, I almost had a panic attack! So, I made Andrew cut all the heads off while I looked away. Sorry, but I don’t eat anything with a face! Lesson learned.

The group at the top of the island.

Finally, with 2 hours left in Capri, Georgie, Tara, Daniela, and I went and sat at a café to kill some time. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much in two hours in my life. It was so much fun talking about life, love, and how terrible the day had been!

With a half hour to go, it stopped raining, so we decided to start walking back to the meeting place. We were right next to the shore, and we had heard the water was super warm, so we thought it would be a great idea to dip our feet in the water! What a fun, innocent thing, right? Haha! Two feet from the shore, I slip and fall… Into the water. So, now I have soaking wet shoes, socks, and pants… Plus a broken umbrella… And then it started to rain again. Hahahahaha! Can you picture it? The whole day was so awfully laughable! Oh, Capri, I’m sure you are a beautiful place, but I really never want to see you again!

"Danger to fall in the sea"... Well you know what, sign?! You're about ten minutes too late on that warning!

Sunday morning, we checked out from the hotel and drove up Mount Vesuvius. The bus dropped us off about 1,000 meters from the top, and we walked the rest of the way. Oh my goodness, I thought I was going to die. You know that really steep hill at the Henry Doorly Zoo? Now imagine climbing it for a mile straight. Yeah. My booty is hurting today. But once I eventually reached the top, it was beautiful!

Georgie and I on the top of Vesuvius.

"I'm the king of the world!"

Afterward, we drove to Naples and grabbed some lunch. Naples (or Napoli) is the birthplace of the pizza. So of course for lunch I had to get pizza! And oh my gosh, was it good!

Naples as a whole I wasn’t impressed with. It is incredibly dirty and feels very unsafe. Luckily, we stayed together as a group and only went to a museum before we left. We rolled into Rome again at about 8:00 pm that night!

I know I made the whole weekend sound not-so-fabulous, but all in all, it was very fun. A lot of crappy things happened, but it made everything so easy to laugh at! Thankfully, I had a great group of friends who made the weekend totally worth it!