The day started cold and rainy, not the best start to a weekend on the coast. We got on the bus (a private tour bus) and headed to Pompeii. We then prompty got into a car accident. It was the other driver's fault completely and in reality it was just a little nudge. But since it was a huge couch bus against a teeny tiny smart car the smart car's side was all scratched up and the side mirror was broken. The best part was watching the exchange between our bus driver and the driver of the car, both must have thought they were in the right and so there was tons of yelling and hand waving typical of Italians. Kind of entertaining actually.
One of the good things about Italy is that an accident like that won't hold you up all day. They yelled at each other for about 3 minutes then she drove away and we were off to Pompeii again!
Here's the part of the day that was definitely both amazing and horrible. It was Pompeii so no matter what it was going to be amazing, but Professor Gadyine must either really hate Pompeii, or been in a very bad mood because he worked us to the bone on that walking tour. We all know he really REALLY hates tourists so it's likely that the close proximity of so many tourists in Pompeii was irritating him, but it was still kind of unfair to us. We were always practically running from place to place, had no time to stop for pictures, and didn't even talk about the volcano or the human remains found. Our whole group was split up into two groups, on with Professor Pestili and the other with Gadyne. Pestili's group got to stop for 30 minutes and have a nice little lunch. Gadyne's group never go lunch, period. And to top it all off, it kept raining on and off the whole time we were there. Retrospectively it was still very awesome to see Pompeii and I did learn a lot from Professor Gadyne, but at the time is was very miserable.
Had to take pictures while chasing down our Professor! Jessica on the left, Crystal on the right.
Me and Crystal!
Not cool or anything right?
There were stay dogs EVERYWHERE! This little girl followed us around the whole time.
So sad...
After we left Pompeii, still with no lunch and it was 3 o'clock by this time mind you, we headed to the Naples harbor to take a ferry to the Island of Capri! It had stopped raining by this point, and we had a little time before our boat left so I ran over to a little bar (the Italian name for cafe) and got some much needed food!
Unlike Rome where no building is allowed to be taller than St. Peter's basilica, Naples looks more like a modern city.
Just like in Rome-go ahead, park ANYWHERE you like.
FINALLY FOOD!!! Naples pizza...yum
Our ferry
Mt. Vesuvius again. It started to rain on the crossing over...
The boat ride started off fine enough, the ocean seemed pretty calm. But about 10 minutes into the 40 minute ride we began to hit some waves and it began to storm again. We were hitting pretty big waves every couple of seconds and so the ride turned more rollarcoaster than anything. You know that feeling you get in your stomach right when you go over a big hill to fast and you hit weightlessness? We were experiencing that every 20 seconds. Needless to say the puke bags came out after a few more minutes and pretty soon there was a chorus of upchucking going on. Thankfully I had taken a motion sickness pill an hour before and so was fine, but sadly, my friend wasn't so lucky. The program has been going to Capri for ten years now and the director said the crossing over has NEVER been that bad. Oddly enough, I wasn't ever scared, just more oh-why-are-we-doing-this.
The harbor of Capri-Note the American flag-no matter how far you are from home you can always find a small part of it.
After that fantastic ferry ride we had to take mini buses up to our hotel. The island of Capri has two main towns on it, Capri at sea level and Anacapri on top of the cliff. We were staying at a hotel in Anacapri. The roads that lead up to the top of the mountain were incredibly narrow and twisting and so a regular bus would have no chance of making it. So, instead we crammed 52 people into two minibuses in ways that would be so illegal in the US. The aisles had little fold out seats, people were sitting on the steps, next to the driver, against the door. It was unbelievable and an excellent addition to the events of the day. Not to mention we had all our luggage with us.
While the whole day was in the end an amazingly exciting adventure, it still definitely qualifies as the
Best Worst Day of My Life.
We made it! Let the adventures of Capri begin!
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