Viva Italia Part 2: Ercolano/Pompeii

Today I stayed home from work because I was kind of dying from the cold I managed to bring home from Italy. I was casually hanging out in my room watching The Cosby Show/listening to a message someone had left on the work call out phone when I smelt (smelled?) burning. Just when I was about to go investigate in case I was in some kind of danger my flatmate knocked on my door and informed me that a flat in the building opposite our living room was on fire:

It was pretty freaky, I took that after the flames had died down a bit. Also heaps of people decided it would be a real good idea to stand on that path and watch. Even when bits of burning shit, curtains? rubber? were falling to the ground. Also when the fire engines finally showed up the fireman I saw didn't seem that concerned. It was pretty weird/surreal. I'm glad it wasn't my building since I was in my PJ's.

Also I hope no one was inside of course.

ANYWAY. ITALY.

On Monday we picked up the car and started our journey out of Napoli. We were held up slightly by the funeral procession that passed just as we were about to leave, but Dave managed to successfully navigate the crazy streets/not hit any crazy Italians and we were on our way.

First stop was Ercolano, which is where the other ancient volcano buried city Herculaneum is. We didn't visit there but we did park in the car park right next door!

We did explore the street market, and there were many interesting things to see and buy:

I would've like to take the mannequin home but I didn't have enough money for his plane ticket.

We wandered around for awhile. My forehead got more sunburnt. I refused to buy a hat. Dave bought a coffee pot from a very friendly man, who gave me and Amelia terrifying magnets for free, and we bought the wrong stamps to send postcards to New Zealand.

By the afternoon we were at Pompeii, wandering around ancient Roman streets. It was pretty great/really hard to find your way around. If it wasn't for Dave's sense of direction (and the fact that he'd been there before) we would probably still be looking for a way out. Also the audio guide was impossible to follow, we wandered the wrong way through one of the Villas for a really long time before we finally figured out where the hell we were. Stupid posh English bastard.

It was real exciting to see things that I had learnt about at school, like when I went to Bath but ten million times better. Lots of the mosaics and such are actually replicas but we had seen the originals in the Museum in Naples and it was cool to see where they came from.
It's hard to pick a favourite part but I really enjoyed walking into the Amphitheatre. You can't really get the feeling from a photo probably.

Artefacts/casts of bodies.

Ancient Roman Street!

Ancient Roman humour.
"Beware of Dog"
CLASSIC.

At one point we hit a dead end at the same time as a group of Americans. The woman was all complaining like and I accidentally said "BUMMER" to her real loud and in an American accent. Then I ran away when she tried to keep talking to me. This was the first of MANY times I did this to annoying Americans. And even nice Americans. Apparently I say stuff in an American accent a lot? It got pretty awkward.

When you played Barbies as kids did you always voice them in American accents? We did. I totally blame Barbie for my social faux pas.

Viva Italia Part 1: Napoli

I have been informed by Jenny that as punishment for not successfully completing my blog challenge I must now blog FOUR MORE TIMES to break even. Pretty bummed about this. Luckily I actually did something this past week so I'm gonna spread out my Italian tales.

So I left London on Saturday bound for Naples. I am shamefully bad at geography. I mean I seriously have no idea where anything is. So I'm not sure what I was flying over, but I got a good view of it anyway. At one point I'm pretty sure the pilot said we were flying over the Swiss Alps and I took some pics. If they weren't the Swiss Alps they were pretty impressive anyway.

It's crazy how little time it takes to get anywhere over this side of the world, and in no time I was attempting to find some Euros and a Taxi/get myself to town to meet up with my cousins.
The cab driver didn't know where to go. He asked the other drivers for directions. He seemed pretty mad and everyone drove like crazy people. It was apparently ok to just create another lane if the person in front of you was going too slow and there was liberal use of the horn from all directions.
He did eventually find the B&B, on a tiny little street where Amelia was waiting outside to greet me. But not before we got lost and he asked some old Italian ladies WHO WERE ACTUALLY HANGING OUT THEIR WINDOWS JUST CHILLING for help. As you do.

The place we stayed was real nice and had some pretty great views of the city and such. Also there were some real great tasting blood oranges to eat.

It seems that every day is washing day in Naples. Washing hanging everywhere you look.

On Saturday night we went to L'Antica Pizzeria Da Michele.

We had to take a number and wait for at least 2 hours, but it was totally worth it. I was like Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love, but with less talk of muffin tops and more eating. The old man in the background is totally sitting in my seat.

They only make 2 types of Pizza and most of the people there were locals so you know it must be good. I had Double Mozzarella. It was a good choice. While we were waiting we went down the road to get a drink and I accidentally destroyed a lovely (hideous) fake flower arrangement on the wall of the cafe/bar place with my hoodie. It was a pretty awkward first interaction with Italian people.

We spent 2 days in Naples, mostly looking at old stuff/Ancient Roman porn.

Wandering along tiny streets.

Covered in Graffiti.

Discovering awesome views/the shadow of the Volcano.