Day 30 - Rome / Napoli and Pompeii

To bed after 5am, and then up at 8:36; slept through the alarm for 30 minutes.

We were supposed to meet Dave at the usual meeting place in front of Termini (by the monkeys near track 1) at 8:30. Everyone else was sleeping too, so i jumped up, woke Rob and Anne and we ran down to Termini, just as Dave had given up and was about to go home to bed and then the 4 of us ran and jumped on the train to Pompeii just seconds before it left.

The 3 of us (excluding Rob cause he stayed in to make some phone calls...or maybe just one long one) felt like we were going to die. Especially Anne. I would've put money on her getting to Pompeii and then turning around and going back to Rome to bed. She didn't though. The train we took was actually to Naples, adn then we jumped on another local train from there to Pompeii.

What a shit hole the area was. I'd always imagined Naples to be a luxurious type place, kind've like a resort town, but actually it was extremely dirty and very poor. There were gypsies everywhere looking for money and the people in general seemed very sketchy. The train from Naples to Pompeii was the worst with crazies, drunks and it stank horribly the whole way there.

When we finally got there, we found where we had to meet our guide, adn then grabbed some pizza and freshly squeezed orange juice. Our tour started at 12:30 and lasted for about 2 and a half hours. Our tour guide was okay, but hard to listen to at times because of her thick Italian accent. Pompeii, the city frozen in time when it was buried by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius, was incredible. The Roman Forums were good to visit, but there's not alot left of them, whereas Pompeii, because of being buried by the volcano and then excavated by archeologists, is so well preserved adn most of the original town is still there looking alot more like what it once looked like than Rome. The streets were still lined with the original rocks and 'stepping stones' and most of the shops and house frames are all there too. The roofs were basically all that was totally missing in most places, but some of the buildings like the old bath and sauna house still had roofs with decorated ceilings. The whole place was pretty amazing and was worth the train time.

We finally got back to Rome around 8pm and then showered up. I went over to Termini at 9, called my Mommy, adn then headed to the hotel to meet Dave and his mom and sister who'd just got to town. I left them at 9:30 to go pick up Fabienne, adn then met up with Dave, his mom, sis, and Anne for dinner. Rob was supposed to meet me at the same time and place (under the monkeys) as Fabienne, but he didn't show, i guess because he was on the phone with his sweetie...or he'd been stabbed and there was nothing i could do about it anyways.

So we waited for him for a few minutes till about 9:45, just to make sure he really wasn't coming, adn then went to meet the rest of them at a new place for dinner. Dinner was good with the conversation led by Dave's sister who loved to talk and had all kinds of interesting stories anda few embaressing ones about Dave of course. Dave's mom was very very nice to me, Anne and Fabienne and paid for our meal.

After dinner, we walked Fabienne to her bus, and then the rest of us went home to bed.

We're heading outta Rome to Firenze (Florence) tomorrow whenever we get our shit together. I'm pretty sad to be leaving Rome. It's been so great over the past 5 days, probaly has to do especially with the people that we've been with, especially having Dave come to Rome unexpectantly. Fabienne was also great to run into just by chance at the Vatican of all places. She's 28 adn works in London downtown somewhere basically running the office for some type of consulting company. She was just in Rome for a week or so by herself, so she seemed happy to meet people and was great to have around. Anne has been good too. She's from Vancouver but hs been living in Japan (she's Japaneese) for the last 3 years teaching English and acting as a translator. She's here by herself for a month and was going in the same direction exactly as us from Interlaken (Cinque Terre, Rome, Florence, Venice), so we've been staying at the same places along the way and hanging out. She's also older than us, 29, and has been kind've like having an older sister around (although i don't have one to compare against).

Emilie reminded me of exactly what i expected from a French chic. She smokes, has a great accent, and is bitchy in a sexy kinda way. She's in Rome for 3 months looking to get a job and learn Italian.

I guess we'll be around with Anne for 4 more days, Dave is supposed to be here in Firenze tomorrow night, so we'll meet up for the night, and I'll maybe see Fabienne when i head to London at the end of my trip.

Either way, its been great in Rome. G T squared.