A rainy (and snowy!) weekend in Napoli, Pompei and Capri

Before I get started, some good news: the Backstreet Boys are performing in Rome on April 30. If AIFS doesn't kick me out before then, my roommate Sarah and I are SO going.


Anyway, the whole AIFS group took a trip to Pompei, Napoli and Capri this weekend. We crossed our fingers for good weather, but it rained (and even snowed) most of the time. It cleared up a bit Friday afternoon as we walked the archaeological site, but as soon as we were going to head up to hike Mount Vesuvio on Saturday, it poured. Therefore, we spent ALL day Saturday in and out of a string of semi-interesting museums. Yawn.

Quite luckily, the weather cleared up for us on Sunday and created the P-E-R-F-E-C-T day for traveling to the island of Capri, off the coast of Naples. After about an hour boat ride (I, of course, napped the entire time ... it really made me miss my water bed!), 150 20-something American tourists were set loose on the small island. There, I had some of the best pizza I've ever eaten, conquered my fear of heights in a single-person chairlift to the top of a mountain and took some of the strangest public transportation I've ever experienced. Overall, Capri was amazingly beautiful. It goes down in the books as one of the prettiest places,I think, on earth.

But enough words. Here are some pictures:

In Pompei, "breakdancing" again. This was an ancient amphitheaters where gladiators used to battle. Sweet!

Another theater in Pompei. The people in the background of this picture left promptly after I began singing ...

Mt. Vesuvio.

Pompei.

Naples is really ugly up close ...

But very pretty from far away.

At dinner, I asked our waiter what his favorite pasta dish was, and he brought me this. All I could think was: "Stop looking at me, Swan!"

The remains of my dinner -- shrimp, mussels and clams. When in Naples ... do as the Napolitani do, right? It was actually pretty good.

The view from right outside our hotel, in a small town about 45 minutes from Naples. That's Napoli in the background, and the mountain is Vesuvio.

Me in Capri, an island about an hour off the coast of Napoli.

We took a chairlift from Anacapri up to the top of a mountain, where there are remains of a castle. The chairlift was the scariest thing ever, because the mountain was very tall, and it was just single chairs that shook way too much for my liking ...

I was just praying that I wouldn't fall ... didn't Kevin fall/jump out of a chairlift once? I thought I remembered hearing that story at some point, but maybe I made it up?

Remains of a castle on the top of the hill overlooking Anacapri, a town on the island of Capri.

Queen of the mountain!

This is Annalis on the chairlift on the way down from the hill - scary (but beautiful)!

P.S. Saturday (March 8) was National Women's Day in Italy. So happy belated women's day to all of you out there!

Il Torre Eiffel

So I just read through yesterday's post and realized that I really can't speak (or write) in English anymore, since there were like, oh, a bajillion typos. Fixed now. Sorry about that. Who knew that trying to really learn a new language would leave you more or less speechless in ALL languages ...

OK, so I've been trying all during class to post my Eiffel Tower video, and it still hasn't worked, so ... sorry. I'm trying to set up a flicker account, so maybe I can get it up there ... eventually!

My cherie amor

On my second trip to Paris, I realized just why it is dubbed the city of love. It's not really that you fall in love when you're IN the city. I think it's that after a while, you can't help falling in love WITH the city.

Here's how love finally hit me:

My traveling companions and I decided to take a boat tour Friday night along the river Sienne, which runs through the center of the city, right as the sun was setting. Despite the freezing cold (and wind!), I decided to sit on the top of the boat outside (there was a much better view), while everyone else sat inside. About halfway through the tour, we rode under a bridge, which as the boat's automated tour dictated, is nicknamed the bridge of love. Apparently, when you pass under the bridge, you're supposed to close your eyes and make a wish, then as you emerge out of the other side, you fall in love with the person sitting next to you. Since I was, in fact, alone on the top of the boat, I instead fell in love with Paris, right as the city's lights began to turn on.

Anyway, here are some photos of my now beloved Paris:

Who could NOT love a city where there are signs like this in the taxis? In case you can't see properly, that certainly is a "Don't Pass Gas in this Taxi" sign. I love it.

The Arc de Triomphe.

Sarah, me and Lenny in front of the arc. We didn't look so happy after we climbed the million stairs all the way to the top...

In fact, I almost jumped off just so I wouldn't have to walk DOWN the stairs. That's the Eiffel Tower behind my right leg.

The Torre Eiffel/Eiffel Tower/Tour Eiffel (in Italian, English and French, respectfully). I learned something new on this visit: apparently the tower is re-painted every five years with 45 tons of paint. It takes two years to complete the job.

The Eiffel Tower, illuminated at night. I took this picture from the top of the boat during the tour.

The Louvre, which houses something like 38,000 works of art. I heard that if you spend 10 seconds looking at each artwork, you'd spend three months wandering through the halls of the Louvre. But other than art, the Louvre also holds proof that Jesus and Mary Magdalen had children, whose bloodline continues to present day! (Thank you, Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code .... )

Mona Lisa. The funny thing is that on the opposite wall, there's a HUGE painting that covers nearly the whole wall. Then there's tiny little Mona, who somehow holds much more weight.

Even the French are taking sides ... this is a political ad in a metro station.

The Pantheon in Paris. There are catacombs underneath where many people are buried, including the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, chemist Marie Curie, author Alexander Dumas, and my personal hero:

Me and my satirical buddy (and literary hero), Voltaire.

Notre Dame Cathedral in the center of Paris. Apparently, all maps and signs that tell the distance between other cities and Paris measure the distance to the courtyard right outside Notre Dame.

This is Jim Morrison's grave the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. The flowers I laid are the purple ones in the center. RIP.

Atop the Eiffel Tower, with my beloved Paris.

Tomorrow I will try to post a video I took of the Eiffel Tower's light show at night. First I have to figure out how to edit video on my computer ... and eat dinner. :o)


What's next:

This weekend the school organized a trip to Naples and Pompeii, so that's where I'll be. Weather permitting, we'll even get to hike up Mt. Vesuvius, so cross your fingers for me that the good weather we've had the last couple of days will continue through the weekend!

Photos from the land of the Bratwurst

Thank goodness for my Italian cinema class, or I would never have had enough time to upload all of these pictures on the school's extraordinarily slow server. Here is a (more or less) chronological presentation of my German adventure.

This is me in front of the smallest airport in the world, a.k.a. Rome Ciampino airport, at about 6:30 a.m. Friday morning. It was quite a trek to get there, but when you only get about two hours of sleep, everything is far more exciting than it should be.

We flew on a ryanair flight, which was my first small european airline. It was a little sketchy, because for some reason, people weren't allowed to sit in rows three or four ... they said it was for safety reasons, which was a tad disconcerting

But we made it to Germany, and immediately embarked on our search for David Hasselhoff. If he's not in Germany, where would he be??

A cool church we found on our hunt ...

A delicious bratwurst lunch for just 1,50 euro on the side of the street. YUM.

When we got lost that night trying to find a restaurant for dinner, we stumbled upon this giant, brightly-lit EU sign in the middle of a park. Apparently Germany is very happy to be a part of the union.

Me and my buddy, Frankfurt.

This was the most amazing place I've ever been -- a gummy bear store, with more gummies than you could possibly imagine. I bought a bag of sours and a bag of regular gummy bears, and now, three days later, they're all gone. I almost bought this gargantuan red gummy bear (I swear it weighed a pound) for Liam, but I was afraid it would go stale by the time he would get it. I also would have mailed it to him if it hadn't weighed a pound ... seriously, it was amazing

We took a train to Mainz (pronounced mines), a small town outside of Frankfurt, because someone said it was cool. They were wrong. But we thought David Hasselhoff might be there, so we walked around a while, anyway. Turns out he wasn't there. We left immediately.

This is the mall in Frankfurt. It's so weird, because it's all built up. It's about 100 feet across, but seven stories tall, with a million escalators in the middle. Strange!

In a train station on our five-hour trek back to the Hahn airport. It was very easy to get to Frankfurt, but very difficult to get back!

The only American flag I've seen anywhere in Europe ... on a giant dancing hotdog ... in the airport ... in Hahn, Germany. You can tell that Europeans (especially Germans) respect Americans enormously...

That's all there is for now. This week I am just going to school and still recovering from all the weekend's Apfelwein. Friday, I'm off to France for Versailles, Paris and who knows what else?

Arrivederci!

Woo ist David Hasselhoff?

My last weekend was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. After a ridiculously early morning commute to the airport outside of town and a somewhat sketchy Ryanair flight, I arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, (and by in, I mean technically 70 km west of the town) with no place to stay and really no idea what there even is to do in Frankfurt.

Turns out, there's not too much. But after finding a hostel (and a new half-German half-Italian friend -- and unofficial tour guide), I saw the sights, did some shopping and drank far too much Apfelwein (apparently what Frankfurt is known for).

I also discovered, with my extremely limited German vocabulary, that people will be much nicer to you if you just try... no matter how you butcher it. Luckily, one of my roommates here in Rome spent six years in Germany, so she recorded some phrases on my personal recorder, which basically saved my life. My German for the weekend included:

*Woo ist ... toiletten/hostel/David Hasslehoff (Where is the bathroom/ the hostel/ David Hasselhoff?)
*Ine grosist bier (I would like your largest beer)
*Entschuldigung Sie (Excuse me)
*Danke shon (Thank you very much ... but FYI, they don't think it's as funny as you do to sing the Wayne Newton song)

I don't have much time to post all my pictures, but here are a few to get by until I can get them up after (or during?) class tomorrow:

This is me break dancing in front of old-town Frankfurt. The arc in the background used to be a gate that closed off the city. And of course, by break dancing, I mean that I tried to a cartwheel and I just looked like an idiot. :o)

Here's me and my grosist bier. I got a hefeweizen in honor of Kim ... :o)

This is me in front of the capitol building in Frankfurt. That's the EU flag, Germany flag and Frankfurt flag, left to right.

This is Frankfurt's financial district as viewed from the top of its mall (which was the most bizarre place I have ever seen). Apparently, Frankfurt is the second largest financial hub in Europe, behind London.

This is Frankfurt at night from across the river Main (pronounced mine), where our hostel was located.

Finally!

So I have been in Rome for nearly two weeks now, so I'm thinking it's about time for a post. The internet situation is really weird here, because the connection at school is very slow and I don't think I am going to get Internet at home (it would apparently be slower than at school). So, sorry, but this is the best I can do.

I haven't taken a lot of pictures here, but here are a few from my first weekend in the city:

This is me atop the Vittorio Emmanuele building.

Here is an anti-Vatican march. It was really interesting -- there were hundreds of people marching to separate church and state. Even though the vatican is technically its own country within Rome, there is a lot of political involvement there ...

La Fontana di Trevi. I already threw in a euro, which means I'll return to Rome someday. :o)

The Roman Forum. The column behind my right arm is where they beheaded Cicero.

Il Coloseo!

That's all I have time to post for now. I'll be honest -- I'm in class, and it's about to end. I have a bunch more pictures (including from my trip to the hill behind Trastevere and my excursion to see the Pope!) from the last week and a half to post. So I'll try to do that ... sometime.

For now, my plans for the next few days include a wine tasting tomorrow night, then very early Friday I head off to Frankfurt, Germany, for three days. Whooooo....

Arrivederci!