This morning we ended up sleeping a little later than wanted especially since we wanted to do a day tour of Naples and Pompei but couldn't get the wifi to do research on it. So we headed to the train station around 10:30am to find some information. The tour that we had heard about was way to over priced and not worth the money, so we split into two groups: one that wanted to do some more Rome exploring and then one that wanted to go to Pompei just not do a tour. It was possible to see all of the other landmarks on Sunday since our train didn't leave until 4:15 so I wanted to be in the Pompei group. We found out the train would be an hour to Naples and then we'd catch a 45 minute one to Pompei for 20 euors roundtrip. The problem was we were too late figuring it all out to for the 11am train, but the next one at 12 am took a really indirect route and wouldn't get to Pompei until 3:55. So we decided to take the 1 oclock train to get to Naples, and then go from there. Just another small hiccup when we went to go back to the apartment to get our passports and eurorails, we couldn't open the tour to the apartment. Someone had accidentally locked the bottom lock which we had the key to but the landlord told us to only use the top lock probably for those specific reason. Another small bump in the road as we spend a good 30 minutes trying to get the door open since one of our group member's eurorails were inside which we absolutely needed to get on the train. So we decided to go get lunch while Val and Bryce got a coffee at a wifi cafe to call the lady to try and come get the door open. Of course she ended up not being able to understand what Val was saying but we thought we had communicated to her to come meet us at the apartment. We were also hoping to get our hot water fixed. Yeah that didn't happen: true life I stink. Val though must have used her magic powers when we went back to the apartment because as we were walking up she got the door open. So exciting and thank god because the lady ended up never coming. I guess that's the cons of getting an apartment over a hostel. So we then run to the train station because by then its already 12:30 and we need to catch the train. At times we were legitimately running. We caught the train to Naples, and then had to wait 20 or so minutes for the train to Pompei. We arrived in Pompei around 3:10 and let me tell you if you thought Rome was a little dirty Pompei was straight dirt. I guess it's the luxury of living in Lugano which is one of the richest and cleanest cities in Europe, but Pompei was pretty much deserted. It took us a little bit to walk to the ruins but along the way we met the cutest stray dog who ended up no joke leading us to the ruins. We followed him the whole way, and we decided to name him Pompei (real creative right):
When we got to the ruins it ended up it what was #2 in the bad things that happened that day (#1 being the door) and it is true what they say bad things come in threes. We ended up getting there 10 minutes late. We were unaware that the last admission was at 3:30 and we were devastated. We paid and went all the way to Pompei to see the ruins and we couldn't even bride any of the workers to let us in. It was understandable considering that there were security guards everywhere and even one of them told us look I'd get fired. Because the park didn't even close until 5 but they just stopped letting people in at 3:30. It was still kinda cool to at least see the outside of the ruins. I had no idea about the story of Pompei: how Mt. Vesuvius (a volcano) erupted completely covering the town in layers of molten. Then many years ago diggers came across this city underground. They uncovered the entire city and when you actually go inside they say you can even make out some of the human faces preserved by the ash. I really hope I can one day go back and go inside because it looked so cool, but we did find out from a lady that it can take up to five hours to actually explore the whole thing. We were all still pretty bummed.
We left Pompei disappointed and heartbroken. Once we got back to Rome we had another delicious dinner, but I think I'm gonna say it was my favorite dinner that I've gotten so far in all of Europe. I order spaghetti topped with clams mussels and shrimp in a creamy tomato sauce. It was incredible. We headed back to the apartment to start getting ready to go out. We all went to the Drunken Ship, a popular bar in the heart of the city (the safe part where a lot of the clubs were located), so we had to take a taxi there. Didn't learn until the next day that we could have taken a public bus for free. Oh well learned our lesson there. The #3 bad thing I was referring to earlier happened that night when everyone I was with wanted to stay out later but one of the girls was too intoxicated to even walk so I went home with her because no one else from the group were. We ended up getting lost just the two of us in the unsafe part of town because our cab driver dropped us off at a metro stop instead of the train station. It was pretty scary I'm not gonna lie and that's never going to happen again. We absolutely need to travel in groups at all times during the night. Having a guy wouldn't help either and I know I need to memorize how to get to where we're staying. The hard part was that not only do all the streets look the same to begin with but it was also pitch black out. But we made it back safely and so did the other girls following us. So overall not as amazing of a day as would hoped.
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