Day 8
It worked out better for us to fly into Rome and take a train up to Florence, so we bought our tickets when we got in the night before, woke up early and caught the train. I was curious how it would feel to return to Italy and see everything again. It was definitely different, the first time everything was planned out and I could just hop on the bus and it would take me where I needed to go. I also didn't have to worry about expenses then. After all this travelling and planning I really appreciate how easy that trip was. The weather was definitely nicer in Florence this time, last time it was raining, this time it was nice and sunny. I wanted to do things I hadn't done last time, Kristin wanted to see the Duomo which I didn't go inside last time, so that's where we started. We climbed the bell tower first, I've climbed a fair amount during my time in Europe. The view was amazing, of course. Kristin thought we were at the top when we'd reached the first level and I was like "haha, not even close." I guess I just get a real satisfaction out of climbing lots of stairs to be rewarded with an amazing view. After the bell tower, we went inside the church. Now, the outside of the Duomo is STUNNING, definitely one of the most beautiful churches in the world, you'd think the inside would match. I understand why we didn't go inside last time, it's not very impressive, but it's still cool to be able to say I've been inside the Duomo. Next, we made our way to the museum where the real David is kept, which I didn't get to see last time. I thought the wait was going to take hours but it really wasn't that bad. The rest of the museum was all religious art, except this mini-instrument museum it was connected with, where I learned about the invention of the piano. Besides that, it wasn't really my kind of art. Seeing the real 500-year-old David was awesome though. Marble statues fascinate me, thinking about how it used to be a giant block and somebody tunred it into a human replica blows my mind, what talent and skill. I'd accomplished my two big goals for the day and so had Kristin and it was still pretty early. We had some lunch, went to see the fake David standing where the real one used to stand, saw the Ponte Vecchio and the front of the Santa Croce and wandered through a market. Everybody raves about Florence, but I don't know, Florence just doesn't do much for me. It has its beautiful buildings and churches and a whole lotta history, but really, being in Florence just made me want to go to Venice. We encountered some interesting sales techniques in the market. This high-school-aged boy was trying to sell us t-shirts and he says "buy a t-shirt, get a free Italian boyfriend." Then he came next to me and goes "you dropped something...my heart." He was funny. WE go tout train tickets back to Rome after that and had some time for dinner. We wanted some good authentic Italian pizza, but we ran out of time for that and had some fast-food Italian pizza instead. I had anchovies and capers on my pizza, something I probably wouldn't be able to find at home, so I was appeased. Our train ride back to Rome was super long, but the Italian countryside is beautiful and I really love being in transit...unless I'm running late for something. Being in transit is exhilerating and relaxing at the same time. You have a world of possibilities ahead of you but all you can do in the mean time is enjoy the ride. It'll be a while, but eventually I'll take a massive roadtrip somwhere without worrying about catching planes, busses or trains, just go whenever I feel like it, it'll be wonderful.
Day 9
Rome is incredible, the center of an ancient massive empire and still the center of one of the world's largest religions. We started our day at the vatican museum aka where the sistine chapel is. I saw this last time I was in Rome but had no qualms with seeing it again. It's really amazing, the ceilings alone are worth it. We took the wrong exit out of the sistine chapel and had to walk all the way back around to get to St. Peter's, sigh, oh well. Last time I only got to see the inside of St. Peter's for about 10 minutes so I was excited to have time to explore it some more. The inside of St. Peter's makes up for the inside of the Duomo, it's amazing. It really doesn't feel as huge as it actually is and every inch is covered with something to look at. We were going to explore ancient Rome, the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain next. We made it through Piazza Navona and the inside of the Pantheon, which is a church now apparently, when Kristin got a phone call. She'd been in touch with her neighbor's seminary classmate who's studying in Rome and he had two extra tickets for us to see the pope give Easter vigil mass. After waiting in line for a while to get some AMAZING gelato, we booked it back to the vatican to meet him. The mass started at 9, doors opened at 7:30, we met him at 5:45, seeing the pope is a big deal. We joined other kids from his program in line. This was a super religious bunch, most of the guys were in full priestly garb headed for the priesthood and at least one of the girls was thinking about becoming a nun. Nicer people I will probably never meet, they welcomed us into the group right away and even invited us to their after party and Easter brunch. I have some issues with Catholicism but being around them made me want to be a nicer person. Life goal complete, I got to see the pope! POPE! He's really short and frail. The mass was in Latin and Italian mostly. There were 4 readings each in a different language, Spanish, German, English and French. The English one was read by a girl in the program we'd latched on to. This was definitely the longest mass I've ever been to, but I got to see and hear the pope preside over Easter vigil mass in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome...that's insanely cool. He even waved at us on the procession out. After mass we joined the group at their after party for cupcakes. Kristin found the colloseum keychain in hers and won a prize - a chocolate bar from the states which I got to eat for breakfast the next morning because she doesn't like almonds, score. Not only did Kristin's connection buy us gelato after mass, but another person in the program gave us money for the taxi home.
Day 10
Our second day in Rome, we had to do everything we didn't get done the night before. We had no desire to spend money though. We started with the outside of the colloseum, impressive in its own right. I searched in vain for the mouth of truth and then again for a free entrance to the Roman forum. I remember it being free last time and my guide book also said it was free, but apparently it's not. Oh well, we got a nice view from above. We walked past some impressive buildings on our way to the Trevi fountain to meet Kristin's connection for Easter brunch. We walked past the Spanish steps and the Piazza del Popolo on the way to brunch. The food was delicious, chicken, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, pasta salad, fruit and a hoard of desserts. I even got jelly beans for Easter. We had to grab our bags from the hostel and catch our train to Naples after brunch. All in all, it was a lovely time in Rome.
NAPLES
Public transportation is not very reliable in Naples. The metro takes FOREVER. When we got to our stop, the exit we needed to take out of the station was blocked off, which led us on a big circular trek trying to find our hostel, in the pouring rain too. It was miserable. We did find our hostel eventually. It lifted my spirits, clean modern, not shady in the least, a large improvement over Barcelona and Rome. At this point, we were starving and decided to go search for a place to eat. We'd been trying to have a nice, authentic meal since we arrived in Italy to no avail. This was no different, after almost eating at a kebab place, we found a nice family run bakery with savory things to eat. Not the ideal dinner, but it was mighty tasty. I picked up some limoncello there too. I didn't realize how strong it was, 30% by vol. I'm not sure how you're supposed to drink it, but I mixed it with coke, tasty. It's going to be so weird going back home and still not being able to drink there. Even after I turn 21, it's not going to be the same.
Day 11
The whole reason I wanted to go to Naples was to see Pompei. We didn't get as early of a start as we intended and it took over an hour to get to the train station using the metro, but that wasn't a big deal. We almost missed the stop in Pompei, thank goodness we were sitting across from a girl with a Canadian flag on her backpack reading about Pompei in Rick Steve's Italy who was on top of things. Pompei wasn't really Kristin's thing, but I thought it was incredible. I was expecting more preserved people and animals, but it was mostly just building ruins. Still, seeing a nearly 2000 year old frescoe is pretty impressive. We spent most of the day here then grabbed some pizza before we headed back to Naples. We had to get to Bari the next day to catch our ferry to Greece so we looked into bus times. The only two buses were at 7:20 and 8:20, it would be a 4 hour ride and we didn't have to be in Bari until 6. Well, what can you do, 8:20 bus it was. After finding the bus stop, we decided to walk back to the hostel to see how early we'd have to leave the next morning. We'd been on our feet all day, we were exhausted and everything was still closed for Easter. Trying to find some place for a nice dinner really wasn't too appealing. We decided to buy something at the market and make it instead. I found some interesting looking pasta and cream and Kristin got another pastry at the same pastry shop from the night before. The lady working there gave me my cookies for free too, heck yes. It was a tasty dinner and I liked hanging out in our hostel. We called it an early night since we had to wake up early to catch our bus to Bari. 16 hour overnight ferry ride, here we come.
Day 12
We woke up to a lovely day and walked to the bus stop no probelm with plenty of time to spare. Waiting for the bus was a little nerve wracking, we saw a number of other buses stop and they waited for about 10 seconds while people got on and then rolled out. It wasn't a problem at all though, we caught the right bus and a few hours later we were in Bari. Bari was lovely and sunny, palm trees decorating the streets. We had to ask a few people how to get to the port, the first lday looked at us like we were crazy when we started talking in English. We got a map and directions eventually and had a nice walk to find the port. We didn't have to check-in until 6 and it was around 12:30 at this point. We sat by the water for a while, found exactly where we had to check-in and went out to find a nice lunch. I still wanted my authentic Italian meal before I left. Success! I had some wine and orrechiette pasta - apparently a specialty of the region - with a red sauce and mushrooms. This was apparently the only thing the restaurant had for lunch, there was no menu. Fortunately, it was very tasty. We capped off lunch with our last gelato in Italy. We still had a lot of time to burn so we just went back to the port to wait. I had a phone interview to prepare myself for. I've been conscious of this up coming summer and my need of a paid internship, or SOME kind of job. I made up a resume and made use of Creighton's jobs4jays, submitted it for an application. I got preselected for an interview and arranged an overseas phone interview. It was scheduled for 9 A.M. at home, 4 P.M. in Italy. My phone didn't have much money on it and I was worried I was going to cut out in the middle of the interview, but fortunately that didn't happen. I never know how to judge interviews, but I thought it went well, so we'll see. It would mean living in Omaha this summer, but I have to take what I can get. After the interview I got my boarding pass and we just hung out some more, thankful not to have to stress about catching the ferry. Around 6 we headed down to get on the boat, we had to wait around for a while still. At one point a tampourine and accordian emerged and there was an impromptu dance show, well, an old man and what looked like a son and mother combo danced a bit. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Getting on the boat was really exciting, we felt like we were on a cruise. We had our own bathroom in our room, including a shower which I took full advantage of. Definitely the nicest shower I've had on this trip. We went up to the deck to watch the ferry leave the port, it was beautiful, there's nothing like seeing a city from a distance at night. We explored the ship some more. It had a bar, a cafeteria style restaurant, a little store and lounge areas. We both really want to go on cruises now. There wasn't too much to do without spending money though, and we were pretty tired so we went to sleep. We'd be in Greece in the morning.
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