Day 58 (Cruise day 2) - Naples...but really Pompeii

When I woke up this morning, it was hard. Mostly because it was completely dark in the indoor cabin with all the lights off. However, once I got ready for the day, everything was pretty good. I went to breakfast with Kelsey in the restaurant area before going back up to the room to check on the two we left behind. Since they were still asleep, we left again to register our payment options for the cruise and check on the excursions available in Naples. Unfortunately, the one we wanted (hiking up to Mt. Vesuvius) was completely sold out, an none of the other available excursions interested us that much. Instead, we went up to the lido deck where the arts and crafts were going to take place to wait for the activity to begin. We were making flowers out of paper and straws (with the help of staples and scissors) and they looked pretty fun to make. I stayed there for about a half hour and made four different types of flowers for the people in my cabin and on the trip. 

Our first look at Naples, with Vesuvius in the distance

When I was done, I quickly dropped off the stuff at my cabin before meeting a group of people to go learn salsa dancing. It was actually quite easy to learn, but I get the feeling it's a lot like the two step where there's a basic set of moves that's simple, but the really cool moves that everyone likes are the super complicated ones they don't teach to beginners. After that, we went out on deck to see the land go by. At one point, there were even a set of islands that could be seen off in the distance. We still had a bit of time before lunch, so we went to the cabin and found out what Johanna and her family were doing while at Naples. 

We ended up eating lunch with them and figuring out a basic plan for the day before disembarking about 30 min after the ship docked because our meal ran a little late. Interestingly enough, we ran into the rest of our group right after we disembarked and they decided to come with us to visit Pompeii. We had quite the adventure in figuring out the buses and trains that we would need to take to get to Pompeii, and by the time we actually got to the ruined city, an hour and a half had already passed by. By the way, the city of Naples is absolutely terrible for people who want to either drive or walk to their destination. The drivers were like maniacs and the streets were lined with people trying to sell us stuff. And we always had to keep an eye out for pickpockets. 

Once at Pompeii, we made our way through a cloud of people trying to sell us their wares to the opening gates of Pompeii. It was closed. Yes, you read right, the city if Pompeii was closed at 3:30 on Monday afternoon and only open for the tours that the cruise would be conducting. That didn't mean we couldn't see the outside of the city. There was a free trail along the outside of the city that still have us a good view of the architecture and the volcano in the distance, we just weren't able to actually go inside the city. On the other end of the trail was a sort of flea market, so we were able to buy things for relatively cheap that could be souvenirs. I also got a crash course into haggling with people, and ended up buying some souvenirs for myself as well as my mother and getting my pin for a relatively cheap price. Also, something absolutely crazy happened at the flea market. We saw some people also studying abroad at AIB. They were just passing through from Rome on their way to Florence and we just so happened to see each other. Just think, even a 10 minute difference in either of our schedules and we wouldn't have seen each other. We were in just the right place at just the right time to see them.  The flea market was such an interesting place and here was even a guy dressed as a centurion in the middle of the street, but we ended up deciding to leave for the train stop early to be sure we would get back in time for the boat to leave. 

 Pompeii from the outside

 The ruins were really cool

 And Vesuvius could be seen in the distance

The centurion at the flea market

We actually caught a train that was earlier than the one we originally wanted to get on, but it turned out o be a good decision. See, the buses in Naples are in no way as punctual as the bus system in Bonn. That meant that instead of leaving right at 4:30, we left at 4:45 and arrived only 15 min before our original train would have ideally arrived at the station. After the train, we caught the bus that would take us back to port. At one point, the bus turned to go through the city, but we could see or boat right outside the stop. Instead of waiting for the bus to get us to the stop right outside of the meeting point in an unknown amount of time, we walked the 20 min it would take to get us back to the ship. 

One of the random buildings in the city on the way back from Pompeii.

Once on the boat, we got dressed for dinner and talked to our table mates about our respective days in Naples. Turns out they went to Pompeii as well and even went to the flea market after the tour. We enjoyed our dinner with them, and went back to our cabin for a bit after dinner to regroup and figure out why we were doing that night. Three of us wen to the circus act that was going on, but the last member of our group needed to stay and work on grading papers, so he decided to skip out on that. The circus acts were pretty nice, the guy juggled quite a bit and at one point was juggling ping pong balls with his mouth. He also did a strength display and ended with a shadow puppet show to a bunch of well known songs like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or a whole new world. He was really good and manages to morph his hands Ito the faces of like 7 different people that were "singing" the words. When the circus show was done, we went back to the cabin and ordered room service (for free! Go premium package!) and got a liter if orange juice and some sandwiches because some people were still hungry. We passed the night just talking to each other and eventually decided we needed to sleep because the boat docked in Palermo, Sicily at 8 am and we wanted time to walk around. I'm super excited for the longer time we have in the city, and hope that it's more fulfilling than the closed Pompeii self-led tour we made for ourselves. 

Erin Z

*Written on March 10, 2014