Under the Capri Sun

This weekend a bunch of ae's journeyed to the isle of Capri. Going into it i was excited, alittle nervous, and a tad hungry. The weekend actually started on Thursday when we as a class went to Herculaem and Pompei as a class. We pack Wednesday night and have to wake up at 6:30 the next morning in order to get to our meeting place by 7:15. So me Tyler and Doug leave the house at about 5 of 7 to walk 20 minutes to Trajans Column (our meeting place). Me and tyler get about 3 mintes down the street when we realize we left our papers which Romolo emphasized us bringing, so we turn around and book it towards the house again. run up our 106 steps and into our rooms, Tyler finds his papers, i dont and realize i left them in the studio, which is sorta on the way to Trajans column. So me and tyler run the whole way, about a mile, to the studio with all our bags around our necks and we get there and its locked...im exhausted at this point and thinking...eFFFFFF this...so we just go to Trajans column, actually beating Doug there, cuz were good like that. The bus arrives on time and we set off for Herculaem, an ancient city thats been excavated showing the remains of a former great city, which is now pretty much a shithole, the town is at least, the Ruins are pretty sweet, well ruined of course, but still nice. We stay about an hour then leave for Pompei, another ancient city. Pompei was pretty sweet. We get there, eat lunch, our little group found a nice pizza place that gave us a pizza and coke for 6 euro, while others paid as much as 25 for the same size meal at the rip off cafeteria, i felt pretty good about that one. Then we all get together again and Romolo talks to us about the importance of Pompei and some interesting sites to see. We split up, this time im with Mike Royer, Monica, Todd Povall and Ryan because we all wanted to see the ancient villa a the far end of the excavated site. We see it and travel to the complete opposite side of the site to see the old stadium. We see it quickely because we were short on time and needed to meet back up with Romolo. So we start briskly walking back. Then we realize how far we are so we pick up the pace even more. We take a turn which we beleived would put us back on the main road, it end up leading us to a dead end. so then were thinking ok, we can just duck under the fence, and THIS road will lead us to the main road. So we duck under the fence and start running because we only have a few minutes left before the bus is pulling out. We take the next turn and look around and all we see is workers excavating some new part of the site thats fenced off on sides and were stuck in the middle haha. They unhook the fence for us and we walk around now in a full sprint bending around corners, bobbing around people, jumping over ruins, and we barely make it back before the bus leaves. The bus takes us to Paestum, which is on the Mediterranean coastline and to our hotel. The hotel ends up being right on the coast and its very upscale. We get our room (Tyler, Doug, Tyler Rickers (he's going by Maximus on the trip to avoid confusion) and myself) and head up to unpack. We get a room on the far end of the third floor, which ends up being the only room with a strait-shot view to the sea. it was gorgeous. We immediately changed clothes and went down to the sea. we were so grimey and disgusting from exploring ruins all day. At the beach we start a pick up soccer game then all dive into the Mediteranean to cool off. Later that night we were all given complimentary meals at the hotel, which was a five course dinner consisting of pizza, 2 forms of pasta, pork with lasagna, and a fruit bowl. it was all unbeleavably delicious, best meal so far by far. Late that night we all hangout by the sea, just sorta chillin like. The next morning i wake up with all the beds surrounding me, my hilarious roomates thought itd be funny is i was surrounded with males the entire night, gay or funny? u decide... actually it was pretty funny when i woke up. anyway after we had breakfast we left for the ruins of paestum. they were pretty cool. They still had 3 temples pretty much intact. they were built around the year 0 so you can see how long theyve lasted. We also got to see an acient swimming pool which had all these weird stone obstacles under the water for swimmers to swim through. we then went to the museum there and were supposed to see the tomb of the swimmer. We went there and couldnt find it for the longest time, then finally went downstairs and saw an old decayed body sittin in the middle of the hallway not under any case or anything. were all thinking, is this it? someone said touch it, but we withheld from beng so crude. Then security people come over and explain to us that this section is closed off for maintanance. they escort us upstairs and we leave pretty quickly after that, not wanted to get into any further trouble. Its now a little after noon and were done for the day, but most of us are going to capri so the bus drops us off at the train station. We take the train to Naples, where we think we have a hostel reservation. The european train process is new to me and most other people, but luckily we dont have any major incidents. We get tto naples and try to find the hostel which ends up being a heck of a trip. the hostel was actually like right behind the train station, but we walk around for close to an hour look for it. We walked through this enormous tunnel which smelled like sewage and was covered in dirt with broken glass all over the one side and screaming cars flying by on the other side TWICE. finally we find the hostel and try to retreave our reservation...3 problems here: 1- me and Doug didnt bring our passports and for some reason they need them 2- they didnt have our reservation on file and to top it off 3- they only had 2 beds left in the whole place. Its not as bad as it sounds, we had a feeing the reservation didnt go through and we were prepared to find another place to stay. we find a brochure for holiday inn and called them up. they have rooms available and we book 2 rooms for 11 of us that were left (about 20 other ae's stayed at the hostel...those were the ones that made sure they had reservations and put a downpayment..we were sorta wingin it) so we check in and sneak the other people in and end up only paying around 25 euro a person and have a good room, a hot shower, a good view, TV! and good company in a nice part of Naples(most of naples is a shithole, and from one source - the organized crime capital of the world). The next morning we take a metro, and a tram to the dock and take a ferry to capri. Pubic transportaion was used frequently in naples...We arrive in naples and we are in complete awe of whats in front of us. Its the most beautiful place ive ever seen. We chill out at the beach for awhile, climb on some rocks, and swim in the sea. then we run into this guy called the pizzaman(dont ask why) that takes groups out on tours around the island. He had just taken out one of the other ae groups out and they were all really pleased with it. So the pizzaman takes us around the island, taking us into all the amazing naturally formed grottos around the island. At times he stops the boat and we all get out and swim through the grottos. One grotto we swam through and ended up on a nice beach on the other side hidden from view. ( i think we interupted a couple when we arrived). The next grotto we swam though and we were unpleasantly interupted by a gang of armed jellyfish. we quickly got back on the boat then. The pichures we snapped were just like pichures youd see on a desktop wallpaper or something....just really beautiful. We hung out at the beach until the last ferry departed back to the mainland. From there we took a metro and train back to Rome. We got back around 1AM last night, completely exhausted but still in awe of what we had just experienced.

Day 3: Pantheon Shmantheon

Somehow I wake up at 6:30AM and slept beautifully, unlike many of my colleagues, who couldn’t because of the noise in the piazza. Pondering what to do, I decide to take advantage and go for a morning run around the piazza. I meet up with Royer and Antonio and get to it. We then have our first Cartography lecture which turns into us wandering around the streets of Rome looking for Allen Ceen’s studio. We make it there fine, some people show up 45 minutes late, well one person. We get an overview and then go get some panini at one of the several thousand panini shops. I’ve learned not to buy a can of soda at the shops. One can of fanta = 2 euro, One enormous loaf of fresh baked bread = 1.17 euro. What’s up with that? The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, just traveling to and from class trying to get some sketches and shit done.

Day 2: 1st Classes and further exploration

We all wakeup, still tired but ready for more roman confusion. 8:30AM is our intro with Romolo. Again we get a lecture on not being “American pigs.” We then get a tour of the city with one of our professors who seems to know a lot, but speak at about .5 decibals. We take care of some mundane business such as getting a cell phone, notebooks, groceries, the usual. Later that night we have our group dinner, save some euro and proceed to spend it promptly for our first night at the roman bars. The first one we checkout is La Vineria where they serve good cheap wine, although I wouldn’t know…me and tyler decided to try out the much talked about, rarely consumed alcohol of all alcohol, yes u heard it my friends, we had some Diserona. Then my first beer in Roma was consumed, the illustrious 'Royal'. The we journeyed about 20 steps east to an American bar, The Drunken Ship, where we found Lil John on the radio, NBA playoffs on the tv and beerpong in the middle of the bar…cant find that in the States! Our evening ended a little after 12, and I’ll admit I was a little tipsy at that point.. It was a good second day.

Day 1: Arrival and 1st day

So I arrive at the airport …way early and ready to get it goin. Eventually everyone piles in but not before I start to worry about being at the correct gate. We get a late takeoff and I know im bot going to be able to sleep at all during the flight…as usual. I do luckout and get an empty seat next to me which allows me to stretch out slightly/curl into a ball and pass out, but I don’t luckout because im right next to a bathroom and there was a meal served on the flight…distinctive smells reoccurring throughout the night…$5 beers also served on the flight…why would anybody ever buy a bud light for 5 bucks? The chick next to me did, twice.
We arrive in Rome and get a taxi to Piatza Navona. One word to describe the taxi ride – dangerous. Seems common over here though, dangerous drivers all over the place. But there good at it. We bring our stuff up to our floor, which happens to be on the 3rd floor and is a hike to say the least. The elevator is also sub-par and will rarely be used by anyone. We took our first journey to the studio, not a bad hike, and right past the pantheon. We end up making the trip about 5 times due to housing mix ups. We finally get set up and everyone is exhausted from not sleeping the night before. We get some lunch (get ripped off) at a pizza place by the pantheon and chill there for awhile. Later Tyler, Doug, Tyler and I decide to wander around looking for Circo Maxima and the Colleseum. On the way we mistakenly wander through what appeared to be the gay-axis of Rome. It looked like the remnants of a former zoo, now accommodating only males wearing tight yellow shirts. We get to Circo Maxima and will probably go back to play futbol at some point. Its pretty run down now though. Then we make our way northeast to the Triumval Arch /Colleseum/Ruins of the ancient city. We really didn’t know all the history and are looking forward to seeing it again with our professors showing us all the intricacies. We wander back, get some Italian dinner, and head back looking to get some much needed sleep and plan out our next 6 weeks.

So its 6:49 on the wednesday before i leave, ive got most of my belongings together now, except a shirt which was malliciosly stolen from me by my younger brother, but thats neither here nor there...or something. anyway i just created this thing to document my travels for all yous'ens. Hopefully i find the time to update it, if not, oh well i lost 10 minutes out of this amzazingless useless, but utterly enjoyable week of nothingness. ok, time to go watch the last few minutes of parental control. will she stick with the loser? well ill find out. later peoples, if anyone even reads this