Italy Day 4 - Pt II Pompeii

I LOVED POMPEII!!!!! - Thought I'd get that out before we get started.

So...we arrive in Pompeii to see a factory where they clean and restore artifacts - aka a cameo and coral wares shop where they try to force you to purchase. Ok, one drawback. We got bored and wandered out and met this great lady Maria and her son Anthony. They were from Alaska, but upon further discussion I found out that Maria was originally from Grand Island. SHUT UP! I know, right?! Buffalo is the tiniest and furthest reaching community!

We also met Crystal and Carol from NY and Las Vegas respectively. A mother and daughter duo traveling through Italy. We all had lunch together and discussed our journeys. Maria and Anthony were off to Spain the next day. Maria told us that she had four sons, and in their 16th bday year, they each got to go on a trip. Anthony was a doll and reminded Lina and I of our baby-bros. We sort of adopted him for the day.

Lunch was a bit - eh. But the funny story is that Lina and I had been having a great debate about the pronunciation of a few Italian words. Respectively - pesce vs pesca (fish vs peach) and tartuffi vs tarfutti. (chocolate vs mushroom) We kept jokingly saying if we weren't careful we would get fish juice and mushroom ice cream.

Now, those of you that know me, know that I LOVE the movie French Kiss with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. Lina and I quoted it extensively on the trip. As our waiter was serving lunch, I was attempting to ask him how to say "fish" which was being served for lunch, and I was having difficulty understanding him...until I said "ooooohhhh caaaad" (mmm.bob) Didn't realize he was saying COD. I wanted him to say pesh-e. Nice. (This sort of revelation will happen again)

So...Pompeii. OMG! I was like, woo-hoo ruins. But the history of Pompeii was FASCINATING! Not to mention the fact that apparently, Roman men were only 4'8" tall, making me a giant in the houses here!

Pompeii was destroyed by volcanic ash from an eruption of Mt Vesuvias in 79 AD. The next town over, Herculian, was destroyed by the lava. The ash basically mummified everything and everyone. They were excavating in the early 1980s, but are currently in the process of restoring. I took easily 100 pictures here. Besides the scenery, I was in awe of how advanced this civilization was. They had sidewalks, and drainage, and they recycled, and the art work that adorned their walls was INCREDIBLE! I took pictures of the rocks on the ground that had CHARIOT indentations! We saw two human bodies (and one dog) completely preserved in ash, frozen in the position they were when they died. Freakishly enthralling. What a horrible way to die! The dog was actually "frozen" trying to escape from his tie out. It's like someone pressed "pause" and the world stood still.

The story of Pompeii is so tragic and so riveting. I couldn't get enough! I bought another flip book (though I don't love it as much as the one from Rome) I plan to do a lot more reading on this topic. Who knows, maybe I will write a book!

I have to say, this was by far my most favorite part of the trip. We only covered about 1/4 of the entire "community" which spans some 164 sq miles. Would definitely go back here.