Monte Vesuvio

8:30pm; Last night was fun…Dre got drunk for the first time since I’ve been here and she was really funny. She started feeling sick though and I was trying to help her out and talk her into drinking water and eating the tortilla Lisa gave her and Lisa and Pam both told me to stop talking to her cuz I was “egging her on”. Not sure what that means but last I checked, I was trying to help and I have been around plenty of drunk people before to know that they don’t like to get talked to and treated like a child just cuz they’re drunk, which is what they were doing….whatever. I woke up early and took a bus to Napoli with Mel, then took a metro to Ercolano, then took a taxi van half way up Mt. Vesuvius. We hiked the rest of the way. About a 25-minute hike if you were to go straight up, but I was taking a lot of pictures. It was really cool and kind of eerie thinking that I was standing on the very land that has seen MAJOR destruction fall upon the cities below. Creepy. It was neat though. When we got to the top I saw the big crater and Mel spotted a section where it was smoking!! AHHHHHH!!! It was neat to see though. I took a few lava rocks from inside the crater and bought a cool cross made out of lava. Note to self, avoid traveling alone with Mel…should’ve learned from Spain and France because she kept walking ahead of me and I lost her like 3 times and stumbled upon her shortly after. You know how when you’re traveling with someone and you periodically check back if you’re in front of the group? She doesn’t’ do that. She also doesn’t have a filter and has no problem telling you if she doesn’t like something. We were talking about the metro ride we just had because older Italian guys were yelling, trying to convince us to get off at a certain stop and I was positive it wasn’t the right one, but they told us we needed to take a different metro. We got off and I just kept saying how they probably just didn’t want us on there (haha) and how weird because I know that yellow goes to Sorrento, Blue goes to blah blah blah and the other one goes to blah blah blah…I asked Mel a few questions and she just said, “I love you Dani, but stop talking to me…” Weird how a person thinks that if they put “I love you but…” before an insult then it is okay. I shut my mouth for almost an hour until we arrived at the taxi place to take a van to the top. She was whistling and singing about 10 seconds after she said that to me, she had no remorse for being a bitch. It’s no wonder she doesn’t have any girl friends….only guys. Whatever…All in all I’m glad she came with me because I DO like her and I didn’t want to come alone..she just isn’t very good at saying things. When we got back to Caserta nobody had answered the 2 texts and one phone call I made to see if they could come pick us up…so we started walking. We stumbled across a hidden supermarket. Oh, Joy! Whenever I want to go to the supermarket we have to go to Apollo and it is far and hard to do because of the whole car situation. I can walk to the EuroEsse but they don’t have everything. This place we found was like heaven. Everything seemed cheaper too. AND they don’t close during siesta…that’s a rare oddity. I found a HUGE watermelon for only like 5 euro! Got some mozzarella di buffula and other produce and goodies. When we luckily found a bus to take us back to our apartments, which never happens because I swear there is no bus schedule, Pam decides to text me about an hour after I told her we would be there and says, “where are you guys”…like she didn’t know we needed a ride. I told her we were on a bus back and she said, “so you don’t need a ride?” Dumb ass…obviously we DID…but not NOW...could’ve used one an HOUR AGO!!! AY yi yi..the car situation is ridiculous here and I will be so appreciative of so many simple things back home. I feel like I have been complaining a lot..but I really am enjoying my time here..it’s just the last month has been more difficult. But I still feel infinitely blessed for this opportunity and will continue to seize the day and take all that good old Caserta has to offer me…even though there is trash everywhere and the people try to hit you while driving and stores are randomly closed during siesta and because of the 2 week long holiday and everybody runs late to everything and all the Italians smell like b.o. and most of the younger guys whistle and call out at you and it often smells of burning trash here…but other than that…I love Caserta Haha. Caserta isn’t the prettiest of towns but at least it’s in Italy and I am lucky enough for that.
p.s. Napoli sure likes to decorate their beautiful buildings with lots of colorful graffiti…it was everywhere…in the train station, on apartments, on random walls, even at certain parts of Vesuvius. It’s almost like an art, like they paid people and handed them some spray cans and said, “here, please enscribe the name of your gang and draw a beautiful symbol.” For some reason though it’s not scary like in certain parts of L.A., it just gives the city character, like it’s meant to be there.

Pics from Vesuvius; http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2225794&id=24600759&l=e1bc2a6236

8:30pm; Last night was fun…Dre got drunk for the first time since I’ve been here and she was really funny. She started feeling sick though and I was trying to help her out and talk her into drinking water and eating the tortilla Lisa gave her and Lisa and Pam both told me to stop talking to her cuz I was “egging her on”. Not sure what that means but last I checked, I was trying to help and I have been around plenty of drunk people before to know that they don’t like to get talked to and treated like a child just cuz they’re drunk, which is what they were doing….whatever. I woke up early and took a bus to Napoli with Mel, then took a metro to Ercolano, then took a taxi van half way up Mt. Vesuvius. We hiked the rest of the way. About a 25-minute hike if you were to go straight up, but I was taking a lot of pictures. It was really cool and kind of eerie thinking that I was standing on the very land that has seen MAJOR destruction fall upon the cities below. Creepy. It was neat though. When we got to the top I saw the big crater and Mel spotted a section where it was smoking!! AHHHHHH!!! It was neat to see though. I took a few lava rocks from inside the crater and bought a cool cross made out of lava. Note to self, avoid traveling alone with Mel…should’ve learned from Spain and France because she kept walking ahead of me and I lost her like 3 times and stumbled upon her shortly after. You know how when you’re traveling with someone and you periodically check back if you’re in front of the group? She doesn’t’ do that. She also doesn’t have a filter and has no problem telling you if she doesn’t like something. We were talking about the metro ride we just had because older Italian guys were yelling, trying to convince us to get off at a certain stop and I was positive it wasn’t the right one, but they told us we needed to take a different metro. We got off and I just kept saying how they probably just didn’t want us on there (haha) and how weird because I know that yellow goes to Sorrento, Blue goes to blah blah blah and the other one goes to blah blah blah…I asked Mel a few questions and she just said, “I love you Dani, but stop talking to me…” Weird how a person thinks that if they put “I love you but…” before an insult then it is okay. I shut my mouth for almost an hour until we arrived at the taxi place to take a van to the top. She was whistling and singing about 10 seconds after she said that to me, she had no remorse for being a bitch. It’s no wonder she doesn’t have any girl friends….only guys. Whatever…All in all I’m glad she came with me because I DO like her and I didn’t want to come alone..she just isn’t very good at saying things. When we got back to Caserta nobody had answered the 2 texts and one phone call I made to see if they could come pick us up…so we started walking. We stumbled across a hidden supermarket. Oh, Joy! Whenever I want to go to the supermarket we have to go to Apollo and it is far and hard to do because of the whole car situation. I can walk to the EuroEsse but they don’t have everything. This place we found was like heaven. Everything seemed cheaper too. AND they don’t close during siesta…that’s a rare oddity. I found a HUGE watermelon for only like 5 euro! Got some mozzarella di buffula and other produce and goodies. When we luckily found a bus to take us back to our apartments, which never happens because I swear there is no bus schedule, Pam decides to text me about an hour after I told her we would be there and says, “where are you guys”…like she didn’t know we needed a ride. I told her we were on a bus back and she said, “so you don’t need a ride?” Dumb ass…obviously we DID…but not NOW...could’ve used one an HOUR AGO!!! AY yi yi..the car situation is ridiculous here and I will be so appreciative of so many simple things back home. I feel like I have been complaining a lot..but I really am enjoying my time here..it’s just the last month has been more difficult. But I still feel infinitely blessed for this opportunity and will continue to seize the day and take all that good old Caserta has to offer me…even though there is trash everywhere and the people try to hit you while driving and stores are randomly closed during siesta and because of the 2 week long holiday and everybody runs late to everything and all the Italians smell like b.o. and most of the younger guys whistle and call out at you and it often smells of burning trash here…but other than that…I love Caserta Haha. Caserta isn’t the prettiest of towns but at least it’s in Italy and I am lucky enough for that.
p.s. Napoli sure likes to decorate their beautiful buildings with lots of colorful graffiti…it was everywhere…in the train station, on apartments, on random walls, even at certain parts of Vesuvius. It’s almost like an art, like they paid people and handed them some spray cans and said, “here, please enscribe the name of your gang and draw a beautiful symbol.” For some reason though it’s not scary like in certain parts of L.A., it just gives the city character, like it’s meant to be there.

Pics from Vesuvius; http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2225794&id=24600759&l=e1bc2a6236