rest my chemistry (thanks kirsten)

wow, where to begin.

SO-


this past weekend was an...adventure. We left on Friday, there was a lot of traveling involved. We took a bus from san gemini to Terni, and a train from Terni to Rome. In Rome we transferred trains, and went to Naples. Naples is kind of a not too great city, like, pretty sketchy mob involved stuff, so we wanted to get there to find our hostel before dark. But the train we caught from Rome which we though would only take an hour took about 3 hours, so by the time we were in Naples, it was around nine. It was very shocking when we got out of the train station, because we live in the historic city center of san gemini, where only 500 people live, and there are about 7 cars and a scooter. When we walked out of the station in Naples, we entered a huge square area, and it was a solid mass of cars...really really different. Our hostel was close to the station though, so we could just walk. We got there and checked in, and two people wanted to go out on the town, as it were. I was not for it, because of all the not so safe things we were hearing about Napoli (naples, sorry, i go back and forth) and the guy at the front desk literally said "if you go out after 12 o'clock, you will be eaten alive." so that kinda put the kibosh on their plans, and I was really relieved to know that no one would be going out that night. (We traveled with a group of seven, including me.) Then we went to go find some pizza (and beer) because Napoli is famous for having the best pizza and brought it back to our hostel. (OH, when we were checking in, there was a HUGE FIRE in the street like, 50 feet away. a FIRE. of GARBAGE. WHAT!?!?!? they put it out eventually, but apparently it happens a lot...hunh. freakin' naples man...what an adventure...* so we were all a little on edge from that...) so we got some pizzas and beer and had a good night at the hostel.

The next morning the garbage was gone and there was a market outside our hostel, and we were running a little late, but the other girls wanted to shop...I wanted to get the HELL out of Naples. It was a stressful morning. We took the train called the Circumvesuviana to the Ruins of Herculaneum, (Ercolano Scavi) which for everyone who doesn't know, it's just a smaller and better preserved version of pompeii. it was discovered later, and wasn't looted ...as much....

www.wikipedia.org/herculaneum

and then took the train to Pompeii. Pompeii is huge. Ginormous. I didn't realize it would be that GIANT. yeah...it's big. and absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to show pics!!

From Pompeii, we took the train to Sorrento, where our hostel was. (I'm leaving out all the gory travel details, like missed trains, busses, etc...not all fun, all the time...but most of the time, for sure.)

I'm not sure how many of you know about Sorrento, it's a smaller city, but breathtakingly beautiful.

www.wikipedia.org/sorrento

So, we got a taxi to our hostel (which was out of town a ways) and we stayed in teensy little bungalows. so cute. We decided that night we would go out, because it's a fairly touristy town, and most of all, safer than Napoli. The club was called Blumare, which means Blue Sea.

After we checked out, we had lunch in Sorrento, and traveled 8 hours back to San Gemini. Sundays are a little spotty with trains and such, so none of us thought we would be back, but we rolled in around 11. Thank God. So, still recovering, and I now know why people are hospitalized for exhaustion.

This next weekend we are leaving for Florence, Siena and Rome for a week. Not sure how I feel about that. I'm still exhausted from the last 72 hours. sheesh.

so much. SO much.

love, Siri

Grandpa- I wish you could have come, I know you would have loved to be there, and I was thinking about you at Pompeii and Herculaneum!