Pompeii

When I was in fifth grade I participated in Odyssey of the Mind.  Our project was focused on Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.  Now, I have a pretty decent short term memory but my long term memory is not so great.  One of the few things I remember about OM, besides the topic, was that we made a statue that was supposed to be like one recovered from Pompeii and we made a mosaic.  I also recall we had some performance on stage for the competition.  And I am pretty sure we did not do very well in the competition part of it.

I was pretty excited when I found out we were moving to Napoli because we would be able to visit Pompeii.  And it was actually a place in Italy besides Roma, Venezia and Firenze that I had actually heard about.  There are lots of places that people said we should visit which I had never heard about.  European geography was not something I was studied well because I honestly never thought I would ever go to Europe!    

Mount Vesuvius

For the first two months, we would try to go on trips since we were in TLA and Matt’s job was still pretty limited.  Every time Matt asked me where I wanted to go, I would say Pompeii or Mount Vesuvius.  Of course, when the weekend came around something would prevent us from going.  Sometimes it was weather (too cold, too wet) or we would sleep too late or we would have houseguests or we would spend the weekend getting the house ready, or another trip to another Italian city would trump the day trip to Pompeii.  After several months of wanting to go and not being able, I got the feeling that it would be something that NEVER happened.  Or it would be in the last couple of weeks before we returned to the United States.  I was pretty disappointed that we just couldn’t get it together but I tried not to let it show.

Silly picture

FINALLY, in February, we had our second round of houseguests (Jay, Matt’s brother came to visit the week after we moved in and again in February with Tracie).  Jay is apparently just as big of a nerd about Pompeii as I am and was really excited about going.  In the back of my head, I still thought it would fall through or we would get too late of a start (you need at least 4 hours to really enjoy Pompeii).  Our neighbors were also interested in going to Pompeii so we decided we would leave Saturday morning (mid morning).  Of course, by the time we got ready and left, my breakfast was running out and I was ready to eat again. Luckily, they have an 8 year old boy who is always hungry as well so as soon as we got there we stopped for lunch.  After lunch, we were trying to figure out where to buy the tickets and how to get to the entrance as well as how to keep Jay from shopping!

Ode to the Lost Golf Club

Pompeii is a city that was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius but for some reason, I didn’t think that it would be very large.  But it is about the size of a downtown city.  We wandered around for several hours and probably saw about half of the city.  We are cheap so we didn’t pay the 10 euro per person to have a tour guide and we only got two of the electronic tour guides to share between 7.5 people.  Of course, no one wanted to be the one holding the information because you had to listen as well as share everything you were learning.  Jay was surprisingly fantastic at listening and sharing the information at the same time (he was also a good kangaroo carrying the baby).  I can’t really explain how amazing it was to see how advanced some of these structures were and to realize that they were created thousands of years ago!  Some of the houses had multiple rooms and were large.

Amazing marble mosiac floors

The brothel had beds made out of stone, two stories (both which were preserved) and an indoor toilet (hole in the floor).  The stones were elaborate and some of the floors were marble mosaics.  It was amazing.  Another thing about Pompeii that surprised me was that there were very few artifacts.  Most of the artifacts are in the downtown museum.  On site, there were lots of pottery pieces and a few casts of victims.  There is one cast that is a man crouching next to his goat.  It is pretty amazing.

Brothel bed

Brothel indoor toilet

I of course had a mood swing during part of the day.  When I have my mood swings, I get quiet and not pleasant to be around.  I try to keep it to myself and hope no one else (besides Matt) notices.  My mood swings (post partum and breastfeeding not just pouting!) are usually because I need to drink more water or I need a snack.  Unfortunately, I only had one bottle of water and a cereal bar.   This held me for a little bit but fortunately, the Pompeiians were so advanced they had a coffee bar right in the middle of the ruins! 

One of the cast of the victims

There were also lots of random dogs wandering around Pompeii.  Matt decided we would bring Lucy the next trip (I am not sure you are allowed to bring dogs, I think the dogs were strays).  And for the next visit I wanted to bring a tour book or get the tour guide, bring more water and snacks.  Make sure you allow lots of time, wear good shoes, and do not bring a stroller!

Tracie looks like a movie star

It is an amazing experience.   I am glad we finally made it and excited that we will get to go back several times to see even more.  Who is going to be our next guests to take to Pompeii?

Pottery Room

This is a picture that I took when I had camera duty. I like to think it is very artistic and award winning

Pictures (mostly) by Jay Langley