Weekend Craziness

This weekend I went to Napoli (Naples) with our group. The days were pretty open, with only one big event each, yet I felt that everyday we were just spent, and some of this might have been from exploring a new big city, but I also think some of it was just that Napoli is a tough place. When we showed up we were ushered through the station and onto the subway (a personal first) which took us most of the way to our hotel. The hotel was a small place, and I think that we took it over with our group of 25. Rooms were given out sort of haphazardly, and I was lucky to be paired in the only double room with Ben. Anyway, we quickly ran off and ate at an alright pizzeria before checked out a large sculpture museum which was the result of the Farnese family collection. The evening was spent eating pizza again, this time at a better restaurant and with less hassling from the staff. The evening included a little gelato and walking before everyone crashed early. The next morning the stories were everywhere! People had complaints about the toilets not flushing properly, bed bugs, and no hot water. After the drama, and with the hotel promising to get things taken care of, we left on the train to Pompeii. This ruined city was awesome to explore and take in. The preservation of a city from ~80AD was breathtaking, and it was nice to wander around and see the magnificent ruins while also breathing in the sweet country air. After the day of ruins we continued the train ride out to the coastal city of Sorrento and watched the sunset over the bay and also played down by the water. After a little walking through the shopping areas we took the train back to Napoli and enjoyed a nice dinner with the professors and again ended the day with gelato and a walk. The third day started better, although I was still not completely satisfied with the hotel (but it was good enough to deal with). After a short bus ride (packed!) and some walking we explored a large collection (again Farnese) of artwork that was also the site of a Louise Bourgeois show. It was interesting to see the collection of her work set up in the same areas as classic works of art, but it was executed nicely. Once we regrouped, a small group and I went to a little family pizzeria and ate the best pizza I have had to date in Italy. It was the perfect crispness and the wood-fired flavor was just right. We then walked down the hill, across town to the hotel where we took a short rest before walking out to the coast and again watching the sunset (sort-of, it was behind a large building, but the colors were still there) and sit by the water. This evening took a seriously sour turn when we went to dinner at a place that some of the group had raved about the night before. Food was ok, but service was terrible and food showed up cold or late, or in the case of my friend Ben, the wrong dish! To top it off the waitress tried to get us to order things we didn't want and watched us count out the bill to make sure we didn't stiff her. Ridiculous! This morning things didn't get much better as my friend Sarah was the site of an accidental spill of hot coffee! Despite her injury she toughed through some church visits (with the help of delicious cinnamon gelato!) and the trip to Madre (the Napoli modern art museum) before we came back home to Roma. (Madre was a ton of fun, and included a large cast of famous artists including a big Rauschenberg show)

A crazy weekend, I am glad to be done with it. I hope Sarah feels better soon too