Arrived Safely in Pompeii

Hello Everyone!!!
Blogspot tells me that there are now four of you who follow this blog, for which I am very flattered. Woot!

Yesterday morning, every dorm at the UD campus got the oddest wakeup call EVER. Each room has a phone, and apparently the phones all can act as speakers if need be. Well, at 7:30am, Steve (one of the RAs) voice blares over the speaker system...
"Hellooooooo....it's time to get uppppp everyoneeeeeeeeeee!!!! This is your wakeeuppp calllll.....Rise and shinneeeeee". It it hadn't been 7:30am, I would have laughed.

The night before, a girl named Lizzy and I had the bright idea to split a bottle of wine and chat for three hours. It would have been no biggie if we had only had one bottle. I'm not a huge drinker, but I TOTALLY overindulged (so did she) and we ended up staggering back to our rooms giggling at midnight.

When we got our wakeup calls, I sorta felt like death.

I skipped breakfast to shower. Thankfully, Nisi brought me a pastry. The whole class loaded up on busses and drove for three hours to Pestum (southern italy). The only reason we stopped at Pestum is to see some well preserved Greek temples. I have pictures, and four lucky people get postcards from Pestum! Well--three of you, my parents have automatic dibs.

From Pestum, it is only about an hour to Pompeii. When we got to the hotel, we checked in, ate dinner, then had a lecture until about 11:10pm. We were all sleepwalking by the time it was over and stumbled up to bed.

This morning, we got up around 7am, scarfed down some croissants, and went straight to the ancient city of Pompeii. Once there, we had another lecture and split into groups. Dr. Hatlie took one group, and Dr. Flusche took another. Just like in our tour of St. Peter's we each had a portable radio-like-thingie with a headset that allowed us to listen to the prof. as she spoke through a microphone. This is an AMAZING invention, as it means that I can stray quite a ways from where the prof. is standing and still hear them clear as a bell.

THREE HOURS we walked around this hot, dusty ancient ruin. THREEE HOURRRSSSSS--way too long considering the heat.

I can't describe this place to you very well, you're gonna have to look at pictures once I manage to get them all up. We did go into an ancient brothel...no pictures of that i am afraid.

When the visit was over, we picked up our bag lunches and sat wherever we could find a seat to eat. Those who wanted to could then take the bus to climb Mt. Vesuvias--a volcano that is still active and hasn't erupted since the 1940s. I didn't go. I was hot and tired, and ended up walking around the town a bit before going back to the hotel to take a nap.

When I woke up, I did some homework before dinner. While we were eating, there was a musical group playing ancient Roman music--no joke!
These guys study ancient instruments and such and reproduce them--complete with dance and costumes. It was pretty cool to watch.

After dinner, Denise, Shelsea, Anne, Lacy, and a new friend named Michael all went down into the down (near the Bay of Naples) for drinks. Curfew on trips is at midnight, so we had to hurry back.

Tomorrow, we leave for Naples at 10am and visit a museum there (anoootheerrr lecture) and then we are FREE until Monday at 2 when we have class again.

Shelsea, Anne, Denise, and I are going to CAPRI!