Wearing The Same Clothes Three Times---and Other Things I Did in Naples and Capri

Hello People!
There are 5 of you now! I feel so very loved!


When I last spoke to you, it was to let you know of my safe arrival in Pompeii and my visit to the ancient city there.

After two nights in Pompeii, we hopped back on the buses and headed to Naples.

The entire way there, I kept thinking about all of the stern warnings I got from my family:
"Don't go to Naples! In fact, avoid southern Italy."

Well, here I was, headed straight into the lions den. I couldn't help but chuckle a little. I should probably tell you straight away that we were not spending more than three or four hours in Naples in order to see the Museo Nazionale; Naples Archeological Museum.

Our Art and Archetecture prof. was called back to Rome last minute on urgent goodness-knows-what business, so we had a "self-guided tour" of the museum.
This was our second "self-guided-tour" so far, and I am sure there will be more. It's really difficult to navigate 108-120 people through a museum without trampelling a small herd of Germans somewhere along the way, so we do this "self-guided business" in order to keep the bloodshed down to a minimum.

The way this works is that we are given a handout with directions through the museum and small descriptions of the various things we need to take note of. We look, snap a few pictures, and move on. The pictures end up on facebook, so you can get a good idea of the stuff we are studying. Unfortunately for US, we have to memorize all sorts of info. about these things, as they are bound to end up on Exams. Speaking of which, I have my first Art and Arch. exam on Monday.

Nothing spectacular happened in the museum, really.......oh wait....I forgot about the penis room. You might get a kick out of this--or blush furiously; either way, I am going to tell you about it :D :D

Ancient Romans believed that the image of an erect...phallus....was a symbol for strength or luck or some combination of the two. Much of their art and sculpture includes erect......well you get the idea.

There is one room in this architecture museum that is solely dedicated to this sort of art, and we had to go in there.

Now, remember that I go to a REALLY REALLY REALLY conservative Catholic school.
Penises are not usually part of the curriculum.


my


classmates



were



freaking



out!


It was priceless. Granted, it was a little awkward, but we had just traipsed through an ancient BROTHEL the previous day and nobody was complaining then.
Did you know that the beds in brothels were made out of stone? Ouch!

By lunchtime, Naples was feeling prettttyyyy dirty.

Lunch consisted of sandwiches and juice packed for us by our hotel and eaten sitting on the steps outside the Museo Nazionale.

I do reccommend checking facebook for picture updates--I got some amazing stuff from that museum.
Naples is a major culture center....just be careful when you go.

We didn't have any problems in Naples, though we really only passed through. Immediately after lunch, Denise, Anne, Shelsea, and I took off for Capri.

Thus begins one of my more ridiculous weekends. All the previous Romers say that your first independent travel weekend never goes really well because you are still
getting used to planning your own trips.

So true, though we still managed to have fun for the most part.
Spent WAY too much money, but whatcha gonna do....*sigh


From the museum, we went to the port of Naples where a ferry would take us to Capri.

Just so you heathens know, Capri is pronounce Kah-pri NOT Cap-ree

I found out the hard way.



The ferry was interesting. This about the way the inside of an airplane looks---and put that on the inside of a huge boat. It wasn't the sort of ferry where you could go up on deck and look around---we had to stay dowwwnnn belloww.
Ferry tickets were about 16 Euro each way.

The ferry only took and hour, and all of a sudden we were there!
Capri is definitely beautiful, though it was very touristy.


When we got off the ferry, we had to catch a bus to Anacapri to find our hotel, Bussola di Hermes.
The bus costs 1.60 Euro per ride.
Here is where our interesting little....for lack of a better phrase I will say "travel quirks" started popping up.

Yikes!
Its 12:30am and I have class tomorrow.


More later!