Che disaster.

Wow. What a few days. I just got back from Naples and Pompeii and even though I had a wonderful time, there were some pretty funny setbacks, starting with the very beginning of the trip.

I woke up on Thursday morning with a gasp, sitting straight up in bed as I scrambled for my alarm clock. I knew I was late - the sun was shining much too brightly and I felt way too refreshed for it to be only 7am. Just as I thought, the clock read 8:59, exactly 32 minutes after my train had left for Naples, taking my professor and all the rest of my classmates with it. How had this happened?!

Very eager for a much-needed break from Rome, I had gotten completely packed the night before, even bagging up my breakfast so that I was all ready for the trip to Napoli. Kali had already fallen asleep - unlike me, she functions better in the morning and decided to finish her packing and homework early on Thursday before we left. As I climbed into bed around one, I set the alarm for 7am, checking it twice before turning out the light. I knew that Kali was leaving at 6:30 to post her assignment, so I was on my own to wake up and get to Termini Station to meet Lisa and the rest of the gruppo at 8 for our train. I vaguely remembered hearing Kali rise at the ungodly hour of 4:45, but I had fallen right back asleep to the sounds of her shoving clothes into her duffel. Now it was nine, and I was running around my apartment, shouting and swearing as I frantically got dressed and out the door.

I sprinted down the three flights of stairs to our entryway and as I stepped outside, I saw that it was absolutely pouring. At home in Seattle I never carry an umbrella, but this was ridiculous. There was no way I could make it more than a block without getting drenched, so I ran back up the stairs and grabbed one of the awkwardly huge umbrellas that Kali and I had found in our closet.

As I ran to the tram a couple blocks away, I considered my options. Kali had taken our apartment cell phone that morning, so I had no way to reach Lisa unless I went to the Rome Center first (a side note: even if I did have the phone, I couldn't have called Lisa anyway - Kali and I have been too lazy to add minutes to our cell, so we currently only have emergency call capability). Even though going to the Rome Center would add an extra fifteen-ish minutes onto my trip to the train station, I decided it was the best plan, especially seeing as how I had no idea where the hotel even was in Naples. I exited the tram and jogged to the UWRC where Kate the ever-helpful intern let me call Lisa and looked up the hotel address and train times for me. By this time it was about 9:30, and Lisa was relieved to hear that I wasn't dead, just a complete idiot who somehow turned off her alarm instead of getting up on time. I told her I would catch the 10:25 fast train (27 euro out of my pocket!) which got me to Napoli Centrale a few minutes before noon. I thanked Kate and headed back towards the bus stop, where the #40 bus was pulling away just as I ran up onto the platform. Luckily another bus arrived only a few minutes later and I climbed on and settled into the first empty seat.

After I sat down, I looked around for the ticket stamping machine. Both the 40 and 64 buses are prime targets for ticket checkers because they see such frequent use, and I wasn't about to be caught without a valid ticket, which gets you a 100 euro fine (unless you have enough cash to pay on the spot - then it's only 50). I didn't see the machine anywhere so, grumbling to myself, I made my way up the bus to the machine in the front. Once I stamped my ticket, I realized that I had forgotten my umbrella in my seat in the back, which of course had already been taken by another passenger. I reached across her, grabbed my dripping umbrella, and as I straightened back up, I saw the bright yellow validation machine which had been 6 inches from the back of my head the whole time. Perfect.

We pulled up to Termini at 10:05, giving me 20 minutes to buy my ticket and board the train at a somewhat leisurely pace. The first biglietti machine I tried was dysfunctional (of course), but I had my ticket in hand and was standing in front of platform 9 by 10:15. I looked down the platform and didn't see a train, which I thought was odd for a departure time that was only ten minutes away. I decided I'd just hang out there until it arrived, but after a few minutes of standing and waiting, I felt a little impatient. I looked up at the clock and back at the platform, ready to roll my eyes at the tardy train, until I realized that it was already sitting where it should be, at binario 9. The empty track was platform 8, one to the left. At this point, I began to wonder if I had lost my mind.

The train ride itself was pretty relaxing. I listened to my music and read a little of "Holidays On Ice," the David Sedaris book that Jane got me for Christmas, which, by the way, is hilarious. For some reason, we made a couple random stops in the middle of the countryside, the reason for which I never learned, but other than that it went smoothly. We arrived in Naples around 12:15 (20 minutes late! After I paid an extra 13 euro to get there in an hour and a half!) and now it was time for me to decide how to find Albergo Degas, where we were staying that night. When Kate and I had looked up the address, we found directions on how to take the Metro or the bus to the hotel, but since I had arrived 20 minutes later than I planned and I didn't have a map, I decided to just take a taxi, even though it was undoubtedly much more expensive. I was hoping to make it to the hotel by 12:30, when the gruppo was meeting for lunch at a pizzeria called Di Matteo.

I ended up at Albergo Degas at about 12:35 - the pouring rain worsened the already intense traffic in Naples. The hotel wasn't exactly easy to find, on the third level of an apartment building tucked back in a corner of Piazza del Gesu, but once I made it up the three flights, the woman at the front desk was there to greet me.

"You are room 304," she said with a smile. "You call this number." She handed me a piece of paper with Lisa's cell number before turning down the hall and leading me to my room. I set down my luggage and thanked her, then picked up the phone to call Lisa. The laminated sheet next to the phone told me to make an outgoing call, I was supposed to dial "41" and then the number, but I was answered only with a strange beeping. After a few unsuccessful tries, I went up to the front desk where she told me that I was unable to use their line.

"You have no phone?" came her incredulous question as I shrugged and shook my head. I told her that I wanted to just try to find the pizza place instead and asked her if she knew where it was. She made a call to a coworker who told her it was on Via Tribunali, a street that she told me was close by.

Here's how the conversation went in her attempt to explain its location to me:
Clerk: Go out of here and to...to... [gestures to her left]
Me: The left?
Clerk: Yes, yes! Left. And then the street, it goes [gestures both up and to her right]
Me: ...Right?
Clerk: Uhmm no, it is..you go down and then you go [gestures up]
Me: Up?
Clerk: Yes! Up. That street, to the Duomo. Not far.

I didn't feel like these directions were quite sufficient, so I asked her for a map. For a few minutes, she dug around in her drawers before finally pulling out a Naples guidebook, which she flipped through for another several minutes looking for the correct page. Finally she pointed out Via Tribunali to me, so I thanked her and headed back out into the downpour.

For an hour I walked up and down Via Tribunali without success. It's not too long of a street, maybe only 10 blocks length, but once I had made it from the hotel to Tribunali, then down to where the street ends at Castel Capuano, around the castle, and finally back up again, it was almost a quarter to 2. I knew the class was reconvening at the hotel at 2:30 for afternoon class, so I grabbed a slice of pizza from a street vendor and went back to Albergo Degas. [Later I found out I had passed Di Matteo twice, but the restaurant looks just like a little vendor from the outside so I had overlooked it.] No more than ten minutes had passed when Lisa and the class arrived back at the hotel and I ran out to greet them. Everyone felt much better; I wasn't dead or mugged! Kali felt horrible for leaving me, even though it really wasn't her fault at all, but she summed up the morning with one phrase - "che disaster." Luckily, I had made it there in time to see the Museo di Capodimonte, which I have decided is going to be my summer home. It's a beautiful palace in northern Naples that used to be the Farnese family's hunting lodge but has been turned into a great art museum. I'll post pictures of it when I upload them - Lauren and I were enchanted.

The rest of my stay in Naples was great - good food and good sights, including an awesome view of Mt. Vesuvius across the water down by Castel Nuovo (also more pictures I will post later). Like Rome, the city could be overwhelming. There's tons of honking and it's much dirtier than the other Italian cities I've been to, but overall I really enjoyed Napoli.

Pompeii was incredible. I knew it was huge but I didn't realize I could spend 5 hours walking around it and still miss tons of stuff. I took lots of pictures there as well. I'm hoping to get all my pictures uploaded onto Yahoo or something, but our internet here is so ridiculous that I've had trouble. I'll post the link when I do.

It feels nice to be back but I really liked being in a different place for a few days. I wouldn't say I've gotten sick of Rome, but I've been wanting to see new things and this trip was an excellent way to do that. Hopefully I'll be in Venice next weekend with Kali and whoever else wants to join. Pictures soon!