Naples!

Okay, so last time I wrote, I wasnt anywhere near Naples! I left Cinque Terre and traveled to Siena. I spent a day recouperating while the Siena School of Language was finishing up. I slept in, did laundry, met another guy who was meeting up with one of the students to explore Europe for the next 30 days. We explored Siena together while the students were taking their last final. We went on a scavenger hunt looking for all the fountains of the different contradas, I think we found 6 out of the 17. Then we sat in the compo for 2 hours eating lunch. That was a nice change to eating on the run. We went into the compo museum and climbed a tower that had a nice view of Siena then raced back to the school to meet up with the students. They were headed out to a very nice 6 course meal and Chris and I tagged along till we knew where they were going to be and then trekked out on our own to find Kebabs...it took us and hour and a half to find the place, then we sat there for two hours chatting with the owner...(she was from Iraq and his mom is from Serbia so they had a lot to talk about.) Then we retraced our steps to the restaurant and the school STILL wasnt done with their meal! We ate gelato on a door step and finally the students came out fat and happy. The next day PV and I headed to Roma. Two days to see Rome is not enough to scratch the surface but we were happy with as much as we did get to see. There is still so much more and we really ran through everything we did see so I have to go back! From there we headed to Naples (where we are now). It was a crazy day as it started out packing and leaving the hostel early in the morning. Dropping off our bags at the train station, picking up a ticket for Naples and starting out to see everything we could before we had to leave. We hit St Peters square and then I tripped and fell, yep, it hurt. Needless to say, I think my ankle will not recover till I get home. We saw a lot of stuff we had seen in the night but not in the day, trevi fountain and pantheon were my favorites...and then we headed back, not realizing how late it was. In the train station we split up, I went to find our train and PV to get our bags. It was one of those race against the clock moments where PV is wearing two huge backpacks pushing people out of the way and hop along me is trying not to loose him but still get us on the train on time. We made it, 4 mins early! Arriving in Naples it was late and dark. The train to the metro was fine but after that things got a little sketchy. We missed our stop along with another couple from Turkey but they found a women who walked us straight to our hostel...here they just put garbage out on the street at night to be picked up and people are out drinking in all this filth so it looked scary. (I will not go into detail about all the crazy scary things we have encountered here!) During the day its much better looking and feeling. We were happy to hit the hostel that was much more clean and safe feeling. The next morning we met back up with Chris and Stephan (from the Siena School) and went to see Pompei. WOW!!! They were being hosted through couch surfing and their host was a linguist of dead languages. He also had a guest from America and one from France. They were awesome too Jeff and Baptist. I cant tell you how awesome it was to explore this place with a guy who can read the writing on the walls so to speak. He had plenty of other historical information too but kept saying that wasnt his area so if we wanted to know more we needed to talk to an expert. It was funny, Bartec was absolutely fantastic. He is studying for a year in Naples (latin and greek) and is actually from Poland. He is going to give us a tour of Naples today and a few castles and maybe the beach. Since all his guests are leaving today he has invited us to stay at his place tonight and then head to the east coast tomorrow, I cant believe how the time is flying! 6 more days for me, 4 for PV. PV has a friend in Venice and we are trying to be in Venice for Friday night. That leaves one night up in the air. I will let you know when I do!