Pompeii / Rome: Live High. Live Mighty. Live Righteously.

OK, so I recently got the new Jason Mraz CD [We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things] and it is amazing and perfect for Euro travels. So I have decided to put little parts of songs as my titles as I see fit. Ha. The title of my blog is a nod to the new Coldplay CD "Viva La Vita" which is amazing (seeing as I only have 2 songs that are available currently. haha. Get it.)

We left on WhatDayIsIt...Wednesday (This trip, I have lost all concept of date and time...my days are remembered by the things we do and see) for Pompeii which is near the Amalfi Coast in the southern part of Italy. (We drove through Naples -- Bill, Naples, FL is much nicer than Naples, IT from what I saw. Be proud.) They told us how dangerous it was going to be and how we were practically going to have to pack bullet-proof vests and gallons of mace just to walk 2 feet in Pompeii. And how it was going to be blazing hot.

Liars.

While it is disgustingly trashy (apparently the trash workers are on strike there so the streets are flanked with MOUNDS of trash. No kidding. Les mis.) and very "urban," we made it safely to our destination. No muggings, no rapes, no murders, no sweat. We were extremely lucky with the weather all trip: cloudy and a little breezy but still some sun every now and then. Perf.

We got to the Villa di Oplontis in Pompeii first which is this old house that was excavated back in the day. It was owned by some rich and snooty Romans back in the day and is has some crazy cool artwork on the walls and stuff. And the house is just really cool to look at and see the floorplan. They had an olympic-sized swimming pool with little cabanas attached to the house overlooking it. It was pretty sweet. We met our Art History professor there...and "professor" does not do her justice. She is uber smart. Like Jeopardy on steroids smart. And she graduated from UT and is now a professor there...sigh. But she is really great and is actually an archeologist (read: Mrs. Indiana Jones) and was actually on the team excavating the Villa di Oplontis! How cool is that.

We then went to our retro, run-down, "mysterious" motel in Pompeii: the Villa dei Misteries...get it? It was...interesting. Ben, Clay and I had a nice room that overlooked the pool so that was a nice change from Orvieto. It's inside a COMPOUND that locks at night because of the alleged "unsafe neighborhood"...even though our "neighborhood" was the old ruins of Pompeii that we would see the next day....WITH NO ONE LIVING IN THEM. Unsafe? Ok.

These ruins were pretty amazing. It's a huge Roman town that was distroyed and buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius which is nearby. It was found and dug up a long time ago and so they've preserved the town and the art and the statues and everything. They even found cavities of the humans as they were trying to escape the lava and ash. Unbelievable.

We just walked around there all day and learned about it, then we came back to the hotel that day and had Cinema class and Art History class. No bueno after a long day of touring. But I'm liking them even though. Dinner at this hotel was interesting. They, once again, told us how awful it was going to be. It wasn't too bad -- a lot like Camp food really. Mostly a guess-and-check-to-see-if-I-vomit kind of experience. My fave. That night a bunch of us just sat around and got to know each other more. We still haven't had our "Welcome Dinner" that we were supposed to during the first couple of days....Nice. But that's how it is here...just go with the flow.

Clay, Ben and I at Pompeii.

Hill, Ben, Nicole and I outside a Gladiator colosseum in Pompeii.

Mt. Vesuvius.

The next day we left Pompeii and on the way back we made our first of 3 trips to ROME. Rome is GREAAAAAAT. It's kind of like Manhattan actually. Very civilized and trendy and huge and busy and crazy. But so neat. We saw the "Classical Rome" so we went to the old Forum, the Pantheon, a couple of columns, and of course, the Colosseum. This was a really cool day. After we toured here, we left Rome (in rush hour apparently; it took us a good hour to get out of the city) and came back to Orvieto. We got situated in our NEW room which was MUCH better than our old room-- so nice. It has its own balcony and the beds are better....I don't know, I don't think you'd appreciate it unless you saw our first room haha. Ben and I are roomies again. Holla.

The Pantheon's oculus.


Ben, Nicole, Hill, and I outside the Colosseum.


Evan, Clay, Ben and I in the Colosseum.

We have our first free day tomorrow so we plan to just sleep in and lay low while we finally recover from our busy first few days and get our firm footing in Italy. The experience as a whole is beyond what I ever imagined so far. Just the little things about it: driving through the countryside from town to town is an incredible experience ... even when on a bus. Seeing the sun rays shine through a cloudly sky and hit the small vineyards and olive groves that expand across EVERYWHERE, and it hits the small streams that run by the road...It's just a great place to be and to think about life! Such a crazy thought that these are all creations of God and even though I sometimes complain about the drive from Dallas to Lubbock because of its lack of beauty, I can appreciate it because I know that there is a purpose and place for everything, including the landscaping. Everyone on the trip is extremely nice and very relaxed and we're all having such a good time. It's funny to think that I thought I knew "a lot" of people coming on the trip, but I've met so many new people that I've honestly never even seen around SMU and we get to share this experience together -- it's so much fun.

Don't worry, we are testing out MANY kinds of wine. I'm a red-wine guy, or "vini rossi" as it is here. But I have had some white wine....not good. Not a good experience. Not a good morning after. Or 4:15am after to be specific. Haha. WHEN IN ROME, right!? The food is still great. Small portions but such great pasta. I think I've tried so many different kinds of the same pasta...everything is homemade. And we walk so much that I think I'm actually losing weight despite my countless attempts to do the opposite! One negative: Kylie and Clay still haven't gotten their luggage. Well, Clay got his last night. But not Kylie. Sad day. So if any of you have any connections to American Airlines, or speak Italian (as is the most abundant problem I've encountered here yet), please let me know. We could use some help getting it here.

Keep praying for us -- we're all having a blast and want it to continue ! Love and miss you all. I'll blog again soon.

Ciao.

Regs

(PS, I added a few pics to the last post)