Longest Post...covers 3 weeks or so...

Yep, I’m bad at this….

So my last entry was done online, and this is being written offline…so I honestly have not the foggiest idea where I left you all. I think I had just discovered that the Naples Archaeology Museum was closed on Tuesdays…unless I did that bit already…? Hm. Oh well, small recap, hopefully we keep the redundancy to a minimum.

Naples. Went to Pompeii and loved it. Tried to go to the archaeology museum the next day…which involved a train and the very confusing underground. Then its bloody flippin’ closed! I was about falling to bits, and the very nice man in the booth (who had told me that the museum was closed) I think could tell I was falling to bits. I think it became very obvious when I tried to ask him directions to a place that wasn’t even IN Naples. So. He goes: try the Campigdolio museum, very beautiful, run catch that bus there! So I did. Stupid really. I got on a realized I hadn’t a clue where I was going or where the bus was taking me.

A friendly pair of elderly people got me through it; an older woman who mind-waved me instructions to stay with an elderly gentleman…who walked me off the bus, through a creepy residential area, and to this lovely park with a museum in it. Lovely. Then I went to Herculaneum, a mini-Pompeii basically, but closer to the source of the eruption. Where I stood in line behind some very angry French people, and was quiet and timid. As a result one of the guards gave me a little personal guided tour, and he knew hella stuff about it, amazing details and little facts. So cool.

He also kinda gave me the creeps…didn’t know if I’d roped myself into a tour or something. But no, it was very nice and quite low-key. And man that place was gorgeous…the baths were great. There were separate ones for men and women…and did I totally i.d. all the rooms correctly? Yes, yes I did!

So. Problem: the next day I’m supposed to get on a train and leave to head to Rome, then up further north to Assisi. Um, my train is at 10, and the museum doesn’t open until 9. Meaning I couldn’t make it. So not okay with me. So, I get up suuuuper early the next day, check out of my hostel, haul all my bags (duffel and small shoulder bag) to the train station, stand in a longish line, and learn how to change my ticket. Pull it off so that I get a few more hours in Naples and can still catch a train to Assisi that night. Whoo!

So, new tickets in hand I book it back down to the confusing metro, into the museum, and stuff my bags in the cloakroom lockers and spend a very happy hour and a half in the museum. Which was awesome. By the way. HUGE colossuses, colossi, plural thingy? And then there were the most amazing mosaics from Pompeii and Herculaneum…pieces so fine they looked painted. It was incredible. And there was the “room of secrets,” things pulled from Pompeii and Herculaneum ages ago, but weren’t publicly displayed until sometime in the 1900s, because they were a bit…well, quite extremely…scandalous! The Romans were quite…open about sex. So it’s basically a sex room. Good times. The only bummer of the afternoon was that the Gladiator exhibit was closed.

Also…once again proving the world is a very small place, I met the same Brit couple that I had met on my way to Herculaneum the day before. They had also tried to go to the museum on a Tuesday and had been thwarted. We met on the metro, chatted on the platform, and once again…ran into them at the museum the next day. Wowza.

So, anyway, loved the museum and booked it back to the train station.

Easy train ride to Rome. Sat in Termini (the main Rome station) for two hours waiting for my train to Assisi. Got on the train. I had an interesting ride up, I sat in the first class, it had been only about an extra euro…so I thought “what the hell”…and you met some interesting people. The first class wasn’t actually a separate car, but a blocked off portion of a second-class car, meaning that people kept popping in and out. There was a girl that got on with a gaggle of young boys hassling her…in the obnoxious pre-teen way…and fled again. A man and woman got on and I had quite the interesting conversation in a mix of English, Italian, and Spanish with them. The woman was very friendly, and kept telling me to BE CAREFUL on my own. This actually made me more nervous, but I thanked her. Then they got off.

I had to switch trains partway through, and the car I got on also had the girl who had briefly been in my car. We chatted; she was going to Assisi as well. She had something to do with the Franciscan chapter I think. We parted at the Assisi station.

I went to my hotel, perfectly located directly across from the train station. With one full day in Assisi, I relaxed. Chilled in a public park and read, then went to a medieval castle, which was bliss. Windy, cool, and really neat with narrow windy staircases, guard towers, and a tunnel through a wall. Just my height! Yay for generations of short people.

Then back to Rome for two more nights. I had to pick up my luggage from Lynda the wonderful (seriously, fabulous woman) who had taken care of my huuuge blue suitcase, my steel-toed boots, and the laptop. So, get to Rome (which was HOT), take the metro to her apartment, haul everything down stairs, and back onto the metro to the station I had just come from. Walk six blocks, get very slightly lost, and find the hostel. Which…I had booked for the wrong days, thus had missed when I had reserved a room for. Good times. Oh yes. Luckily they still had plenty of space. So I booked into a 6-person dorm, with air-conditioning, got in a tinsy elevator, and entered my room.

Quite nice, lots of open space. It was just me and one other guy in the room at the moment. We got chatting, he was Irish and quite nice. We ended up walking around together a bit, I did some basic tour guiding…yeah, I’ve been here. A lot. A second guy came in, turned out he had been on an archaeology dig as well. We compared chops. He had found jewelry at his site…but oh I topped him. (Still can’t talk about it…sorry)

Actually for the two nights I was there…I was the only girl in a room of six. It was a bit odd…and amazingly enough I never had to put the toilet seat down.

Quirky event of the century: I’m standing at the desk of the hostel waiting for a password for the wifi, and some guy walks in for some reason or other. I ignore him, all I want is to check my email, I notice him looking at me and then he goes… “Were you in my Samurai and Film class?”
What. The. Hell. He’s from Eugene, he was in my massive 200-person Film class, occasionally went to dancing on Fridays, and remembered me. Sorry Jeremy…I didn’t remember you at all…but if I ever make it back to Eugene, I will.
So we are being all amazed about this, and the Brit girl working behind the desk asks where we are from…Eugene, Oregon…she won’t have heard of it (nobody knows where Oregon is here), and she goes “OH, I had two kids from Eugene sleeping on my floor last week. Weird kids.” Yeah…creepy small world.

Saturday night, my last night in Italy, I met up with Julia. And it was fantastic. We went to goodbye gelato, sat outside Largo Argentina talking, and went to Scholars for a bit. Relaxing, girl chatter; it was the perfect way to leave Rome.

Then, Sunday, I got up early and headed for Termini again, with all my crap in tow. The Irish kid, who’s name I can’t for the life of me remember, helped me get all my huge amounts of stuff to the station. At Termini I had to get on a train for the airport…it was very very full…and I have a tough time managing everything myself…luckily there are some very nice people in this world who helped me get everything on and stuffed in the isle (the walkway…the train was very full), and off we went.

I arrived WAY early for my train…so early I didn’t even know which terminal to go into and they hadn’t posted my flight on the massive number of monitors. So, I parked in front of these monitors. It was me and another kid just sort of chilling in the middle of this intersection of terminals and mini-train station. We got chatting in the hour I sat there…he had been there longer than I had, and was waiting for his flight back to Argentina. He was still waiting for his flight number to come up when mine came up.

So, I go into the right terminal, and find the Lufthansa check in. (Lufthansa makes the world go round. Remember this) I was so early the woman at the desk said I couldn’t check my luggage yet. I had to wait. So I waited. Nervously…my luggage was crazy overweight. But they didn’t charge me! Yay Lufthansa ladies!

So I get to my gate… nearly two hours early…and sit. Get on plane. Fly to Munich, almost-but-not-quite sprint through the airport to my next flight. I show up just in time to board my next flight. To Stockholm. In Sweden. Oh yeah!

I was in Sweden for two weeks. Two weeks of bliss. It was beautiful, and wonderful, and I was happy there. I stayed with a family there, just outside the town called Uppsala. The father was an old friend of my moms; his wife and his two sons and he were all incredibly welcoming. And it was fantastic.

Some major events: I went to an amusement park in Stockholm with the boys, their mom, and their 5 cousins…all Swedes. Blonde, blue eyes, really tall. It was quite fun until it started to POUR. Downpour. Open skies. It was cold, wet, and sopping. Good times. I’d already been soaked once while out walking the neighbors’ dog. And believe it or not, I loved it! Weather…oh I had missed it! Rome was just hot…having weather was GREAT! I also went on a boat trip to some islands on the edge of Finland. It was beautiful on the sea, grey and blue, and stormy and sunny, layers of weather just next to each other. It was incredible to see. I also went into Stockholm with Anna, a girl from the dig who happens to live in Uppsala- yes small world, to see a dance show in a park. The dance show turned out to be an opening act for a film for international film month…not quite what expected…6 minutes of dancing…so we went and walked around Stockholm for a while. I know so little about Swedish history…and now I want to know more! Also, it was a great city! In one city block I kid you not, there were THREE concerts. One techno on a smallish stage, on small out-door bar party playing YMCA, and one HUGE concert outside the opera house with full lights and smoke and screamy noise music. Yup. Go Stockholm.
My third run into Stockholm was to take a barre class with the Royal Swedish Ballet Company as part of a public promotion for their opening season. Yup. If you can’t picture how thrilled I was…you are a very very silly person. That was with Anna again. Then we booked it back to Uppsala (by the train, runs regularly between the two as a commuter route, clean, fast and easy!) onto a bus out to Old Uppsala, where I saw Viking Burial Mounds! My Scandinavian roots were moved. It was awesome.
Other events, a massive family dinner of Swedes, some fantastic walks, the boys attempting to teach me soccer, my ability to put them in their place with my body waves, realizing I’m in Sweden because everything is too tall for me, massive ice cream cones, secondhand sweaters, gardening, toads, and a cheesecake.

I honestly liked Sweden the best of anywhere I’ve been this summer. I was so honestly happy there, I could see myself living there. I am also really really not a city person. I don’t do well in cities, I need green and quiet and peace. I can’t do cities. I didn’t want to leave. And now I’ve left.

Today (22nd August)…I had to get up early and leave paradise.

I am currently in Paris and I’ll be here for 5 nights until I get on the train for my year in Poitiers. I know…it’s Paris. I should be thrilled. I should be out and about and excited. I’m not. I’m going to do things and be entertained and whatnot…Louvre, Versailles (if I can work out how to get there), Monet museum, and I have to work out how to get to the train station I need to get down to Poitiers. I’m a bit terrified actually. Really…

Coming into Paris on the bus today…everything seemed almost surreal. I don’t know if I can make it a year. I’m going to do my damndest. I’ve been here all summer, speaking English (though I did learn a bit of Swedish), and now all of a sudden it’s all French. I don’t have the confidence for this, nor the vocabulary. Sigh. Naw, I’ll be fine, I just need food and whatnot.

Sorry about the massive failure of updatings. I will try to be better. Things should be better once I’m settled in Poitiers…I need a host family still, but once I’m settled internet should be stable and life ought to settle down into some routine…like, school.

And oh my god I’m thrilled to start dancing again!