Naples, Italy...Home to Pizza (and organized crime!)

The train ride to Naples was a quick one, only about an hour and a half to get there from Rome, just long enough for a nice little nap!  Once in the train station is was a bit tricky to get over to the hostel for the fact that you had to then get on the metro and change 2 times.  Either way I made it without too big of a hassle.  It was really hot that day and I was sweating pretty profusely (ewww) so one of the first things I did was take a nice shower!  But first, upon my check in at the hostel everyone was really nice.  The receptionist dude told me about a cooking class they were having that evening and if I was interested I just needed to sign up.  I then caught an Australian couple talking about how fantastic it was and that I should definitely sign up for, they had already done it several nights in a row!  Of course after hearing their rec I decided to sign up, sounded like a fun way to meet people as well.  We then went in search of some fruit for Brett and also some wine to drink later at the dinner.

Brett grabbed a whole pineapple to munch on later and we both grabbed a bottle of wine each for only 2 euro's a bottle, maybe even cheaper than that, I can't remember!  Once I got back to the hostel I met my roommates!  3 Australians which was comprised of 2 girls, Erin and Alex, and a guy, Liam!  I love them so much, they were such a fun group and I picked up a lot of fun words they say..."brekky" is probably my favorite which is short for breakfast.  They were all doing the cooking class dinner as well.  The other 2 roommates I hadn't laid eyes on yet but the Aussies went ahead and warned me.  It was a Hungarian father/son combo.  They also then divulged to me (which has been my worst nightmare among my hostel stays), that the father snores, and by snore they mean he rattles the beds, Ahhh!  The crappy thing is that the son warned them about it when they first checked in.  "Sorry guys, my father has a slight snoring problem because his nose is messed up."  How rude!  If you know you have a bad snoring problem then you should book private rooms and not dorm rooms where you're keeping everyone else up who's paying good money to get some shut eye!  That's the worst about people who snore, you know they are getting some awesome sleep, while you're laying wide awake in misery!  Okay enough about the snoring.  So it was dinner time and we all headed down to the main kitchen area.  There was a pretty good crowd gathered around.  Tonight's dish was Pasta alla Amatricana.  Basically it's pasta with a tomato based sauce with mushrooms, onions, and bacon.  Because both Liam and Brett are vegetarian's they didn't get to enjoy the dinner but they weren't too sad.

The food turned out quite delicious and all for only 3 Euro's!  It ended up being more of a social hour though and not really a cooking class.  I'm pretty sure we ended up buying several more bottles of wine from the hostel bar and all shared them.  The main reception area closes down at midnight so once it closed we thought it would be a good idea to go on a late night walk and roam the streets of Naples.  After about an hour or so and numerous sketchy folks coming up to us we headed on back to the casa.  We still had some wine that needed to be consumed so we sat out in the hallway area on the couch and continued to laugh at the Hungarian man because we could literally hear him snoring through the walls!  I also thought it would be fun to jump in the dirty sheets hamper?

I look really ridiculous in that picture, haha, good memories!  Since the Hungarian dude decided to snore all evening, I decided to sleep on the couch out in the hallway!  It actually wasn't half bad, I just grabbed my own pillow and blanket and made myself at home!  The next morning I woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and surprisingly with no hangover.  We had all decided from the night before that we would go to Pompeii together and check out the city that was destroyed thousands of years ago by the volcano Mt. Vesuvias.  We first had to get back to the central train station and then get on the Circumvesuviana (what a tongue twister).  The stop was called Pompeii and was only about a 45 minute ride.  Wellllll typically it would only be about a 45 minute train ride, for your average person, but noooo. Somehow we all go to chatting and laughing that we totally missed our stop so we made a little detour and got off at the next one which was a little town called Moregine!

A few of the folks thought the smartest thing to do would just be to walk back to the last train stop, as it wasn't that far in between stops.  So we head out on our journey and the journey ends pretty quickly there after.  We had good intentions of following the rail way but at one point we lost sight of it and gave up.  We ended up going back to the Moregine train station and waited for the next train to come through to get us back on track.

Finally we made it to Pompeii and the sight was actually free for us because Culture Week in Italy was still going on.  All national museums and sights were free of charge during the culture week which was nice to save a bit of coin!  Pompeii was very neat and actually really pretty.  I thought it would be a bunch of dusty old ruins but it was quite green inside the gates and had great views of Mt. Vesuvius.

At one point, after walking around for ages, we decided to take a nice little nap in a park. It was nice and refreshing.  I need to do this more often back at home!

It's really amazing how well this lost city has been preserved due to the volcanic ash.  I have a ton more pictures I could post, but I'll put the rest on my facebook page.  However the casts of the bodies that were found are not to be missed, I simply couldn't leave these out.

Apparently the bodies were found in the exact positions, which is really kind of sad.  There were several small children in these casts as well.  After a full day in Pompeii we headed back to Naples and grabbed a quick bite to eat at Basilico again.  It was there that I finally had some delicious Napolitino Pizza!

Later that night there was to be some activities going on at the hostel.  The owner opens up the courtyard area to local vendors and has a sort of market with things such as bracelets, earrings, and all sorts of other jewelery and quirky items.  I browsed around that for awhile but it started to sprinkle so I headed back inside.  Also in the back bar area there was some sort of reinterpretation of "The Vagina Monologues" going on in Italian.  The place was packed!  Of course me and the roomies along with Brett just sat out in the main reception area making fun of each other's sayings and quizzing each other out about various topics.  A Jewish girl from Israel was also in on the conversation and she told me that in Israel it is mandatory for everyone to join the army, whether you're a guy or a girl, you have to put in at least 3 years of service.  The owner was also mingling around with us that night and he let us stayin the the main lobby until 1:00am  that evening rather that 12:00.  We are good persuaders.  The second night in Naples I decided to sleep in my room because apparently they were perturbed that "someone" slept on the couch the night before.  Supposedly they didn't know who it was but that they shouldn't do it again or else they would kick the person out!  I'm not sure what harm it did to anyone by me sleeping out there. I mean don't they want their guests to get some good sleep?  Either way I obeyed the rules and tried to get a bit of shut eye through each rumbling snore.  The man was actually directly below me, so if he started getting to loud and crazy I would rattle the bed from above to try to wake him up.  My motto is "if I'm not getting good sleep because of you, then neither should you!"

Ladies and gentleman, the famous couch!  After 1:00am hit and the lobby closed down, we went upstairs and tried to chat for a little while longer but it wasn't too long after that the guy working the night shift came upstairs and made us go into our rooms.  The next day I headed out fairly early to go back to Rome for one night!