Dana Goes A'Romeing: Paestum, Sorento, Pomeii OH MY!

After a lazy Friday spent watching a 6 hour movie for Cultural Geography, Saturday we were up bright and early for our weekend trip to Campania (a region south of Lazio where Rome is). I spent the very long bus ride sleeping and reading and arrived in Paestum ready to stretch my legs. Paestum was a Greek city that was formerly dedicated to Poseidon, god of the sea. It is now home of the best preserved Greek ruins (That includes in Greece)! We arrived late due to traffic and were met by our extremely flustered and stuttering tour guide Fredrick. We learned about the three temples (for Athena, a mystery god, and Hera), the fertility pool (a ritual was performed in which women wishing to have children would swim in the pool and decorate the statue of Venus placed on the pool's platform), and all about the shops and houses of the people. Lots of pictures were taken.

The Temple of Athena

Fredrick stumbling his way through an explaination

The biggest of the three temples

After Paestum, we drove to our hotel in Sorento, a city across the bay of Naples. We unfortunately didn't have anytime to explore the city, but we did plenty of exploring our swanky hotel! We hung out by the pool and then had a group dinner! It was delicious and all the forks reminded me of being back on my family cruise last winter. Our meal ended with a cake completely drenched in lemoncello- I felt like I was eating a sponge doused in pine-sol. All thirty of us laughed as we struggled to eat our desert.

After dinner, we went by the pool for wine and entertainment. There was a pretty pathetic piano player who played American songs, but mumbled most of his words and would smoke cigarettes during the instrumental breaks. It was quite a hilarious sight, as was the three old ladies showing off their moves on the dance floor, much to the embarrassment of their husbands. We were just starting to feel sorry for them, when the YMCA came on. Not being able to resist, I jumped up and pleaded with my friends to dance with me. After a very wimpy YMCA, the "piano man" played Waka Waka- Kate's, Michelle's, and my favorite zumba dance! We did the whole routine and was greeted with applause from all the old couples. We spent the rest of the night salsa dancing and hanging out. It was so much fun!

Salsa dancing with Andrew

Bye Sorento!

The next morning we had a fabulous breakfast in the dining room and then headed to Pompeii. We met up with Fredrick (slightly less frazzled, equally as awkward as the day before). After perusing around the many souvenirs (got another thimble bringing the total thimble count to 6) we went inside the city. It was INCREDIBLE! So much has been preserved! We saw everything from remnants of restaurants, shops and houses, to full buildings like the bathes, the brothel, the theaters. Frescos, political campaigns, vases, as well as actually preserved bodies of people and dogs were found after the eruption of Vesuvius. We spent several hours walking through the dusty streets, taking pictures, and taking videos of us dancing around the city.