Pompei

Thursday 17th September

I woke up pretty early this morning at about 8am and went to get some breakfast which ended up being a croissant and cereal - much better than some of the breakfasts I have had to endure recently! I got a nice refreshing shower and decided to get ready to go to Pompei. It turned out that one of the lads I was sharing with, Alex, also wanted to go to Pompei so we arranged to go together once he had sorted a couple of things out that he needed to do. It's always nice when visiting a place like that to have somebody to discuss things with.

We got on the bus at around 11am and arrived in Pompei at around midday. We walked around Pompei until about 4pm but the heat became unbearable at times. The weather forecast had said it would be overcast today so I wore my jeans thinking it would be a little cooler but the sun was out for most of the day so I just felt uncomfortably hot for most of the day. Even though we didn't see everything that Pompei had to offer we were both content with what we had seen so decided to go and get a bite to eat in the shade somewhere.

Pompei itself was really sensational. The site was absolutely huge and I could very easily have spent 8 or 9 hours in a place like that. It was almost a shame that they had not built some form of café or restaurant inside somewhere as this was one of the main things that stopped us staying longer apart from the heat. In places the quality of the buildings in tact isn't particularly great but you really get a feel from Roman life and get an understanding of how a town would have been laid out. It was really interesting to see how many similarities there were between Pompei and any modern city and it was amazing to see how little we have evolved in some ways from those times. Another thing I really liked was the grooves in the roads where the carts would have been driven.

We headed back to Napoli after having a drink and something to eat. I got chatting to 3 Irish girls at the bus stop whilst we were waiting for the bus who had also visited from Napoli. They were really impressed with it too but they had been out drinking the night before so only spent a couple of hours walking around. I know I keep saying this but I really have changed a lot - 6 weeks ago I probably never would have even spoken to these 3 girls but now I feel I can really chat with just about anyone. On the bus on the way back I managed to get some photos of Mount Vesuvius after a nice Italian guy pointed it out to us. We chatted for a little while and, even though I couldn't understand a lot of what he was saying, we managed to speak about a few things.

When we got back to the hostel I met some more people who would be sharing with me for the night - Claire and Brie, a couple of Australian girls. Sam, Ed, Claire, Brie and I all went out for a bit of a walk around Napoli and to find a supermarket to be able to get some food to cook for the evening. Once we got back to the hostel we met some more people - Jeannie (an American girl), Luke (an American guy), Mateusz (a Polish guy) and Bruno (I think a Chilean guy) and we all sat drinking and fooling around until about 4.30am!

It was a really enjoyable evening and we had a really good laugh. The language barrier threw up a few funny conversations when Mateusz misunderstood a few words and he was totally confused a couple of times trying to keep up with all of the different accents. My time at the hostel in Napoli has been really enjoyable and I have made yet more friends. Hostels in general have provided some very good experiences for me and I will definitely think about using them in the future if I decide to go travelling again.