Not Intent on Arriving

1) Cool Music: upcoming musician Scott Bradlee takes the top 10 songs of the week and turns them into a 1920s ragtime remake.

2) Whale…err…shark of a tale: This big fish was caught in the Potomac River yesterday. I’m not going swimming there. Well, I wouldn’t have anyways.

3) What if politicians actually asked citizens?: In this case, a reporter actually asks local citizens and real people about recent plans to change Social Security. No spin here. Politicians could learn something.

4) Back to School: If you’re a 5 to 15 year-old student in one Scottish school, you should bring your lunch money and iPad!

5) New Advertising Technique: Perhaps, you’ve heard about the recent plight of bees. Well, one company has an innovative solution to raise attention to the problem.

6) Coolest Office Ever

7) Wasted Evening: One man had a rough night out.  Yeah, he lost a painting worth $1.3 million.

One evening in Rome, we decided to go to a lovely little restaurant near Piazza Navona for dinner. I remembered this area from a past trip. Darcy and I wandered through the area and eventually found a really cute little restaurant. It was really good. I tried to replicate this with the kids.

As we walked through Piazza Navona, a political rally dominated the scene.  A group of journalists were protesting a new law that allowed the government to listen to their phone calls.  Pretty bad.

Piazza Navona: always beautiful

So I took the group a few blocks away from the noise (we couldn’t get across to where I was before) and found this cute restaurant.  This allowed the kids to try some new dishes.  So they got pasta with pesto, tomato sauce and gnocchi.  I was bummed. It was always nearly impossible to get them to try new things.

Walking to dinner; no photo of the waitress exists

Then, the funny conversations began. One of my kids, Caitlen, was enjoying the conversation a lot, chatting and laughing a ton. All good things.  The waitress began to get frustrated though. She accused Caitlen of talking too much and not eating her food. She felt that the food would become cold. They battled for a while. At the end, she claimed she would hit Caitlen if she came back, but then gave her a quick hug when we left.

The battle was over.  No blood.  But… don’t talk to much in Italian restaurants.

The following day we returned.

One day we’re back in the hotel, waiting for the next part of the day to begin.  Enzo is there, chatting with me.  We’re about to go get a coffee at the hotel bar.  I think the amazing thing about Italy is the fact that no matter where you go, whether at a bar in Piazza San Marco in Venice or in a tiny hotel bar, the coffee is good.

Enzo would offer the coffee whether I wanted it or not.  Today he offered and I accepted.  As we’re about to go for the coffee, Lowell comes down and purchased some internet time.  You pay by the hour for time used on the internet in Europe.  Enzo sees this and approaches Lowell.

You are looking for the good pornos? I can give you some suggestions.  My own favorites.

I wasn’t sure how to respond.  Lowell wasn’t either.  It was one of those “huh?” moments that stunned me.  Enzo was joking, but that was not clear at the time.

One of the days in Napoli, we headed to a set of ancient Greek ruins called Paestum.  Once we arrived, we were greeted by our favorite guide again (Silvia) who pulled me and Enzo aside.  A situation had presented itself.  All EU citizens under 18 (which was all of the kids) got into the ruins for free, but Americans would have to pay the full price of admission.  As a result, we became Brits who spoke no Italian.

I went over to the bus and ordered the kids not to speak until we entered the ruins.  I, of course, was free to speak because I only did so in Italian.  We paid for the tickets and the guide mentioned that we were a group of high schoolers from London here to study ancient Greek culture.  The lady even marveled “oh, how wonderful” before letting us inside.

The ruins themselves were beautiful.  Note some of the pictures below.

The best-preserved temple in Paestum

Probably the coolest part was that archaeologists had found an ancient burial site (one of the only ones preserved from the Greek times).  Inside, they found 8 sealed jars.  When they opened those jars, they found honey.  IT STILL RAN. How cool.  No one tasted it though.

There was a second part to the trip.  A museum.  We again had to pretend to be British.  The story grew more complex.  We had our tickets from before, but in theory had to get a second set.  Silvia told the lady that we had left our IDs with the professor (Enzo) for security purposes but that he would meet us after the trip.  The lady that was fine, and that if he came, he could show her the IDs.  I then called Enzo and asked him not to show up at the museum.

It worked and the museum was really cool.   One of the treasures was a set of tomb paintings.  Of these, the most famous and studied is called the “Tomb of the Diver.”  It represents the voyage between this life and the next life.  It was really cool.  See it below.

Ultimately, a really cool visit.  Cheers, Paestum!

We set up toward Vesuvius, one of the legendary mountains on the planet.  As we got to the top, the guides offered us a “special” deal where we would walk around the entire cone of the mountain and then enter the crater (a little bit).  Since we had a little bit of extra money at this point, I said sure (after asking the kids).  We set off on our tour.

Now, I quickly realized three things:

1) Some of my kids were deathly afraid of heights even though they didn’t say anything.  Rob began freaking out almost instantaneously.  When we were walking down a cliff he crouched down and grabbed the side because he didn’t want to fall. Travis said, “Man, I can’t believe we’re on this volcano.  What are we doing up here?”  At that point, though, nothing could be done.  They had to tough it out.

2) Many of the kids were afraid the volcano would blow up.  Our guide told the kids that Vesuvius is the best studied volcano on Earth and that scientists would have a lot of warning before any eruption would occur.  Also, he mentioned the next eruption was not forecast until 2020. Still, someone asked, “What are we going to do if it starts looking like it’s going to explode?”

3) Our guide was crazy. The kids called him “Billy Goat” at the end of the visit.  At one point, he stopped in the middle of what he was saying, crouched down and began pawing at the rocks to find one specimen to show us.  When we went down into the crater, he was jumping from rock to rock merrily without a care for where he was jumping, etc.  The nickname was well-deserved.

Additionally, the weather got really crappy, really quickly.  A thick layer of fog rolled in and unfortunately made it so we couldn’t see the view from the mountain.  In spite of that, we got to descend into the crater and stick our hands into a hole where steam was escaping from the mountain.  Really cool stuff.

We took some sweet group pictures and then began to hike down the mountain.  Bajia was not a fan of going down and continually told us (she was walking with Kelly) how she was going to die.  Nevertheless, we survived and made it back to base camp.  There, the guide had me sample some Vesuvian wine (made from soil enriched with the ash of the mountain) and thanked us.  It was a really nice visit.