Not Intent on Arriving

Vino. It’s one of the nicer parts of Italian culture and something that should be enjoyed.  Not, however, if you’re a teenager on the Experiment.  Our orientation made it quite clear that the kids on the trip could not have any alcohol with the exception of cultural events. My personal opinion of this rule aside for the moment, I had to follow it.

After an afternoon at the pool, we set off with the kids into the city of Pompeii for dinner.  Something I never knew before our long walk to the center of town was that it plays an important role religiously as well.  In fact, the duomo in town is technically a part of the Vatican state and the Pope has been known to vacation in Pompeii occasionally.

The Duomo of Pompei, a part of the Vatican

Unfortunately, we got down there and the duomo was closed.  The kids were starving at that point and Enzo took us to the restaurant quickly. We arrived at the Trattoria Add’ù Mimi’ (no idea what that means).  We sat down in two tables (because they couldn’t bring them together).  I, along with nine students and Enzo, took one table.  Importantly, Caitlen and Lowell were both seated close to us.

So we’re just chatting as the kids have their own conversation at the end of the table.  As per usual, Enzo ordered me a litro of vino bianco (even if I didn’t really want it), which we were drinking slowly at our end.  As we’re in the middle of the conversation, Enzo grabs the pitcher and pours a bit of wine into Caitlen’s glass.  I’m kind of shocked.  Everyone at the table sees it.  Except for Caitlen.  She’s wondering what’s going on.  The other kids tell her and Enzo gradually offers everyone in the area a little wine. I’m powerless to stop it.

Of course, the kids didn’t have enough wine for anything to happen.  But I was still shocked. We emerged from the restaurant with everyone jubilant as this photo shows.

Jubilation after our first Pompei meal

Unfortunately, the excitement would not last.  For Pompeii has one really undesirable trait at night.  Dogs.  Stray dogs.  The kids were deathly afraid of dogs and I’ve never seen dogs so quick to follow someone as these.  From the moment we left the restaurant, one dog followed us all the way back to the hotel.  Even there, he followed us as we held our evening meeting.  As we were going inside for the night, something alarmed the dog and he barked.  Lowell screamed and almost pushed two of us into the water.

I was particularly on guard because one of the other group leaders was bitten by a cat earlier in her trip.  It was at her host mother’s house.  Even though it occurred in a house, she had to go to the hospital and get rabies shots because the dog did not have its shots.  A bad scene to be avoided at all costs.

So we depart the homestay community early in the morning and head off toward our next destination — Pompeii.  All of the families show up on the platform, we take a few more pictures and we hop on the train.  Some of the siblings were in tears, but none were cuter than Bajia’s host sister.

Last group photo in the homestay

Carolina is four and was struggling to figure out what was happening.  She realized that Bajia (and Rob) were going away that morning and became unconsolable.  She wanted to come along and was in tears on the platform.  It was adorable.

Thankfully, this train ride was nothing like the past one. We hopped aboard and enjoyed cool, air-conditioned compartments.  I tried to make contact with our local rep, Enzo, to tell him it would be late, but had no success.  Strangely, the train made up the 30 minutes of lateness it had accumulated and we pulled into Napoli Centrale on time.  Italian trains make no sense.

Checking in on the kids on the train

I tried calling Enzo again with no luck.  We walk down the platform, hoping that someone will be there and he is!  Enzo is an English teacher and speaks it wonderfully.  He has lived in the Napoli area (well actually right on the side of Vesuvius) for most of his adult life.  He knows everything about the city and has every moment of our stay planned out.  His staple clothing choice is a NY Yankees shirt.  He loves American culture and knows many TV shows I’ve never heard of.  His son and a friend are constantly with us, though the fact that they speak no English impedes our ability to interact with them.

Enzo, our fearless guide through everything Napoli

We hop on the bus and take a 20-minute ride up to Pompeii and our hotel.  The rumors online suggest that it’s haunted but, other than Maggie and Caitlen freaking out late at night, nobody finds any conclusive proof of that.  So we check-in and go play in the pool.  Enzo says that he and I need to chat later, but everybody can play in the pool until dinnertime.

Our hotel in Pompeii

So I wait and wait.  Finally Enzo shows up.  I follow him as he moves toward another side of the complex.  His son and friend come with us.  I’m thinking this is strange.  We stop and walk into a room…. it’s the bathroom.  I’m thinking, “Uhhhh.”  Enzo says, “Come, you can have a stall if you need one.”  And I realize there is no meeting.  I’m pretty embarrassed actually.

The pool is wonderful and we have tons of fun that afternoon.  I’ll talk about our first dinner with Enzo tomorrow.

Some of the games we played as a group during the trip (many of which became instant classics):

1. Mafia: Classic teenage game of choice. To play, there is one God.  That person selects, in our case, two people to be the mafia, one to be the angel and one to be the detective.  Everyone goes to sleep.  The mafia pick someone to kill.  They put their heads down.  The angel picks someone to save.  Their head goes down.  The detective asks if someone is the mafia.  They can steer discussion later, but put their head down.

So the game progresses and people die.  The townspeople try and determine who the mafia is.  It led to some prety funny moments.  One night, Grace had a rough time.  One time she accidentally revealed herself to everyone as the mafia before the game by asking God, “Was that me you tapped?”  Later, someone else asked, “Am I dead?” and Grace said, “Yeah, because I killed you!”  We played every night in Cortona and occasionally throughout the rest of the trip.

2. Scopa: This beautiful Italian (well Napolian) card game was learned throughout the trip.  Its played on a different set of cards.  See below…

A deck of Scopa cards

The point of the game was pretty simple actually.  Each player gets three cards and there are four in the center.  You want to put down one of your cards so that it adds up to something in the center.  You then take that card(s) from the center.  If you can remove all the cards from the center with your card you scopa.  There are points awarded for having the 7 of coins, most cards, scopas and several other rules.  It’s really fun.  Scopa means to sweep or an expletive in Italian.

3. Merda: I learned this game, which means “shit” in Italian from my 7-year host brother.  Yeah… So it works basically the same as spoons.  All the ones, twos and threes would be distributed, and you would look collect all four of a certain number.  The first person to get all four slaps the pile in the center and yells “merda.”  The last person to slap the deck loses and draws a card.  They produce that many kilos of merda.  Who thought of this game?  We had fun with it though.