Day 4 and 5

Ciao!!

Day 4 was a Sunday! It was our first church service in Italy. Everything was in Italian so I just had independant Bible study from Hebrews. After church, as typical with Baptist Churches, we stood around and chatted with the members. A couple attemped to talk to us in English, the were super nice, and an old lady gave me my first authenic Italiano gretting....kisses on both cheeks...how cute!! We then went to eat at a place where the Worthy family and Cortney normally eat, we had our first plate of Yoki, a type of pasta. Jenae headed home to rest, while went to the Worthy house to help Charlie with the stuff for the Tenn team that comes in on Friday. We made them Rome packets, and their week booklets with the schedule and things they need to know while in Italia. We worked on these all afternoon. Jenae and Cortney came over and we ate supper from the Monde Pizzeria down the road. Jenae and I then took the metro back to Dante and slept at Cortney's by ourselves. While on our way to get the pizza for supper Charlie told us that here they treat dogs like children and thats why the dogs are so relaxed because they are pampered and catered to.

The next morning, today, we woke up at 5:30 am to go meet Charlie, Ellie, and Kayla for our day trip to the Amalfi coast. We went to get on the metro and the booth to buy the ticket from the lady was closed cause it was too early and all the machines were out of order...so we just kinda walked through the open gate, they didnt stop us. We left for the coast in Charlie's van -- "loser cruiser". The roads to get there were the windiest roads I have ever seen, like almost every turn was a 90* angle, so very soon I was car sick. Once we got to the small towns along the coast, although I still felt pretty bad, it was amazing! Each of the towns was speciic to selling a certain thing, one town was linen, another handmade paper, and another ceramics. People come from all over to see these things that they have beenmaking for centuries. I bought a reciepe book and two reciepes (one in English and one in Italian) in the town tha specialized in handmade paper. I also bought a ceamic pitcher and address tiles in the town that specialized in ceramic. It rained on and off all day, even storming on us occasionally,even through all that today was my favorite day so far.For lunch we ate at a nice resturant on the shore, right on the beach. I ordered spaghetti al ragu...which is spaghetti in meat sauce, but here they use like a roast meat as their meat in the sauce. After lunch I walked down to the beach and took picures there, their beaches are so different...instead of sand they have tiny little pebbles all over. We saw alot of crew ships and tons of tourists, but my favorite site was the lemon groves all over the hiles lining the coast. Some of the lemons we saw were easily as bg as our heads!!! We stopped at a litte place on the side of the road for a bathroom and cafe (coffee) break. They made freshly squeezed orange juice there, I ordered some and it was easily the best orange juice I have ever tasted, it was filled with pulp. While driving Charlie told us the story of how Pompey was destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius....this is the story:

On September 19, 1979, Mt. Veuvius blew. At the time there were 20,000 people living in Pompey. After the eruption there was estimated to be about 2,000 survivors. When the volcano blew it sent up a column of volcanic ash/lava straight into the air. This column continued to build up on itself. Meanwhile boulder size pieces were falling from the volcano, bombarding Pompey like a pirate's attack. Also while this is occuring smaller pieces like hail is pelting Pompey. These pieces are starting fires which are ruining the city. Eventually the column collapses on itself and one town (cant think of the name) is destroyed within milliseconds. A cloud of ash then hovers above Pompey for two days dropping roughly a foot of ash/soot per hour. After two days roughly 50 feet of the ash has accumulated. The ash has stopped life in Pompey and preserved it just as it was that day. Everything was carbonized: people, buildings, food, everything. It remains that way today, being the only city like it. During this time whole families lived together so when the volcano blew it knocked out whole lineages, and even those 2,000 that did survive after a few generations they were gone and hardly remembered as well. The survivors wanted to get as far away from the volcano as possible because of the devestation it had caused, so they climbed over the mountain and settled in the hills and reside there today.


Charlie also pointed out some caves that still house cave dwellers. Once we made it back to Napoli we came back to the apartment and took a nap. Me and Jenae took ourselves out alone to get pizza and gelato, and had a successful trip!! NOw time for movie night and bed! Ciao!