Nope-les

I want to be honest and straight-forward right away, my trip did not really start off with a bang. I wanted to start in Naples not because I wanted to see Naples, but because I wanted to see Pompeii, which is nearby. I had heard before leaving that Naples isn't the nicest place in the world, so perhaps that created some bias. I probably didn't give Naples the chance it deserved, but, in my defense, I didn't feel like it. Sleep deprivation and jet lag will do that to you.

Unfortunately, my experience at Pompeii wasn't what I hoped it would be. I was super excited to see it because my interest in Pompeii was one of the reasons I studied Anthropology. It was quite an unlucky twist of fate, then, when the skies opened up and let forth a mighty downpour. Now, I can deal with a little rain, but this rain was so heavy that I was concerned that maybe I missed my invite aboard the ark. (It was people on the ark, right?) At a few points throughout the day I would find myself standing in a puddle of water up to my ankles trying to derive a twinge of pleasure from what I was seeing, and attempting to perk myself up by thinking, "Well, at least I have the place to myself." I can imagine the people watching over the security cameras looking at this wet rat of a girl on their monitors, shaking their heads, and saying, "What a poor schmuck." I had also purchased an audioguide before I went in so I could understand what I was seeing. Big mistake. Trying to manage the audioguide, the accompanying map (to know what buttons to press), and my umbrella was just too much for my poor uncoordinated hands. God forbid I would want to take a picture, too. The map was also something that someone with a sick sense of humor dreamt up. I think I'm pretty decent with maps, (shoutout to Matti Curran, my partner in being the first female team to finish the orienteering course in 8th grade!), but I probably could have had as much success with a map of Narnia to get around Pompeii as I did with their map.

Definite bummer.

Basically, I guess I don't have much of an opinion on Naples because I didn't really take the time to explore it, and I don't have much to say about Pompeii because I was worried about getting trench foot and gangrene. Do yourself a favor and do not Google that. I do have a couple thoughts in regards to both of these places, though.

First, Naples drivers are the worst drivers I have ever seen. Now, you say to me, "But, Alicia, how can you generalize all of the drivers of Naples like that?" Well, friends, I will tell you. It may have been when I saw a woman leave her car in the middle of a busy intersection to run into a tobacco shop, or perhaps it was when that moped driver sat at a green light while casually, and seemingly without a care in the world, lighting his cigarette while a long line of cars beeped at him, or when a Fiat raced down a heavily pedestrianized street at around 40 mph in reverse, probably with a cigarette clasped in mouth, but at some point, I threw all the Naples drivers under the bus and generalized. Okay, okay, I'm sure there are some good drivers in Naples out there, but, imagine, those are all examples of driving incidents I saw just in one day in a relatively short period of time! What's it like on all the other days?! It's a complete madhouse, for both drivers and pedestrians. The US is like being in the kiddie pool compared to them. It almost makes me want to get my driver's license back in the States. Almost.

Video courtesy of Yellow Productions.

Second, another theme occurring in all these driving stories, (probably), is the appearance of cigarettes. Everyone here really seems to enjoy their slow-burning death sticks. 24-hour cigarette vending machines are a common sight. It's slightly surprising to see so many people smoking, whereas it has kind of turned into more of a rarity in the US. I don't really mind though, because all these smokers mean there has to be a lot of tobacco shops, which is where you buy all sorts of tickets, like for the metro, and all sorts of candy, like for eating. So bring on the bad habits! I'm just kidding, smoking is bad, kids.

Lastly, from the minor amount of human interactions I have experienced so far, I'm kind of digging the vibe here. After coming from the "customer-is-always-right" culture of the US, it is a relief being here, where the workers aren't always bubbly rainbow fountains of joy and delight. In all honesty, I am really enjoying the fact that at any time I could do something that will have someone curse me off for my stupidity. It's refreshing. One of my favorite things occurred when I was in line to get my ticket into Pompeii. As a major historical site with thousands of people coming through a day, you would think they would want their workers to be very efficient and utterly focused on the task at hand. Well, the lady selling the tickets certainly doesn't think so, because she has some important personal phone calls to make. It's called multitasking! I love it!

Tip #1: Never, ever drive in Naples, unless your dream job is to be a crash test dummy.

The Numbers

Pizza slices eaten: 1

Top bunk placements: 1
Photos taken: 24 out of 24

Almost car crashes witnessed: Countless

55 Liters of Stuff in the Bag, 55 Liters of Stuff

55 liters. What does 55 liters mean to you? Probably nothing because America is overflowing with idiocy and doesn't use the metric system like the entire rest of the world. I definitely didn't understand what 55 liters was until a few weeks ago. Then, 55 liters became the amount of space I would be living out of for two months. One week? Six months? Who knows? Anyway, my backpack is 55 liters total, 40 in the main pack, and 15 in the day pack. However you are doing the math, it looks small. Unless it's in beer. Then it's a lot.

Literally, it is just Liberia, Myanmar, and the US not using the metric system.

Packing was definitely an adventure in itself. Over the course of a few weeks, I managed to buy 11 pairs of shoes, a kit to wash my clothes in the sink with accompanying rubber clothesline, a silk sleep sack, and over 100 dollars worth of socks. Do not fear, most of the shoes were returned, although I can't say the same for the socks. SmartWool socks are a damn delight and you can rip them from my cold, dead feet. Also, if anyone needs help rolling clothes, I can now roll mine to drill sergeant precision levels. I literally learned from a YouTube video made by a Army Ranger. Due to my planning ahead and purchasing everything I needed fairly early on, I was able to have my pack fully ready exactly five minutes before I needed to leave. Not exactly sure how that happened, but I do seem to recall at some point during my all-nighter that I was no longer going to try and carry-on, which meant readjusting the entire bag, and probably costing me that one hour of sleep I would have gotten. I also remember staring blankly off into the distance a couple times and thinking exactly no thoughts. The brain with sleep deprivation is a wondrous thing.

It's a t-shirt burrito!

My trip from the global power that is Langhorne, Pennsylvania to Naples, Italy felt like quite a whirlwind. I'll give you the short version. It went like so: drive from my house to Trenton train station, take train to Penn Station, take train to Jamaica station, take Airtrain to JFK, get checked in and have my personal space violated by security, possibly moon somebody while hurriedly putting on shoes without belt, buy outlandishly expensive food, wait around a few hours, take nine hour flight to Istanbul, have six hour layover in what are undoubtedly the most uncomfortable chairs ever created, take two hour flight to Naples, take bus to hostel, almost cry from exhaustion when you realize you need a five cent coin to take the elevator to the hostel on the 7th floor, go out looking for ways to break money, fail at breaking money, fail at breaking money, finally acquire five cent coin, return to elevator where a fellow hostel-goer has paid coin making yours irrelevant, almost cry again, check in, flop onto bed and into coma with no time to cry tears of happiness.

Additionally, I had the pleasure of sitting next to some interesting people. On my flight to Istanbul, I was seated next to a man on his way to Jerusalem to visit family. He owns what I think may be a sandwich shop in Jersey, but I'm still not certain because he kept calling it a bakery. I know he has five children, one of which is an extravagant spender. The extravagant spender buys a new car every year and has four full walk-in closets. My seat-mate thinks that immigrants shouldn't bother coming to America unless they work three jobs. I know what all of his children and grandchildren look like since I saw literally every picture on his phone. He believes in smacking your child every once in a while to prevent them from using "the marijuana drug." He has been married to his wife for 38 years. She is a good wife because she does not let herself go. He does not like shrimp. I know all of this because I listened to him for quite a while since the man brought absolutely nothing with him onto the plane to occupy himself. For a nine hour flight! No music, no book, no tamagotchi, nothing. He also let me know early on that he is incapable of sleeping on planes. To top everything off, his little TV in front of him was broken. Oy vey. I wanted to get a little sleep on the ride over though, so I was able to squeeze some naps in. Every time I would wake up, he would just be staring straight ahead at the broken TV, apparently creating his own shows. You have to have a decent imagination when you bring nothing on a flight.

This is tangential, but I have a theory that the government is running an organization that creates movies based on wonderful books with the sole objective of ruining them for readers. By doing so, they are hoping people will be so disgusted by the interpretations that they will stop reading books entirely, thus becoming a society like in 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. Case in point: The Giver. I find it almost offensive that you have an excellent story, Jeff Bridges, and the incomparable Meryl Streep, and still find a way to muck it up. It can be nothing less than a purposeful, tactical move by a high-ranking agency in the American government. Possibly the same agency that decided on not using the metric system.

I was so excited for my second flight, because I was going to sleep the sweet heck out of that flight. When we started boarding I got super pumped because there were approximately 25 of us, and pretty much everyone had a row to themselves. Naturally then, an entire family sits down next to me, and I mean like an aunts, uncles, extended cousins type-of-family. Lucky for me, the guy who sits next to me gets to chatting and immediately labels himself as a people-person. Oh, Sleep, I hardly knew you. I now also know countless things about this guy, but I'll spare you the details of this one. It turns out that Turkish Airlines ended up being my savior for a little of the flight because even on an hour and a half flight, they still served a meal! When you get a meal on an airplane, all of your concentration has to go into eating it. It's the rules. I think it's because the tray tables are so tiny and the utensils so blunt that you really have to focus. Either way, with my neighbor happily munching away I was able to fall asleep a couple of times with my eyes open. When our plane landed, my seat-mate insisted on giving me a hair-clip he bought for his mother, (what an A+ son!), and in return I would give him my number so he could contact me when he comes to the United States from India. That's when old Alice Eisen made an entrance. Surprisingly, her phone number is one digit off from mine. Small world!

I am also happy to report a small accomplishment. Within six hours of being in Italy, I ate a slice of pizza.