Today was a weird day, I feel as if I want to say that it was an “off” day. A possible alternative is to say that I wasn’t myself today. It started with my trying to book a plane to Dubai from Athens in 10 days from now. Just like it did before, the credit card went on security alert and shut me out. It’s just so irritating when it happens because then I can’t use it for anything. I think that just kind of started my progression into a very negative attitude. Other things happened as well, but they aren’t important, I just wanted to note the kind of day it has been.

I knew that I was going to make a trip to Mt. Vesuvius today, so about 8 I headed out. The subway has a station that takes you to the vans that take you up to the mountain, which made an easy time getting there. I did have to wait a little bit before the taxi left, but we got to the walking point at about 930. The mountain is pretty big, and although the vans/taxis take you up the mountain, there is a remaining 1000 or so meters that you have to climb. Now the 1000 meters refers to the elevation, not the distance, the actual distance that you have to walk is at least a couple of kilometers, probably more like 4 though—it takes about forty minutes to climb it. The crater of the inactive volcano is kind of underwhelming, but the vista of Naples below more than made up for it. On the drive back to the starting point I was talking to two American girls who had just graduated from college and were on a holiday before they started looking for work. They were from Austin, Texas, I left the US from Amarillo, TX, so we had something to talk about. They also mentioned that they were going to Pompeii so I got all the info that I could about it. When I went to the tourist information center, there was lots of information about Vesuvius, but no information about Pompeii. The lack of info kind of made me think that I couldn’t see it. Anyway, I did go, and spent probably about 5 hours walking around. I hate to say it, but it was kind of underwhelming as well. The city is excavated to the point where you see the ruins, but I didn’t get any feeling what so ever of the horrific thing that happened to the people when the volcano blew. In other words, I walked around looking at fallen buildings. I think if they could somehow have left examples of the people or something it would have made for a more dramatic feel. Although it was underwhelming, it was certainly interesting and I’m glad that I went. On the way back I saw forest fires on the side of Mt. Vesuvius complete with airplanes trying to put them out.

I leave for Bari tomorrow at 1330 by bus. I wanted to go to Brindisi by train for my ferry ride to Greece but I couldn’t get a train ticket until 2000, way too late to be traveling to an unfamiliar city. I know that there are ferries from Bari too, so maybe with any luck I’ll be able to score a ticket and be in Greece in a couple of days.