Mambo Italiano!

Well, a lot has happened since I last updated. We went to Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii, then we spent the weekend in Sicily. We hiked up Vesuvius, which was really cool. We saw smoke coming out even though the volcano is dormant! Did you know that Vesuvius is due for another catastrophic eruption like the one that buried Pompeii? It could happen anytime, and there are thousands of people living in the area. They say there is a system that can tell in time when it will erupt, but since it hasn't erupted since the seventies, they haven't had a chance to test it! I guess they're just crossing their fingers!

Pompeii was very interesting. The casts of real people were touching. Some of them still had teeth and bones! We saw the town brothel, complete with frescoes depicting the options, kind of like a "prostititute menu!" It was pretty funny, but strange.

The Sicily trip was a little stressful. We had 13 girls, and everything that could go wrong without being disastrous, did. I don't really want to talk about it ;-) One interesting thing that we did was go to the opera in Palermo. We got the cheap-college-kid tickets and ended up in the highest level, all the way around the side. You either had to lean all the way forward or stand up to see the stage! When the opera started, we were amazed to realize that it was in English! There was a little screen above the stage with the Italian translation on it. As the opera went on, we realized that since the Italian audience had their own translation there was no reason for the Italian actors to pronounce the English correctly. We couldn't understand a word they said! It was certainly an interesting experience. We spent all of our time trying to figure out what was going on. It was called "A Rake's Progress" and it's by Stravinsky. The music is beautiful. I'm still not totally sure about the story!

This week we have visited a few interesting things. Civita di Bagnoreggio is called the "dying city." It is on top of a high mountain which crumbles away gradually. Every once in a while a building will fall off the mountain. Now there are only 17 people who live there. You get there by climbing one path that goes straight up to the city. It was very pretty. Then we went to The Park of the Monsters. It is a garden that a man built in memory of his young wife. It has lots of huge and beautiful statues and monuments. It was a fun place to take pictures!

This weekend I'm headed to the Tuscan countryside with three of my friends. We're going to learn how to cook Tuscan food and visit Florence. I'm excited! Tomorrow we're going to Asissi on a field trip. I'll update about that later.

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