Back in old Napoli That's Amore

So right now my computer has more viruses than Bret Michaels, but I still wanted to do a closing Italy post, so I'll put up the accompanying pictures later.

Friday was our last full day in Italy. We left Vietri Sul Mare around 8:15, and drove to Naples so we could see the giant flaming piles of trash Naples Archeological Museum, where they keep all sorts of fabulous things, but mostly the artifacts they dug up from Pompeii. The streets were indeed lined with garbage, and as we waited in line to get into the museum, the lucky few who had to wait outside all had their hands across their mouths, sort of like when Pompeii was hit by Vesuvius back in '79. The museum used to be the royal stables, and as we climbed the stairs to the first gallery, Terri, our new friend, leaned over and said "I bet the horses hated these stairs." Awesome.

We saw some fantastic mosaics, gorgeous frescoes, including one of what Vesuvius probably looked like before it blew its top all those years ago. We spent a charming 15 minutes in what I like to call "Penis Land," where they kept all the excavated naughty bits, and related, er, etchings. There was a lot of man on goat action, which made the following story very sad.

Lizzie and I are bad people, and have been wondering how the Italian folks we've seen have remained so thin, when they eat ALL THE TIME. You can guess at the theories we tossed around, and one of the turns out is not so far off. Back during the time of Pompeii, the rich folks would have giant banquets about 4 times a year, and they would eat eat eat eat eat and eat until they made themselves sick, go to a room they called THE VOMITORIUM, for reals, and puke their guts up, and then eat some more. Ugh. That is some unhealthy living, folks. I was discussing this with Terri, and I said "How much do you think the slaves preparing this food that ended up being wasted hated their masters?" and she said "And it's even worse because the goat they were cooking was probably their girlfriend at one time." And there was much laughter.

We left the museum, and drove back up to Rome, where we took a siesta before dinner. This would be our last dinner together, and the woman who had at the beginning of the trip told us she wanted to leave without us (who we'd been calling Vacation Boss) kicked Gary off the bus, and reminded us that we needed to tip our tourguide. No shit. Thanks, vacation boss, the sun certainly wouldn't know to rise in the East and set in the West without you telling it to do so. At dinner, there was a 60-something Italian man with white hair playing a Casio keyboard (with the back beat key doop doop doop doop) and several of the folks on tour with us began dancing to the psuedo Italian music (Dean Martin standards) while the servers and other guests looked on in horror. On the ride back, our last ride together, Vacation boss insisted that we all sing Auld Lang Syne, and Lizzie and I opted out, as did our friends. Then they sang the happy birthday song (which translates to "good wishes to you") to themselves, and hugs all around. Weird. We had drinks with Stew and Terri, because we are going to miss them.

Neither Lizzie or I could sleep on the flight home, and when we finally got into JFK, we taxied for an hour and a half. This led to some barely contained rage, which was exacerbated when, upon landing in Logan, they changed the baggage carousel on us several times. Still, made it home safely, and my biggest regret is that Victorio didn't meet me at the airport to convince me to stay and raise goats with him to clean up the garbage. We could've been something, Victorio. Here's looking at you, kid...