Santorini, Pompeii and Rome

It's our last day today. I'm sitting in the kitchen of our Rome hostel, waiting for Michael to finish packing. Our bags are heavier (lots of sovieners!), our skin is tanner (hooray for laying out by the cruise ship pool!) and our portable harddrive is full of photos. We leave Rome and fly to Chicago in a few hours. It feels crazy to be going home after travelling for so long and I imagine it's going to feel crazy to be home for a while afterwards. But, before I get too introspective, I still have three cities to write about.

Santorini:

Unfortunately, Michael wasn't feeling well the day we were in port, so I stole out while he was sleeping and had my own adventure.Santorini is really beautiful and it makes sense why it would be such a huge tourist attraction. There were a TOOOOOOON of tourists--in fact, there were, at one point, seven cruise ships docked that day. This made it pretty hard to see the "real" Santorini, but I made a point of getting lost down little alleyways and trying to get away from the main tourist areas.

Santorini is the Greece we all see in the pictures: whitewashed houses, brightly colored doors and windows, bright blue domes on the churches. The city is located high on a cliff and people need to take either a cable car or a donkey up to the top. The line for the cable car was over 2 hours so I opted for a donkey. So I paid the guy my 5 euro, hopped up on a donkey and expected the donkey owner to walk with me to the top like in Petra (Jordan). But instead, he just gave it a big slap on the butt, yelled something in Greek and the donkey walked away without him. This only worked so well, however, since as soon as we turned a corner and were out of his line of sight, the donkey stopped. Just stopped. I slapped it on its butt, gave it a nudge with my heels, said "let's go" in all the languages I knew, but this donkey was not gonna budge. After 5 minutes of this, I got off and tried pulling him by his harness. As much as I pulled and yanked, this donkey was not going to move for me. Until I went to get back on him, of course, and he walked away from me. Oh, I see how it is, Mr. Donkey. This game of "donkey walks away when Jena tries to get back on" continued for another 5 minutes until the donkey gave up and let me on him. But he still just stood there. More heel nudges, more butt slapping, more yelling (does anyone know how to say "let's go" in Greek?), no moving. Until a pack of about 20 donkeys turned the corner on the way up the hill and Mr. Donkey decided to show his solidarity and walk up with the others. Geesh. I opted not to chance a donkey ride on the way down, needless to say.

Pompeii/Sorrento:

We were excited to visit Pompeii again since we had had so much fun the last time. We did a walking tour with Erin and Josh (our cruise dinner mates) and then wandered the eery streets. If you ever get a chance to visit Pompeii, do it. It's an amazingly preserved city and really gives you a sense of what it must have been like to live so long ago. We also got a chance to hang out in Sorrento, a town about 20 minutes from Pompeii, and the site of the cruise port. Sorrento is a cute Italian town and we were excited to happen upon a famous gelateria while we were there--the owner is in the Guiness Book of World Records for creating the largest ice cream cone ever (based on the pics we saw, it was huge) and the store has been visited by a ton of famous people including the Pope. And the ice cream was pretty good. :)

Rome:

Our last stop of our tour and we weren't disappointed. I enjoy Rome a little more every time I come back and this time was definitely not an exception. We did the normal touristy things (the Forum, Colloseum, Vatican, etc) but then also got to see some things we hadn't seen before such as the Jewish Ghetto and Campo dei Fiori, a colorful piazza where a lot of the young Italians hang out in the evening. We also stopped at a cafe that reportedly has the best espresso in Rome...and we concur. And, of course, we threw a coin into the Trevi fountain guaranteeing that we would return. :)

So now it's time to go. Michael has finished packing, we need to check out of the hostel and catch our train to the airport. Hopefully you've enjoyed reading about our adventures and seeing some of the images we created. Next time I write, I'll be back in the good ol' US of A eating peanut butter and watching reality tv. :) It's been an amazing adventure, an incredible journey. Ma adesso e' il tempo per ritornare alla realita'. Ciao ciao!!