Pompei & Trip To Athens

Well Kirk now has a funky white passport. The temporary passports supposidly come in white, so everyone we give it to now asks why on earth it is white. Everything worked out though so it is all good. I guess your referece was okay mom, becuase they did not ask for any others.
Because the passport went well and we got in time, we made it to Pompei. It was one of our favourite towns. It was sooo much more quiet and small town like then all the other places we have stayed recently, it was beautiful. We have decided that if we go on a trip like this again we are definatly staying in the small towns just outside the big cities and training into them. It is just so much more relaxing. We went and saw the ruins....which were facinating!!!! there are actual frozen bodies preserved that were trapped in the erruption. It was very sad to see. They were in suffering positions, one was even on his hands and knees with her hands in a praying position. We will show pics when we get home. That afternoon we hiked mt.vesuvus. There was a bus that took us asbout 3/4 of the way up, and then for 2 km we had to hike. the bus ride up there was intense. because the road was so windy, the driver had to honk his horn every 10 seconds to make sure that no other cars were comming around the corners the other way or we would have had a head on because the roads were so skinny. The hike up wasnt too bad, it was actually quite nice because we were up so high it was cold...! Good change from the weather we have been having. The crater at the top was amazing! You could even see the smoke comming out of it! Kinda scared me!
It was weird. we actually hooked up with a girl in Pompei for the whole day that we met the first morning we were there. She started chatting to us and we realized she was also from canada. We hung out the whole time we were there, she was a little nuts but awesome! Turns out acutally that her father also works for ledcor!!! I bet you dont believe it dad. He is a project manager in California!!! Small World.
Anyways, we had to wake up at 6am the last morning in Pompei and catch a 3 different trains to the port in Bari where we caught the ferry over to Patras Greece. Note to any of you planning on traveling by ferry to Greece, the economy seats which be bought for 150 euro's mean that you basically sleep whereever you can find. We luckly found some recliners on the outside deck which we set our sleeping bags up on. Others were spralled all over the floor and stars inside and outside! It was nuts. Needless to say i did not get much sleep.
We have arrived in Athens in one peace though and am happy to be out of italy.
will report back soon.
we leave for corfu on the 14th