When in Rome.....

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer comes with much difficulty but there are a few perks, especially when located so close to Europe. So for New Years we decided to meet my parents in Italy and try to see as much as possible in 6 days. Now I would guess that we are about 200 miles from Rome, but seeing as there is not airport in our little town and no direct flights from Corfu, we decided to take the 10 hours over night bus ride to Athens, to catch a two hour flight to Rome. When all was said and done my parents who left from Connecticut around the same time as us beat us to Rome by 6 hours. Our bus trip was long and hot then cold and then hot again and not conducive to sleep, and as I watched the bus drive away in Athens I realized that my iPod was still on it. Thankfully, we had plenty of time before having to get to the airport, so we searched around for where they might park the bus for the day before it heads back to Albania that night. We did not find it, but as luck would have it, Lauren did find the driver who happily took us the 7 blocks to the parked bus. I got my iPod and he would not accept a tip for the inconvenience, but said we could get him a coffee the next time we saw him in Sarande. Our next stop was McDonalds, now I have found American’s running to American restaurants while traveling abroad to be kinda sad, I mean why travel if you’re just going to eat where you could eat at home. That being said, we don’t live in America so we happily downed our cheeseburgers at 6am and got a McMuffin to go.

Several of the Athenian dogs picked up the sent of my McMuffin and followed me all the way to the airport bus! Sad little puppy faces or realizing that there was a man urinating behind me as I ate it could not separate me from my Sausage McMuffin.

We got to Rome around 5:00pm and met up with my parents for dinner and then took a short metro ride to see the Spanish Steps and the Trevi fountain, both very beautiful at night. The next day we went to see the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and a lot of other stuff that we did not know the names of. We did our best to see as much as we could before we drove the three hours to Pompeii. The weather had cleared up and provided us a great evening to see the modern city and the cathedral. The next day we walked from our hotel to the ruins of Pompeii. Pompeii was a city of 20,000 people and a very important city in the Roman Empire, until August 24th, 79AD at 12 pm when Mt. Vesuvius completely covered the town in 30 feet of volcanic ash, killing all those who did not heed the mountain’s warnings the days prior. The ash completely preserved the town from the graffiti to the people found hiding under their stairs. Archeologists as they dug down and found remains, would fill the hole with plaster, thus giving them the form of the person in their last moments. Many of the houses had lavish gardens, sculptures and many mosaics of dogs. Today, you can adopt a Pompeian dog, they have several that they let run around the ruins as the unofficial tour guides. Many of the houses where named by what was found inside of them, like the house of the faun, which had a statue of a faun, but it makes you wonder what your house might be called 2000 years from now if it were covered in volcanic ash. I think ours might be the apartment of the really old stove that won’t let you bake and use the burners at the same time.

First settled in 600 BC, Pompeii was quite a town by 79AD, with running water, and central heat in the nicer homes. Pompeii also had 40 bakeries, 30 brothels, and 130 bars, hotels and restaurants. Since much of the waste ended up in the streets, they designed a way to flood the streets to clean them, and even put in stepping stones so pedestrians crossing the street would not get their sandals wet and would allow for carts, all with a standard axles base to pass. Since so much rubble and ash covered the city it was never built over.



After a day at Pompeii we head for the town of Amalfi, which was only about 1 hour south of Pompeii. The guided book said it would be a “white knuckle ride” with hair pin turns and almost every distraction you can imagine. While driving on what seems like a one lane road, you have to watch for locals passing you, tour buses negotiating the turns, police officers standing on the curbs, hitch hikers and locals walking on the roads, and sheep blocking the road. Not to mention the unbelievable views of the coast, the towns and the lemon groves. Lauren and my mom closed their eyes for much of the descent while my dad and I took it all in and I did my best to warn him of oncoming hurdles. We made it to the town to Amalfi only to find out that our hotel room had been given away but that an apartment overlooking the sea and the town square had been made available to us. The apartment was great, you just had to get up the 116 steps to get to it. But all that work was rewarded with a spectacular view and a great older Italian couple (the owners of the apt) that welcomed us with espresso and homemade doughnuts.



The weather was a bit rainy and windy and even some hail for our stay in Amalfi, but we did get to see a lot of the town, eat some great food, try some local limoncello, and go to a new year’s day concert with an international violinist in the cathedral. The high point though was dinner New Year’s Eve. We went to a little family owned restaurant and sat down to what became an 8 course four hour feast. I think by the end we were insulting our hosts because we could no longer eat everything they were brining out. As I remember it, (there were 4 bottles of wine) antipasti and cheese plate, lentils (we were told the are a tradition and the more you eat the more money you will make in the new year), steamed mussels and clams, Cauliflower and citrus salad, pork sautéed in apples, fresh mozzarella and ham stuffed cannelloni, anchovy fettuccini, grilled sea bass and then dessert. We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant around 11:45 giving us 15 minutes to walk up the 116 steps to the our roof top apartment to take in the fireworks with our host family, who brought us champagne.

On New Year’s day we had wanted to try to see some of the other towns along the coast but the weather was not great and we were happy to just walk around Amalfi, even though that meant more stairs. We must have climbed at least 2,000 stairs in the two days we were there. While many of the guide books do not recommend Amalfi and look upon other coastal towns more favorably, we really enjoyed our stay there.

We headed back to Rome for one final day with my parents, in which we went to the Vatican museum to see the Sistine Chapel but did not quite make it through the entire 4 miles of displays although it felt like we did. We also went to see St. Peter’s basilica, which is the holiest site in all of Christendom. We did not see the Pope and no that was not Lauren seen jumping the barricade and pulling him to the ground. I just wanted to clear that up incase there were any questions. The next day we sadly said goodbye to my parents as they moved on to Germany to see their new Granddaughter, born on December 26, Eibhleann Delaney Stoltenberg Muse. Quite a name for quite a cutie.

Lauren and I had one more day in Rome. We had great weather to see some of the churches and piazzas, try some more roman delights, and even found a Chinese place for dinner. We walked almost all of ancient Rome and got some great pictures of St. Peter’s and other churches, the Colosseum and the Tiber River. The next day was a bus ride to the airport, a flight to Athens, a bus ride to the metro to the bus station for our fun 10 hour night bus back to Albania. We did have time for dinner in Athens where we spent what was left of our Euros on wine and a meat plate, consisting of sausage, chicken, steak, Greek meatballs, cheese and some salad underneath it all. The restaurant was located in the Plaka district of Athens, so we had a great view of the Acropolis as we ate under heat lamps outside. With one last stop at McDonalds for a milk shake and a stop at a local bakery for our favorite Greek pastry bougatsa, we reluctantly headed back to Sarande. We had such a wonderful time with my parents and are every so grateful for all their generosity in putting together this trip, we really wish we could have spent more time with them.

Now back in Sarande, Lauren has started back at the university and I was told that my office is on vacation till next week. So not much as changed in 2010, but hopefully it will. A very Happy New Year to you all!