Adventure is Out There: Some Swiss, Some Italian Style

June 14, 2014

We finally got to sleep in somewhat! We got to sleep until 9! Wuuuudup. But when I woke up, I felt like I had been thrown in front of a train. My entire body was sore from the uphill hike the day before. And it was still sore from kayaking and the other hike! My body is such a wimp. 

While we were packing up our stuff, Elia and Yvonne's 3 year old was literally beating us up. It was an unfair fight. She kept grabbing my nose with her fingernails and twisting her hand and she was biting us and punching our faces and hitting us. What on earth do you do when a child who doesn't know English and you barely know their family starts doing that?! I kept trying to hold her back but then she would scream and her mom already didn't like us much so I had no idea what to do. We just packed up as fast as we could and got the crap outa there! 

We went to Coop to get breakfast and I had my last Dr Pepper for a while because apparently they don't have it in Australia. Switzerland Dr Pepper tastes like cherry coke though so it's really not great. Then we got on a train to Spiez. We had like 2 hours until our next train so we walked around town but our backpacks were breaking our very sore backs so we went back to the train station. We made up a few games with a crumbled up piece of paper. We played basketball. We played catch. We played throw the piece of paper around the giant column and try to catch it. We played throw it over the hanging lights from the ceiling. It was such fun! Ha Ashlyn and I were playing and Kinsey didn't join until the throw it over the light game. The first thing she does is throw the paper onto the light and it gets stuck up there. She really ruined the games for us. We laughed so hard though haha the one time she touches the ball, she ends the game ha so we made another one and then Ashlyn accidentally threw it onto another light and got it stuck. So we made another one and when our platform number finally came up, I just threw it on a light so I could fit in. 

While we waited for our train at the platform, we talked to a couple from Canada that absolutely LOVED the F word. Seriously like every other word was the F word. They were cool though. They travel a ton. Eventually our train came. 

On our train to Milan, our seats were taken so instead of kicking them out, we sat somewhere else. After a few stops, an Indian family came on and we were in their seats. We explained that our seats were taken so we sat there and the dad just started yelling at us. "No no no we reserved these seats, I don't care if your seats are taken, get out, move". We were like ok relax! So we moved. Gosh people suck. We had a bit of a wait in Milan and my eye had been hurting for a while, there had been a hair and an eyelash in it earlier, and I think I cut it or something because it cried for the rest of the day. It got all swollen and red and itchy. I was having the worst luck with body reactions. Hives, red eye, sore muscles, gahhh I'm a mess. Then we got on a train to Naples, where the mafia supposedly is. Everyone was warning us about Naples. Watch your bags they said. Don't be out at night they said. So of course when we got to Naples it was night. We all had a prayer in our hearts that we would be fine while trying to find our hotel. 

When we were almost to Naples, I asked the man sitting next to me if we could use his phone to find our hotel on his maps. It wasn't loading so when we pulled into the station, he said he would help us find it. So he led us down a road that was pretty busy, it had hotels and restaurants all down it and I felt fine up until that point. Then the man asked some random man on the street where it was and they were speaking in a different language (not Italian) and then the random man from the street joined us. That was when I started feeling anxious. While we were walking, they were conversing up a storm. So we walked around the street and we started walking down the street parallel to the one we were just on and heading back towards the train station. Then the two men asked one of the workers at a restaurant where the hotel was and he pointed down the road so finally we found it and the two men came in with us to check in. I just wanted to get through check in so they would leave. Ashlyn and Kinsey were both trying to talk to me but I had my mind set on getting through check in and getting them out so I kinda snapped at Ashlyn and Kinsey. While we were checking in, the guy from the train asked if they had any single rooms available. I started freaking out. The man at the front desk didn't understand English very well so after we checked in, the train man gave up trying to get a room and he told us not to go out on the streets because it wasn't safe and he gave us his phone number and told us to call him if we had any problems. Then right before he left, him and the man we found on the street exchanged numbers. So sketchy!!! So we went up to our room and it was like a horror film. The light flashed on and it was like the scary movie scene where they're in an operating room and the light is fluorescent and there's just a bed in the middle of the room. That was our hotel room. 

We were all so anxious. Kinsey and Ashlyn both snapped at me and told me to never do that again because it was freakin sketchy! I honestly thought asking the man on the train was the smartest and safest option over asking some random person on the street. Because it was 11 at night and I didn't know if we would be able to find wifi so I asked him. So I went down to the front desk and asked if we could switch rooms but the guy didn't understand me so I had to write it down and he still didn't understand me so eventually I gave up and went upstairs in the hallway and tried FaceTiming Jeff but he didn't answer and while I was trying to  FaceTime Jeff, Ashlyn came out and said we should switch hotels. I completely agreed. So we left and walked back to where we had first started walking by the train station and we found another hotel. The man at the reception desk was incredible. We didn't have any Euro cash on us, I only had francs from Switzerland, and he said we could pay the next day. So we went up to our room and I was just so embarrassed that I had put us in that situation that I just laid down and didn't talk. 

I fell asleep immediately but woke up an hour later to church music. Kinsey and Ashlyn couldn't sleep and so I got up and went out in the hall and FaceTimed my mother and Jeff and told them what had happened. Jeff calmed me down a lot, I was feeling so anxious! My mom handled it well. She just asked what I could've done differently but I honestly don't know how I would've handled it differently. I thought that was the safest option. But I was so grateful for the Spirit. We all felt it. We all knew we had to get out of there. God was definitely looking out for us that night and I'm super glad we were all able to feel it. 

After talking to them, I went to bed. 

June 15, 2014

The next morning was kinda awkward between all of us so during breakfast, we were pretty quiet. But after, we finally talked about the night before. I told them I was sorry but that I thought it was the safest option and we all were super grateful and such. And then we went to our old hotel so that our Mt Vesuvius tour guide could come pick us up! 

Our tour guide came and picked us up in a giant van and it was full of people. We drove to Pompeii and went to the ruins of the old gladiator community. It was CRAZY seeing what the volcano had done to that community. There were statues of people who had literally been frozen in time because of the lava. They were actual people!!!! It was nuts!! We could see the decaying bone in the statues! 

We learned so much about the gladiators. They were freakin horn dogs!! They used penises as a sign of good luck and as pointers on how to find the brothels. All they did was have sex!! In the brothels, they have very suggestive paintings of sex positions and the beds they used were still there. Completely made of stone. How uncomfortable! They used goat intestines as condoms and they used wool and vinegar for the girls! So gross. 

We also learned they put marble in the roads and call it cat eyes because it gives light at night. It was pretty cool seeing everything. We saw their homes, the shops, their public square, their temple, their bath houses, their brothels, everything. After seeing the ruins, we drove to Mt Vesuvius and hiked up. We hiked an active volcano!! At the top, you can look down into the crater and there is steam coming out of a few spots in the crater! Crazy. 

While we were up top, we saw a few rocks that looked like geodes so we started collecting the rocks that looked that way and we were gonna smash them later. Ashlyn climbed over the rope to grab one at one point and a man walked past and said "that's not smart" haha he definitely wanted us to hear him. Haha 

Our tour guide wanted us back at the bottom at 4 so after collecting rocks we looked at our watches and it was 3:47 so we ran down the volcano. Ha Ashlyn wanted to buy a plaque down at the bottom so the van ended up waiting on us ha whoops. Then we drove back to Naples and got dropped off at our old hotel. We headed directly to the train station and got train tickets for Rome. While we were waiting for our train, we asked everyone we could if we could use their phone so we could find our next hotel in Rome. People are so rude!! Eventually a guy let us use his but he didn't speak English and so he just called our hotel for us ha so we found out we had to get on the metro when we got to Rome. So we took the train to Rome and got on the metro. We went seven stops like the man at the hotel said to and we got off. We started walking and we ran into an American family and we asked if they knew where our hotel was and they luckily had a map. She pointed out where the street was that we needed to go to and said to walk around the Vatican the long way so we could be on lit streets. So we walked around the entire Vatican and eventually we found the street our hotel was on but we were at 83 and we had to walk to 383. After what seemed like 37 years, we arrived at our hotel. And we passed out. 

June 16, 2014

We decided to just sleep until we woke up because this day was going to be our chill day. So we slept and then we had the breakfast they provided. European countries love corn flakes and pastries. That is always the free breakfast at hotels. What happened to waffle makers?? Where are the eggs and bacon?! Fetch, America is amazing about food. Big portions, free refills, ahhh I miss that! 

After breakfast, we showered and went to find wifi. We stopped at this Red Cup Cafe and we used their wifi. Ashlyn went over in the corner to FaceTime her mom and her and Kinsey's moms were freaking out because we hadn't had wifi for a while. Ha so Kinsey FaceTimed her mother and it was the middle of the night in Utah so I didn't bother (sorry mom!). After a while, Ashlyn walked over to us and she was crying. I thought she was homesick but she told us that her grandpa had passed away the day before :( it was awful. 

So we came back to the hotel and just kinda sat there. So sad :( then we went to find food and came back to the hotel and tried to smash the geodes using a knife and one of the bigger geodes and we got the smaller ones but not the bigger ones and then Ashlyn gathered up her stuff and we walked her to the metro station. 

On the way to the metro, we had to discard of the knife so we thought it would be funny to put it in the hand of one of the mannequins we passed so I tried putting it in one of their hands and it was almost in but then the arm broke off and the store owner came out and started getting mad in Italian and putting the arm back and I had grabbed the knife before she saw it and we walked off hahaha 

Then we said bye to Ashlyn and on our back up, we had to go up the longest escalator I've ever seen and while we were walking there, we saw this lady trying as hard as she could to go up the down escalator. She looked so confused as to why she couldn't get up!! Then she looked to the side and kinda smacked her head like "duh" and went up the up escalator. HahahahHahahahaha Kins and I were DYING!!!!! It was hilarious!!!! 

The first thing we did was get gelato and sat on the streets people watching. It's prime in Italy. Then we went back to the hotel and we talked for a while and we were asleep by 7pm.