Pompeii

  

Well, the days here have finally started to blur one into another, and we'd been cruising less than 24 hours.  Of course, travel to Chicago, layover 36 hours, travel to Italy, layover for 48 hours, then get onboard ship while 11 time zones away makes me a tired bunny (don't ask!).

Wayne and I fell asleep very quickly our first night onboard, and to our great amazement, we slept until 7 a.m.  That NEVER happens!  So, breakfast in the suite, 3.5 miles walking on deck (you would not believe the number of people just standing and talking on the jogging/running track), followed by a quick shower and a trip down to the MacMania conference.  The session revolved around the basics of taking and editing good digital photographs, and was a good basic class.  The best part; however, was the review of Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac.  The things you can do with that program!!!

Lunch was a slice of pizza, and then we headed off to Pompeii with our tour guide.  Our first stop was in Herculenium at the cameo factory.  We got to see how they were made, see one being made, and then were afforded the opportunity to shop for 20 minutes.  I would have loved to have purchased one bracelet in particular, but it cost about 2000 Euro.  That's a big no-go!

      

Then on to Pompeii.  Our tour guide was a retired archeologist who had been part of the many excavations of Pompeii, covered by ash and lava since the most famous eruption in August 79 A.D. (at 1 pm, mind you, as our guide told us).

  

The people in the town were caught unaware, and were largely killed by poisonous gases.  Then ash fell, lava flowed, and a town was covered.  The excavation of the town revealed a very modern area, supposedly guarded by Venus (apparently the goddess of love inspired many sex shops -- of the literal, brothel type), where there was an arena, a town shopping area, public baths, what would have been lovely homes.  

   

  

And, in the general merchant sales areas, there were three bodies and a chained dog shown.  The excavators came up with a methodology of injecting areas with a solution to dissolve the ash around the dead, and allowed forms to be made of those cavities.  In one aspect, it is horrifying to think of pregnant women, chained dogs and children dying through inhaling the pre-eruption gases; however, at least it was quick and without feeling molten lava...

It was an amazing journey back in time, and one that I really appreciated.  

 

Then it was back to the ship to hear David Pogue’s discussion on the iPhone.  I was a little disappointed, as all of his tricks, tips and favorite applications were things that I either already knew, used or had stopped using.

:(

Then to dinner with Ivan and Sue again.  Very funny side note -- for the past two nights, Ivan and I have ordered the same dinner, and had the same lunch (although lunches not spent together).  I laughed as he ordered the same dinner last night, and again as he pawned his vegetables off on his wife (I do the same to Wayne).  I pointed it out to him, Sue and Wayne.  Then the discussion turned to pizza -- turns out that Ivan grew up and went to school on Long Island!  How funny and small the world is.  Of course, he was in Nassau county, not Suffolk.

Anyway, good day, leaving us looking forward to the next.

Ciao!

p.s.  Promise to edit and add photos later -- bandwidth challenges abound here