Third Day of School and Pompeii

Well, today was our third day of school. This is the same time we started last year. We still get off from the Friday before Thanksgiving until after the first of the year. And we finish up by the middle of April. This is bittersweet for me. I absolutely love homeschooling my boys and being home with them everyday. Coming into the school room and closing the door (to keep the dog in) feels so right to me. We're in our special room, just the 3 of us and all's right with the world. But this is the last year I'll be homeschooling my Logan. He's a senior!! No one asked me if growing up was OK. It was never part of the plan!! At least I'll still have 3 more years with my Kelby. At the end of the year we'll have a graduation blow-out at home for Logan. There will be a lot of preparation for this throughout the year. I have some very special things I want to knit for him. Plus, I'd love to get him a new guitar.

On to Pompeii...Pompeii was our last big outing in Italy. It was on Saturday before we left early Monday morning. Let me go back to the day I found out Pompeii was one of our destinations. We had gotten a list of places and I was reading throught the list. When I came to Pompeii I screamed like I was at a Rick Springfield concert!!! I have just found the whole story of Pompeii so fascinating - sad, but fascinating. I had an idea of what I thought it would look like. I figured everything would be totally flattened. Just rubble lying around everywhere. It was still very exciting to me. Our trip up there was a lot of fun. We had bus ride from Rome to Pompeii that ws 150 miles. That trip was a lot of fun. For several days we had been making playlists on our Zunes and iPods and they were being played on the bus's stereo system. Logan took mine up front. It started off being down too low so no one heard my first song - the best song ever - "Jessie's Girl"!!! In a few minutes "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles came on and everyone wanted it turned up and started singing at the top of their voices. The boys next to me, Kent and Jeremy, started acting crazy!! They had us laughing our heads off!! Here's are 2 videos:
Kent and Jeremy getting down to Love Song on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
More Kent and Jeremy getting down to Love Song on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
I told you, these were the best people!! So much fun!! I am so ready to go on another trip with this exact same group!! (like that could ever happen)
Anyway, before we went on our tour of Pompeii we ate lunch. It was some of the best pizza I've ever eaten!! It was big (and not too cheap) so I bought one to split with Logan. I cut out a slice and gave him the rest. The plan was to let him eat all he wanted and I would eat what was left. Guess what?? There wasn't any left!! Mike practically forced me to eat some of his. I don't know if he was really full or if he felt sorry for me!! But I ate a slice of his, too!!
All week there had been talk about how this was going to be the hottest day of all!! I was really dreading that part. It turned out not to be as bad as I expected. I don't know if it was because I was so excited or if it was a bit cooler than expected. (cooler - not hotter than any other day)
Our tour guide was an older man who had been giving tours in Pompeii for several years. The really neat thing about him, aside from his outstanding personality, was that he had worked on a dig in Pompeii for a year in the late 50's. He knew what he was talking about!!! I was completely surprised at how much is still standing!!! Temples, stores, a bakery, houses, even the whore house!! The first big thing we saw was the Temple of Apollo.

Apollo shooting arrows

Diana facing Apollo
The next big thing we saw that day was a warehouse-type building where they store items as they are excavated. About 30% of Pompeii is still buried. This building had a lot of pottery, tables, statues, and other decorative items. There were also plaster casts of people and animals who died when the volcano erupted. The most interesting were a 17 year old pregnant girl who was lying on her stomach to protect her unborn baby:

And a dog that was tied to a wall and it balled up to protect itself:

As we walked along the cobblestone streets (one of the most difficult places to walk) there were so many small things to see that really stuck in my mind. For example, we saw some piece of broken marble. This is one that our tour guide referred to as the first Lego:

Pompeii was a very advanced city. They had running water. Unfortunately, the water ran through lead pipes. They had baths - cold. hot, and steam. I don't know how they accomplished that. We got to walk through the baths. In the first bath we came across a dog asleep on the floor. There are dogs all over Pompeii. Apparently these homeless dogs come in to Pompeii every morning and leave every night. One poor dog got up and walked off and he was SOOOOO skinny!! It made you want to cry! One of the next things we saw was a house. There was an opening where the front door used to be. There are partial walls, a fountain:

There was even a garden area. The houses in Pompeii apparently had up to 60 rooms in them. As we were leaving this house there were several dog asleep against the wall. Tempestt had a reputation for sleeping every time she sat down on the bus. They told her to sit down with the dogs and pretend she was asleep:


The next big thing we went through was the red light district. At the beginning and the end of the district were phallic symbols - one on a wall and one on the street. We actually walked through the whore house. There were several rooms. On the wall outside each room was a painting. These paintings were VERY graphic that showed what each girl's "specialty" was. I was amazed at how graphic it was and how the paintings were still so clear. After this we were headed for the Temple of Jupiter. It was a big open area. It was very attractive. There were lots of marble columns. There were columns on the ground and columns on top of those. This had been two stories.

This was basically the end of our tour. And my description is very abbreviated. While we were standing in Jupiter's Temple we got to visit with our tour guide. He told us about when he was working on the dig almost 50 years ago. They had found a metal box. They had a special oil they put on the hinges so that the boxes wouldn't fall apart. When they opened the box it was full of coins!!!! He asked his foreman if he could have one for a memento. He was told that it all belonged to the Italian government. At the end of his year his foreman came up to him and told him again that he couldn't give him a coin, but he had gift for him. They had uncovered a red cameo of a Roman soldier's head. He had it mounted in a ring. I was so excited that I wanted to squeal!!!!

It was in the the Temple of Jupiter that we got several group shots...It was then that I began to realize how much I was going to miss everyone. There were 3 girls that stayed together (2 of them had strep) and they had were from Alabama. I realized I was going to miss hearing them talk and laugh, and their cute accents.

Allison, Jennifer, and Emily. They were so sweet, despite their strep throat. They laughed and talked and were so sweet to everyone. Jennifer is getting married in November. I certainly wish I could see them on a regular basis.
In my next post I'll tell a bit more about our group.
Our tour guide told us that there were actually 3 different tours of Pompeii. I was more than willing to stay and go through the other two. Despite the heat and cobblestone streets, I could have stayed in Pompeii ALL day!!
After we left Pompeii we went to a shop that made cameos. We got to watch a demonstration of a cameo being made. The old man that did the demonstration had been making them for over 50 years. His hands were distorted from the work and the way he holds his tools. The cameos were beautiful and I found a couple I would loved to have owned.
That night we ended up back in Rome at another restaurant. This was such a cute little restaurant. I can't remember what we ate, but I do remember our waiter. He was absolutely hysterical. He started picking at the kids. He fed several of them including Logan. For some reason I was having a hard time getting pictures. Here is one of him next to Logan after feeding him one bite and waiting to feed him another:

Tomorrow I will post about our last day in Rome and in Italy.

Since I last posted I've done a good bit of knitting. I did a pair of socks for my Olympic knitting. I started them the day of the Opening Ceremony and finished them the night before the Closing Ceremony.

I think I'll save the other things I've been working on for another day. Tomorrow I will finish up our Italy trip.
Prayers for all of us that are in the path of Hurrican Ike!! I pray that is weakens and turns from the Texas coast!

Knit On and More Later!!
Shama D