A busy week indeed

Hello folks! I know I just wrote last week, but the last week or so has been out of this world. Thank you so much to everyone who wrote back so quickly! I hope to answer you e-mails personally in the near future, but I will have to work at it. Thanks for your patience!I have had a busy week of mid terms and partaying in Southern Italy. My midterms went fine, but I am recovering from a bit of a cold. I am one of the lucky ones who had the flu before I came; unfortunately, about 75% of Italians have now caught a nasty 10 day strain of the flu. Bad news. Oh well, I'm doing a-ok. Especially following a three day jaunt to the Italian south.Last Friday we left Cortona at about 7:15am and began a ridiculously long train ride to Vico Equense, just south of Naples on the Amalfi Coast(!). We have all gotten quite used to train travel, though, and no one got lost in train transfers in Rome and Naples. The ride on the Circumvesuviana (the metro that runs around the Mount Vesuvious area) was a blast. There were creepy pick pockets and numerous greasy old men, but the trip went well and both my purse and my butt went unpinched.Naples was a sad place, where oranges and lemons grow on trees in the shadow of the impoverished buildings and people of Southern Italy. I love Cortona, but I have to keep in mind that it is one of the wealthiest areas in Italy; not all are so lucky.Vico Equense was also touched by poverty, though it felt warmer in spirit than Naples itself. In Vico, we discovered a creamery that had the best gelati I have had the pleasure of eating. We also discovered the best pizza in the world (they call themselves a university of pizza) which, some of you young men in the crowd will appreciate, was sold by the metre. As a group, we consumed 4 1/2 metres of pizza in our three day stay. Yummy. Tuscany really cannot compete in the food market: the region of Campagnia has the best food I have had.Thanks to a personal connection, we were put up at the Hotel Oriente (http://www.hoteloriente.it/italiano/hotel.htm). I would describe it, but you should really just check out the website. Most of us were reduced to giggles when we realised where we would get to spend our nights. Every room had its own luxuries; ours had a balcony, a fairly decent, but not the best, view, and an en suite jacuzzi. I think we did fairly well. We slept soundly in the first truly warm room that I have stayed in since my arrival. It was pure bliss.On Saturday, we headed out early to Pompeii to check out the site. It was alright, but a bit overdone. There was a lot to see (it was, after all, an entire city), but I am certainly glad to see such a place. The level of preservation is eerie, though all of the most impressive murals, mosaics and statues have been shipped to the museum in Naples.Oplontis, on the other hand, blew me away. It is a grand villa that was preserved under lava from the same eruption that buried Pompeii in ash. My attention was concentrated properly as we walked from room to room throughout the ginormous estate. The paintings were absolutely stunning and the doors, in some places, were still hung. It gave a rather eerie feeling, to tell you the truth.Tired from our walking, we headed back to Vico and enjoyed another night of gelato, pizza and the potent Limoncello.On Sunday, we awoke to savour our last day in Southern Italy, and the day, indeed, delivered. The sun shone brightly as we boarded our bus that would take us from Vico south to an area we have studied extensively in one of our classes, Paestum. It is a small town/city or something of the sort, that was "founded" by the Greeks in the 6th century BC, was later taken over by the local group, the Lucanians, and then, as all towns in Italy, succumbed to Roman rule. The site contained the remains of three Greek temples, numerous Roman houses and seemingly endless fooferah that we couldn't decipher. We had a blast in the sun, and ate yet another tonne or so of gelato.On our way home, we stopped briefly in Sorento, a small city also on the Amalfi coast that I would like to spend some more time in. For now, the hour we spent will do.We returned home late Sunday night and I have been doing homework ever since (excepting a quick break to play in Martedi Grassi last night). I am all done with the midterm-ish stuff now and am looking forward to a peaceful weekend in Cortona. Or maybe I will go to the last day of Carnevale in Foiano. We shall see.I hope you are all well and I will indeed begin to answer those e-mails in the next few days.

All the best,

Joanne