The Ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis
I posted about Rome six days ago, and at the time promised to go on endlessly about our subsequent visits to the sites that were destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 AD, or as the secularists say, 79 CE. Since I'm a Latin guy though, I'm sticking with AD.
So, here goes. First there was a train ride from Rome to Naples, then a change for Pompeii. We had decided to stay in Pompeii, instead of Naples, for a couple of reasons. Number one is that Naples is pretty much of a shit hole, and I can't remember the second one.
On Journalism and Bullfights in Madrid
Madrileños, unlike most denizens of big cities, are genuinely friendly and eager to talk about their city, Spain, and almost anything else you want to discuss. Our first night here, we had a discussion about journalism and its position as a profession in Spanish society over beers and a plate of olives at an outdoor cafe in the Plaza Mayor with a young man named José Angel. José Angel’s girlfriend is a journalist and he’s a carpenter, so he allowed as there was some friction with her parents over his “station” in life. I assured him that their positions would probably be reversed if he came to the United States and he’d be welcome to visit us anytime the in-laws got to be too much.
Valparaíso and So Forth
Kris and I went for the weekend in Valparaíso and stayed for the rain.
The three month long drought in Chile broke all over us last weekend. We took a two-hour bus trip to Valpo on Friday even though we'd been warned that the weather wasn't going to cooperate. I don't know why we didn't just postpone until the week. It's not like we have jobs or anything that makes us note the difference between weekends and weekdays, but, at least one of us is really stubborn.
A Few Days in Medellin, Colombia
When I told an Ecuadorian friend that I was going to Medellín, Colombia for a week, she told me that she would never go to Medellín, because, “I'm afraid.”