A Glimpse of Pompeii
One of the first places we visited on this Sumner-Smith/Schnepf family vacation extravaganza, Pompeii remained one of the absolute highlights of the trip. I never knew -- imagined -- that it was so massive (in two hours we only saw a tiny fraction of the town, and there's about a quarter still to be excavated), or that so much of the place remained unbroken, untouched, and as undamaged as something can be when surviving almost 2000 years in ash and rock.
But, as I spent the day at the Renn Faire in Hamilton, and as the jet lag delay has me believing that it is far past time to be asleep, in lieu of real content here's a picture of me in a Pompeiian back alley:
That look on my face, that dazed and incredulous smile? Yep, stayed plastered there the entire time.
Just the FactsThe actual time: 6:31 PM
The time it feels like: 12:30 AM
Hours of sleep in last two days: way, way too fewCountries (and other independent states) visited: Italy, Greece, France, Monaco, Vatican City, Germany, Britain
Highlights: Pompeii! Rome! Mykonos! Fancy cruise ship! Crazy German relatives! Incredible food!
Trip summary: Best. Vacation. Ever.
Pictures to follow. You know ... sometime. In the mean time, I'm just happy to be home.
Let the trip ... begin!!It's quite ridiculous that when I had whole days to spend sitting at the computer to write blog entries if I so wanted, I did just about anything but. And yet now, rushing around madly trying to pack and buy things and organize and drive here and there and say goodbye to people, etc., etc., my brain says to me, "Oh! Here's a great blog idea about Kelly Link's new collection!" and "You should tell people about the crazy novel progress" and "You know, if you linked to that article ..." And so on.
Ah, time; so elusive, so lovely, so easy to generalize about in meaningless ways.
So: tomorrow I'm catching a flight to Frankfurt, and then another one to Rome, and shortly thereafter I'm getting on a ship. I'm going to visit parts of Greece, and the ocean, and then Rome again; and then up to Germany for a while. I can type this and almost believe it. This trip has been the Big Thing of the year, a body around which so many other things have orbited, and now it's tomorrow. How very odd.
I have packed (mostly) and am (mostly) prepared. I have spent many hours planning what to bring, what to leave, and (most importantly) which books to bring to maximize reading enjoyment and minimize bulk, all without running out of things to read.
I'll probably be without internet access much if not all of the next three weeks, yet if I do find some free time and connectivity, I'll try to post something pithy and exciting. If not, please just imagine me touring around, acting both overwhelmed and giddy, making a fool of myself as I try to speak in not one but three languages in which I know no more than a handful of words and taking lots of pictures. Good times.
Later, all!
