Pompei

As I was looking through my posts from this month, I realized that I completely skipped over our trip to Pompei! We went to Pompei earlier this month with Jean, Ashleigh, and Dan and even though it was cold and raining allllll day, we still had a great time! Pompei is only about a 35 min drive from our house...how did we get so lucky to be living here?! We took a private tour and learned so much about this amazing city; I was suprised how huge it is and I can't wait to go back with my parents next month and see some of the other parts we didn't see before.

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This is the original entrance to the city and when you get up close, you can see where the massive wooden door used to be and there are still wagon tracks!

The remaining part of one of the market places and the building in the far back is where judicial hearings used to be held. Inside one of the bath houses- this pool would be filled up with warm water that was heated through steam pipes. The bath houses are very well preserved and there are still frescoes on the walls and you can see the plumbing, too! The main marketplace...can you tell from this picture how awful the weather was??? This was one of the highlights for me- in my Latin class in high school, we had this poster up on the wall! Cave Canem- Beware of the Dog. It's so remarkable- it's the entrance to one of the houses as you walk down the road and if our tour guide hadn't pointed it out, I probably would've missed it completely (it's also dirtier than I thought it would be). Looking down one of the roads of Pompei- these were mostly residential buildings. This is pretty x-rated...it's one of the many frescoes from one of the popular...ummm...brothels is a nice way to put it. There's one of these paintings over each of the rooms...I guess in case they didn't know what to do there.... One of the rooms of the brothel...yep that's a stone bed...very sanitary I guess but I imagine they were quite uncomfortable! Remains of the bakery. Those two big things in the middle is what the wheat was ground in to make flour. One of the remaining frescoes and there's a plaster cast of a body in the glass case.

On a side note, Karl, our baby boy, and I are doing well. Karl is on a trip for work and will be home soon and we're still trying to come up with some good baby names...we're always taking suggestions! We're finally having some nice weather in Italy and it hasn't even rained the past two days! My parents are coming in about a week and a half, so we're busy getting ready for their visit. Also, I'm planning on making a trip to the states at the end of April, so I hope I get to see a lot of you while I'm home for about two weeks. Thanks again for all the great comments you have been leaving!