The Pompeii Sandwich

Mount Vesuvius 

I woke up earlier than everyone else and decided to head down to breakfast. I saw the two NYU girls and decided to chat with them until my group joined me for the morning.

Pompeii Bathrooms

I was excited to see Pompeii today because unlike the Baths of Caracalla, you can walk in and out of the buildings. One can really get a sense of what ancient life was like. After breakfast we met our "Alec Baldwin" look-a-like tour guide. Such good looking man. He took us through the highlights of the cite. He did mention that to this day, much of the cite is still being discovered. The reason why much of the area was not flattened by the volcano is because the architecture saved the buildings. The vaulted ceiling held the wait of the ash and did not collapse upon itself. Thank God for Roman engineering. Mr. Alec Baldwin stated that around 3,000 citizens were killed. Many more could have died. However, many people left during the hours between the explosion and the gas that emanated from the volcano.
    One of the oddest places we walked past were the public toilets. Just picture a board running across the prongs that stick out here. Picture a couple people sitting down to have the chat while they do their business. Now that isn't that weird. What I thought was weird was that there was a communal sponge to wipe your butt. Ewww. That is how diseases are spread. The funny thing is that the saying wipe with your left and shake with your right also came from Pompeii.
      Another crazy thing about Pompeii is the "red light district" or the translation of the Wolves Quarter in Italian. The whores were taxed like any other person. The picture to the side here shows the sex position that the whore specialized in. When the men would come into the house, the lady would stand below the position that she was good at. The men would glance up at the photo. If he liked that position then he would offer a price and they would get to work. One of the strangest positions is called the Pompeii sandwich. I won't get into details but holy crap....I don't know what to think about these ancients.

     Many of these human plaster cast were creepy to view. A hollow spot was discovered and someone decided to fill it with plaster to see what came of the spot. Many of these cast contain the human bones and remains of the person who died. The one here is a woman who is pregnant. She is wearing the "pregnancy" belt just below her breast area to hide her pregnancy. The majority of the casts and artifacts from Pompeii are on exhibit in the museum in Naples. We did not get to visit the museum but I have been told it is a must for anyone who is visiting the area.
     After our tour of Pompeii we headed over to a maker of Limoncello. Limoncello is a digestivo drank after meals to help digest the food. Limoncello is made from an 80 proof or higher alcohol flavoured with lemon peels. This mix can sit for around a month so that the lemon peels can infuse the alcohol properly. Then, a whole lot of sugar is added. We tested three different flavours: chocolate, cream and regular. Many of us bought bottles to bring back with us to America. I ended up having a sandwich and me and a few of the girls headed back because we wanted to travel over to the island of Capri.