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Captains log 15/06/13 the long journey to Greece begins today. The tour song every morning is "chasing the sun" by some s***ty boy band but it gets me gooey inside now, and let me a sure-you, we've been chasing and we've caught that bad boy. Feeling very pink and slightly like my skin has been put on a torture rack and stretched and stretched. We get ready and have a quick breakfast. Average, I'm over Ham and cheese in the morning. We head down and everyone is looking very pink and very rough from their big night in the town, where they got into some fisty cuffs with the locals. None was hurt though but that took over most of the morning talk. Bella assuring me, she's glad I wasn't there to get "involved". We went into Sorrento for a quick shop and walk around, we brought some scorpa cards and am keen for some scorpa battles on a soon to be 24 hours of bus, and ferry traveling. We settled in for some of that famous Italian coffee. Again yet to have a good one, we just can't win. I think they use old school ww2 flamethrower's to heat the milk. I could have branded someone with it. A quick sandwich and on the bus to Pompeii. The ancient city that was destroyed thanks to old mate MT Versuvious. We settle in for lunch first, s***ty buffet style food. There's only 1 place to eat there and it's a mix between prison gruel and school cafeteria, it was s*** and expensive. Mid way though lunch Liz runs in, in a panic and tells everyone that the ferry people just called and pushed our ferry forward to 7 instead of 11, the race is on. We rush to the tour and get started. Pompeii was a Ancient Greek / Ancient Roman city. The Greeks first settling it in 800 bc and then being re-conquered by the Romans in 100 bc, before being completely destroyed by the volcano. In 20 seconds the volcano exploded but not with lava, with 400 degree ash that destroyed everything where it was. Houses, people, animals. Pushed for time we only did a few places, the concert hall, the brothel and the forum. It's really big and lucky for us the ash has preserved everything so well. The tour guy was very excited to show us the brothel, it's strange, on many walls and streets there's penises on the wall so people know how to find one, like ancient street signs. Inside the brothel it's quite funny, there's perfectly preserved paintings of sexual positions in a chamber of 5 solid stone "beds". It was walk in point at the picture you wanted, pay the bill and enjoy the show. These guys must have lived the good life :p. in a rush the guide takes us to see the plaster models of all the people and vases and books and general living equipment they have dug up during the time. They drill into the rock hard Ashe and fill it with plaster making a prefect mould. It's quite sad where one person is in a ball, must have been trying to hide from the ash and the gasses. Smartly though archeologist have only dug up 40 % of the ruins and are purposely leaving the rest under so future generations can enjoy the area if anything ever happens to this part. We get into the forum and look up at a prefect view of the volcano, it looks beautiful but deep down its a bad boy. We quickly rush back towards the bus as Liz is a frantic mess pushing everyone into the bus and Levi gunhos it for our race to catch the ferry. These roads are messed up but the guys a beast. We make it to the ferry with only 4 minutes of driving time for Levi, he was very happy with himself. The ferry is huge and filled with all kinds of vehicles from cars to big rigs. We get on and it's a strange vessel. You can't flush toilet paper in the toilet, a fact we have since come to know as common practice in the Greek islands. You can't drink the water, you can't sleep any sort of normal sleep, the food is worst then Pompeii. Oh we'll we made it and our soon to be cruise was one step closer. One plus of getting this ferry was we were 5 hours closer to our target and the morning drive was only 4 hours. Bella and I settled in, went to the helipad bar for cheap drinks and watched an amazing sunset and spoke with anyone from tour. We had dinner, I had a chicken, which was crumbed however the meat was brown I think I might have ate horse..... No idea. Bella had some pork dish and some pasta. After that back to the helipad for more drinkies and talkies it got a touch too windy so we went back inside, it was then that we learnt that half of the passengers were sleeping on floors, chairs, booths, very stressed by this we checked with Levi, he explains lots of tours and drivers company's don't pay for cabins so they have to rough it for a better price. We found a large table and started playing the card game bulls***. Lots of fun, Bella went to bed. I spent a few hours or so talking to Levi and a tour mate brad who's a cop. It was quite funny listening to them talk about bribery and all sorts of things. Not long after I decided I needed to sleep and just had to Deal with the moving! Greece ahoy!
P.s last night at the bar I was chatting with Levi and asked if he had ever had a crash while on tour, he said, with a touch on wood, that he had never had a crash and never had to fill out a form. Who would have guessed it but we jinx him and during our walk around Sorrento he was caught between a another huge bus and a tree and it smashed one of our back windows, only the outside layer though. Sorry Levi, I won't ask again :(!
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