Days 3 and 4: That awkward moment when a 70 year old Italian man takesyou to a whorehouse, and the summary of a Turkish soap opera fromsomeone who doesn't know what the hell is going on...

So I've been lacking in the interwebs, and on account of that, posting things on this blog no one reads has become something of a problem. However, today is special, in that today, I've broken through a 4 foot thick wall of stinginess and misery into a world where 3 euros for 2 hours of Internet is actually a reasonable price. And by reasonable, I mean it's 3 euros more than it should be, but due to situational circumstances and sheer desperation, I've admitted defeat. Having said that, the following post is the post I would've posted if I'd had Internet to post it.

So we went to Pompeii, which, for those of you who either failed european history with a 23% or less, or who've never read The Magic Tree House and consequently never had a childhood,

Little Jack and Annie out ran lava down this very street...true story

Pompeii was a city in the roman empire that was completely annihilated by Mt. Vesuvius, a giant volcano that to this day still remains active (next eruption's slated to happen in about 50-ish years, so mark your calendars). However, due to the lava encasing the city, it was almost perfectly preserved, making it possibly the most influential and eye-opening archaeological finds in history. Anyways, the story:

So imagine yourself standing, in the rain, without an umbrella, because, like me, you tend to forget necessities...all the time. So anyways, it's raining something fierce and there are stray dogs everywhere and in their boundless intelligence, members of your group are feeding and playing with them (in case said group members are reading this, know that regardless of that circumstance, I still hold you all in highest regard...........but seriously did you have to feed the dogs?). In the end, it turns out the dogs weren't officially strays, as they all had names, and were kept in generally good care by the tour guides, who let them roam freely around the ruins. Regardless, you'd like to question their necessity, but by god their the cutest things you will ever see, so you let it slide. After standing for a while, you meet your tour guide: an old man with grey hair and a steady tan complimenting a steady stride (which he balance out with a dusty brown umbrella, working as a makeshift cane because he was too badass to worry about silly things like rain). He speaks in a thick Italian accent, and his gravely voice sounds like a bitter cross between wise and judgmental, but his saucy sense of humor tends to even everything out. After walking through the ruins for about an hour, and taking enough pictures to rival the japanese tourist that had invaded your hotel the night before, your guide gives you a colorful tour of the Pompeii red light district, highlighted by a perfectly preserved........office for..........*ahem*......working girls, complete with pictures and diagrams.........

You thought I was going to post pictures.......dude, children read this blog.......maybe.......

So yeah, that was fun........

Following that, we set sail for Greece by way of ferry, which sounded all well and good at the time, but considering the boat had yet to move, any expectations concerning the coming voyage were indeed both excessively optimistic and premature. It was about midnight in the middle of the sea that my vertigo kicked in (for those of you who don't know, I have benign paraoximital positional vertigo, which essentially means I will, at random points and random times become uncontrollably dizzy, and lose any and all sense of balance. The ferry's constant rocking acted like a trigger event, and now, 24 hours later, I'm still dizzy, and probably will remain so for the entirety of the trip) which made the rest of the time on the ferry living hell. So, without anything much to do, I just sat in the lounge and watched Turkish soap operas. Now, i've never actually seen a soap opera beyond bits and pieces in the states, when I'm flipping through channels during commercial breaks for real television. So watching one in a different language was.......an interesting experience.

The following is a play-by-play analysis of the worst television show I have ever seen.......

So, from what I can understand, there are 5 important characters, who's names I naturally don't know, so I've done my best to liken them to characters and people with whom you should be familiar. First, Dos Equis (the most interesting man in the world), he's old, rich, and a bad guy, then there's Antonio Banderes, who was raised with Dos Equis in a foster home after their parents were killed by..........cancer(?). Anyways, he's not as old, just as rich, but maybe a good guy(?). These two are in a giant hotel room, presumably deciding the the fate of small Turkish cities and toying with the lives of millions over their weekend glass of wine. These games of thrones are presided over by Granny Babushka, whom I'm assuming is the nun who raised these two men together in the poor Turkish orphanage in the middle of nowhere. Judging from the results of an advanced equation I just made up (dramatic pauses/dramatic close ups x dramatic zoom-ins+dramatic scowl effectiveness=moral position character), it's apparent to me that Granny's of neutral nature, while Dos Equis might as well be the devils legal counsel. This leaves Antonio playing the part of the honorable human being, set out to stop the nefarious schemes of his best friend, who was driven mad by...........oh Hell if I know.........cancer, it's probably cancer, someone has to have cancer, so why not this guy? Hell, Dos Equis is terminal for all I know, and he wants to get one last plot in before he dies, and his plot is........to screw with the sickly love child of Sam Worthington and Penelope Cruze (?)
Okay......I give up..........I just give up...........
God I'm sick.........