#zio sam

Come da copione, lo zio Sam non fa' niente per niente.

I nipoti dello Zio Sam fanno i capricci in Medio Oriente

Il Medio Oriente di oggi è ben diverso da quello che poteva apparire o promettere all’inizio di questo secolo. Rapporti di forza, alleanze e prospettive per il futuro sono molto cambiate o in via di cambiamento ed è difficile adesso riuscire a immaginare come la situazione si proporrà da qui ai prossimi dieci/quindici anni.

Alla fine del ‘900, gli Stati Uniti erano l’unico punto di riferimento…

The day started off with a tour of Pompeii with our tour guide Margherita. Unknowingly the nigh before when I was taking pictures of the moon, it was right next to Mount Vesuvius.  I learned a lot about Pompeii the city and of it’s people.  It was established by the Greeks apparently.  Also, there was another city in a different part of Italy that met the same fate as Pompeii, but they had a much quicker death than the agonizing death the people of Pompeii suffered.  The people were also very short with the men being a little over 1.5 meters.

After the Pompeii ruins we went to a very high class restaurant for lunch.  It was very good, but too nice for me.  And after that we went back up to Naples for a 2 hour walking tour with Margherita.  Although it was interesting to learn some facts, we were there the previous night and roamed around then so it was not a very good use of time.

Around 6 we got to the train station and got our tickets.  The train was supposed to come at 6:09 so people were rushing to the platform.  After much discussion about what “sopresso” meant we learned the first train was cancelled.  The next one came 30 minutes later but it was packed.  I was nervous the whole time about being pick-pocketed but I made it out okay.  Someone else got their phone stolen unfortunately. 

When we arrived in Sorrento it was past 8.  All the city buses stop running at 8.  We had to take a taxi and it was 44.44 to get to our destination.  Some people had to go further and had to pay an extremely high amount.  We had called our B&B manager and asked if they would mind staying up until we got there, which wasn’t too late after we were supposed to.  She was the nicest lady, she showed us around and asked if we were hungry and recommended this great place down the road.

We were unsure if we were going the right way so we stopped to call the restaurant.  When we got there one person eating said “You’re the one that phoned?” Then the funniest waiter sat us down.  He kept joking that we needed a table for six so he could eat with us.  When we were ordering, we were unsure of when we supposed to order dessert.  Our waiter said dessert was later and “Io dolce,” or I’m dessert.  He brought us a free appetizer.  Our food was wonderful.  We were able to see fireworks not too long after we sat down.  A little before we got our food a band showed up who provided music for the night.  Our waiter came back and asked about dessert and we wanted tiramisu but they were all out.  We sat around for a while longer and he brought us limoncello even when we said no, but it was free.   We sat at that restaurant for hours and it was so much fun.  Unfortunatley our waiter went home before we could get a name and his picture but we asked around and his name is Pasquale.