Spring Break with Dad!

So as you all know by now, I'm not the most prompt person in the world.  I mean, when it comes to being on time for class, work, appointments, etc., I'm always on time, if not early.  But when it comes to sitting my lovely butt down at the computer and typing about what I've been doing....well we've established that's not necessarily my forte.  So without any further ado.... I bring you - "My 2 weeks later Spring Break adventure with Dad post."  

Hey all, how's it going?  Fabulous.  So as you might have guessed due to the intro, 2 weeks ago was Spring Break.  My kick ass father (henceforth referred to as "Dad") came to spend the week with me.  We were both very excited about it, seeing as how over the years we've done many a trip together.  Mostly road trips around the US, but one short trip to the Netherlands a few years ago.  The biggest difference with this trip was that for the first time, I was going to be the trip leader.  In the past, we've either gone to a new place for the first time together, or Dad was leading the trip, with me as the navigator.  This time, the tables were turned. (Nice alliteration there huh?)  

We spent the first couple of days in Viterbo, hanging out at my apartment and going out during breaks in the rain.  Not the best weather for the beginning of the trip, but it did get better.  Tuesday rolled around and we rented a car and drove south.  We stopped at Anzio Beach along the way, to pay respects to his (step)dad and my Grandpa who fought there in WWII. The town itself shows no signs of battle, and there was only a few small monuments (British though) to show that anything happened there.  Today, the town is a pretty little beach town, and not much else.  Oh well, at least we went at all.

We drove on, and reached our ultimate destination - the lost city of Pompeii.  We got lucky with our hotel that we had booked online, since the place turned out to be right next to 

the main entrance to the ruins.  

Wednesday we spent walking inside, just walking around for several hours.  It turned out that the last week of March was Italian Cultural Heritage Days, and so every monument, museum and ruin-area was free admission.  We talked it over and decided to grab a tour guide for what would've been the amount of our tickets.  It turned out to be the two of us and a couple from Dallas.  Let me tell you - Pompeii is....wow.  So beautiful.  I had no idea it was so well preserved.  I half expected it to be like the Forum in Rome - bits and pieces of buildings and columns lying around, but there were entire buildings still intact, complete with frescoes still painted on the walls.  It was amazing.  (Sarah had told me that it was up to me to decide if we should see when she comes at the end of the semester, and now of course the answer is "hell yeah!")

On Thursday we drove back to Viterbo, and hung out for the evening, while making our plans for Rome over the weekend.  We spent Dad's remaining 3 days in Rome seeing as much as possible.  He obviously wanted to see the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, and I showed him a bunch of other stuff too.  Something I hadn't seen yet, that we found, was the site of Julius Caesar's assassination.  Pretty cool.  

All in all, we had a great trip/time together.  I got to practice my Italian more than I'd thought I would, and Dad was impressed with that.  We talked about many things while hanging out - the future, Sarah, history, Sarah, etc.  And it was fun using my Italian (what little I have) to help us out, and not seem like stupid Americans.  I even had a pseudo conversation with a very old Italian man on the bus in Rome one night.  So that was pretty cool.