I see dead people

I arrive in Pompei on April 2 in the afternoon. The train journey from Naples was interesting. Some of neighbourhoods looked like the favelas of Rio, the richer favelas though I guess. 

I find the hostel two streets from the station, and the entrance to the Pompeii ruins about 2 streets from the hostel.   

Pompeii centre seems tiny. I guess I will find out the scale of this place tomorrow, the plan is to hike up mount Vasuvius, hoping it doesn’t fart on the way up and kill us all. I’m currently sitting looking at the main square in Pompei. It’s packed with young people wondering around with cans of coke and pots of ice cream. Gonna finish my mediocre spaghetti bolognese and head back to the hostel. For the record I have had major gas since being in Italy. I’ve been surviving solely on sandwiches, pizza and pasta. It’s really good and I’m enjoying it but I’m looking forward to a change, sleeping in shared dorms at the hostels can suck, trying to silent fart when everyone is awake and knowing everyone’s gonna hear me trump in my sleep is annoying. I’ve taken to using my snore ease again as well. Although I apparently only sometimes snore, I can’t risk snoring and farting during the same night. I would get judged. Enough trouser cough chat anyway. Oh and my shoes stink at the moment and are falling apart so I need new ones, and I have no clean socks as of today. I’m just not doing well on the smell front.   

Oh and on another note I think I’m getting the hang of hostels. The first few just seemed to be full of people looking to go out and get drunk. You would always wanna lock up your stuff as you never knew what the people in the room were like, but this one I just arrived at is just for me. It’s the weekend and no one seems like they’re gonna be out getting hammered, I’ve arranged a hike with a Dutch guy who arrived at the same time as me, and a young brother and sister from Vermont say they want to come too, and they seem very nice…and then there’s some middle aged guy on the bunk above me. He sports cleans white trousers, tucked in shirt and a belt, no smile, he has been walking around the room moving things from bags to draws with precision, he has a large pair of binoculars which are now in his draw. At first I thought he was Muslim as he kept going on the floor praying but then I realised he was just opening his bag. Each compartment must have a unique code and to open each bit he has to enter the code and he looked like he was praying…of course he locks each one after every visit, even if he’s coming back soon. I think when he eventually goes to sleep…Jesus he’s on the floor next to me again entering the bag code. What has he got in there he doesn’t want me to steal.

Back to the point, I bet he wears pijamas, I think I just saw some striped garments come out of his bag but I don’t wanna look across in case I see his secret in his bag and he has to kill me. Bag locked again, code secure, time to put on striped pyjamas in the privacy of the bathroom. I think when he sleeps he will lie on his back and within 1 minute he will be asleep but he will still have his eyes open. Guess I’ll never know though, I’m not going up there to check.