Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all you animals out partying like its naught-naught-seventy-nine!

Photo Credits: Tim Rast
(A scene from a wall in Pompeii)

The Year in Photos

Google+ made this little film from images that appeared on this blog over the past year.  I enjoyed it.

Happy Holidays!

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Herculaneum

Herculaneum is the smaller, better preserved, sister site to Pompeii.  Both were simultaneously destroyed and preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.  I've heard many people suggest that if you only visit one, then Herculaneum is the site to see.  I think you should see them both - Pompeii is sprawling and massive.  The scale of the site is tremendous and you can literally get lost among the ruins.  Herculaneum was covered by hot ash and gases, not by tonnes of rubble, so the buildings are more complete, often with second and third stories in tact and the extreme heat charred and preserved a lot of wood as well.  

Considering it was destroyed nearly 2000 years ago, it's remarkably easy to picture Herculaneum as a living vibrant port city.

The blackened timbers are original wood.  The painted figures and advertising on the walls are original, too.

Mosaic floors were everywhere and tended to be more complete than what we saw in Pompeii.

A glimpse inside a second story room. 

These blackened doors are the original charred wood remains.

I've seen houses listed for sale in worse condition.

Another tile floor

Metal grates in the windows are still in place.

Wooden shutters, lintels, and doors all preserved.

I think he's using the knife to pry out the spear.  He obviously studied medicine at the University of Talladega Nights.

On the way out of the town you can catch glimpses of the bodies of the townspeople killed in AD 79.  People were trapped by the sea as they tried to escape and only their bones remain.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

I bought a wallet in Florence and lost all my money.

Our merry band of travelers at the arena in Verona

We're finally back home after our three weeks in Italy.  It was a great trip.  We spent the first ten days on the Amalfi Coast in a fantastic villa in Atrani.  After that, we traveled by train to Pompeii, Herculaneum, Florence, Bolzano, Venice, and Verona.  On our last night in Verona, I checked my bank account and was shocked to see that for about a week someone had been taking cash out of my account.  Apparently, when I tried to withdraw cash in Florence, I put my card into an ATM with a device that copied my card and recorded my pin code.   I tried three machines that day and I got errors from all of them when I tried to use my bank cards.  I didn't think much of it at the time because I was in another country trying to access funds in Canada, so I expected hiccups.  Finally I had success with taking money out of a machine using my VISA, rather than a debit card. Three days later someone in Peru started making ATM cash withdrawals from my CIBC chequing account.  They got about $1300 before I noticed it.  My account was almost empty and the withdrawls would have ended soon on their own, but I just happened to have a GIC cashed and deposited into the account that day that would have given the thieves access to thousands of dollars more.  In our hotel room in Verona, I called the International CIBC number on the back of my bank card and cancelled the card.

At least one of the ATMs that I tried
in Florence was in this square. Ironically,
my souvenir from Florence was a new
leather wallet.  Not that I have any money
left to put in it.

CIBC launched an investigation and within about 24 hours the money was returned to my account.  The customer service was fantastic, and ten minutes after realizing that I'd been robbed, I was confident that I'd get my money back and we enjoyed our last night out on the town.  I had checked my other accounts at the time and the CIBC account appeared to be the only one affected.  However, when I got home to St. John's my Soctiabank account was suddenly showing a negative balance.  I checked with a teller in the branch and sure enough, the Peruvian bandits had my Scotiabank info too and had emptied out another $1000.  Scotiabank deals with fraud on a debit card different than CIBC, so I'm still waiting to have those funds reimbursed.   To be safe, CIBC suggested that I preemptively cancel my VISA, just in case it was compromised.  Scotiabank investigates fraudulent transactions at the branch level, while CIBC has a special national unit dedicated to exactly this sort of theft.  I'm glad I dealt with CIBC first.  I have less confidence in the Scotiabank system, although I'm sure it will all work out fine in the end.

Verona at night.  (Click to Enlarge)

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Happy Halloween

A creepy statue in Venice - how does stone decompose like that?

 

Apparently Cenobites lie behind this doorway in Venice.

Yeah, that's grim. Castelvecchio Museum, Verona. 

Creepy kid and her creepy drawing.  More nightmare fuel in the Castelvecchio.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Ötzi in Bolzano, Italy

Ötzi - reconstruction

One of the highlights of the Italy trip was heading north towards Bolzano on my 40th birthday to visit the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology - the home of Ötzi - the Iceman.  Ötzi is a 5300 year old wet mummy that was found frozen in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991.  Not only was his body preserved, but many of the tools that he was carrying with him as well.  The museum does not disappoint.  Ötzi's mummified body is on display in a cooled room, behind glass.  The window into the mummy room is the first display that you see when you enter the exhibit space.  Then all of his tools are beautifully presented and interpreted.  Photos are not allowed in that part of the museum, but you can seen wonderful photos of the artifacts on the museum website (link above). Photos, however, are allowed in other parts of the museum, including the fantastic reconstruction of Ötzi and a lifesize, interactive touchscreen autopsy table that lets you examine the mummy inside and out.

The outside of the museum in scenic Bolzano.

The touchscreen autopsy table let you zoom in and see different layers or bone, muscle, and tissue inside the mummy.

Ötzi's big hands and his farmer tan reminded Lori and I of my dad's hands as soon as we saw them.  Its a remarkably lifelike reconstruction of a man who made his living with his hands.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast, Lori White

Pompeii

We visited Pompeii on our way off of the Amalfi Coast and north through Florence and into the Dolomiti Mountains.  The scale of the excavations and ruins at Pompeii is something that I wasn't prepared for.  The town had a population of around 11,000 people when it was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.  The town that I grew up in had a population of 2000, and the homes and businesses were spread over a comparable sized area to Pompeii. Archaeological excavations at Pompeii over the past 250 years have exposed most of the town.  Our visit lasted from mid-afternoon until sundown.  At night it was pitch black and without a GPS and our iPhone flashlights we might have still been stumbling around the streets when the packs of stray dogs inhabiting the town began to rouse and prowl the empty streets.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Isle of Capri, Italy

Leaving Capri

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Pontone, Italy

View of Pontone from a garden in Ravello, Italy

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Amalfi, Italy

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Atrani, Italy

Home for 10 days

Atrani, Italy

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

On Vacation

Flying over the Austrian Alps on the way to Italy

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Rural Cuba at Jibacoa

Lori feeding sugarcane to a pig. Cuban
pork is the best fed pork in the world.

While in Cuba, we stayed at a resort near Jibacoa, about an hour east of Havana.  It was my first time in Cuba and my first time staying at an all-inclusive resort, so I don't have much to compare it to, but I was surprised by how remote the resort felt.  The resort faced the water, but was backed by a big forested hill.  We spent a bit of time hiking around the hill on guided and solo treks and got to know the farms and people in the area.

This is the view of the resort from the top of the hill.  We certainly weren't wanting for anything, but the lush, hilly countryside made us feel like we were all in the jungle and not crowded in to a tourist strip.

A half hour hike over the top of the hill took us into open fields and farm land.  The horse or cattle drawn cart is for hauling sugarcane.  

On the guided hikes, the farmers met us with sugarcane and fresh coconuts.

Lori was an old pro with coconut water, but it was my first time.

Once drained, the coconuts were split with a machete and we could scrape the white meat out to eat.

Cuban Farmhouse.

I think he sees a lot of tourists in a year.

One of the buildings on the farm is a barbershop under the veranda.  

On Boxing Day, I went back for a cut.

At some point peacocks were introduced to Cuba.  They seem to hang around anywhere that people live.  We saw them on the farms, but also throughout Havana.

By far, the most common bird we saw were the large turkey vultures that always seemed to be visible somewhere in the sky.  I don't think there was ever a moment when they weren't in sight, circling overhead or off in the distance.

One of my favourite souvenirs from the trip is this hat.  According to our tour guide, these are the type of palms used to make the hats.

This is the husband and wife team who made the hat.  He's lost his sight, but continues to braid the long strands of leaves and she sews them together.  Each hat is made as a single spiral starting at the centre and looping round and round towards the brim.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast