On the Coolest Thing to Ever Happen to Me.

Subtitle: Why My 4th of July Kicked Your 4th of July’s Ass.

First and foremost, yeah, this is almost a month late.  I would like to blame it on the fact that this day was so unbelievably cool that I’ve been recuperating from the coolness but honestly, I’m just lame.  Nothing new.

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Due to the Husb’s job of Working for the Man I had anticipated spending this 4th of July alone in the comfort of my house with my cats and an endless amount of red wine.  I mean, what says, “HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, AMERICA!” more than getting tipsy alone off of Italian red wine?  Right?

See, the Husb had a job scheduled to work on this private island off the coast of Italy.  A private island owned by an Italian billionaire who, just for funsies, likes to invite local Americans to his island on the 4th of July to – what?  I don’t know, who cares.  The only thing I needed to know was that the Husb was supposed to be there and I was not.

Well as a huge and great surprise the Husb’s schedule changed a week before the 4th and that job got canceled.  It turned out I wouldn’t have to spend the day alone with my cats and wine.  And that alone my friends, was enough for me to be thrilled about.  I’m a simple girl, what can I say.

Then the night of the 3rd the Husb calls from work and says, “So, I hope you don’t mind but I made us plans for tomorrow.”  I won’t lie, in my head I was already thinking of ways to try and pretend to be excited over whatever plans it was that he made.  “Yeah…and they are?”  To which he man-giggled and said, “So remember that private island I was supposed to work at tomorrow?  Well ‘VIP’ (Very Important Person whose name I probably shouldn’t just throw around) invited me to come – as a guest!”

This is where, in the fine words of LiLo a la “Mean Girls,” my stomach felt like it was going to fall out of my butt because I had momentarily forgot that he said he “made US plans” and I had a bad case of the “I’m so jealous I think I might lose important organs as a result.”  Maybe he could sense my impending stomach-falling-out-of-my-butt-ness because he quickly followed up with, “And he said I could bring you!”

I tried to act cool, and said something like, “Cool.”  But after I hung up the phone I did one of those crazy little dance moves that you reserve for especially cool things – because this was definitely especially cool.

So tomorrow finally comes and we’re up and out of the door, picking up some fellow lucky people and are on our way.  Now, I don’t need to rehash every gory detail of the drive but let’s just say that a drive that normally takes less than 2 hours took more that 5.  I know.  There were moments of panic that we had missed OUR ONE CHANCE to get to the island and enjoy a day of food, wine, sea and snorkeling.  Luckily, another VIP had got caught up in the traffic and well, they held a boat to ferry us to the island.  Phew.

The rest my friends is what we call AWESOME.  We explored the island, ate amazing food, drank wine, saw a few mildly famous people and swam and snorkeled in the sea.  I’ll let the pictures tell the story…

And then just when we think it can’t can’t can’t get any cooler – it does.

Living in Italy has a certain ancient feeling about it.  I feel like no matter where I stand I’m standing in a historic place; that something totally amazing must have happened righthere because Italy is just so rich in history.  And we were about to realize just how true that is…

We had been told that after our island excursion we would be touring an ancient Roman villa that collapsed when Mount Vesuvius blew in 79 AD under the weight of the ash and rubble that had just been recently discovered.  Recently discovered under this church that is used regularly.  Under this church that people walk through and across every day.  Talk about amazing.  We were also told that it wasn’t even open to the public.  That, in fact, it wouldn’t be open to the public for at least 3 years.  To say that I grossly underestimated how amazingly unbelievable this would be would be a, uh, gross understatement?  Well it was.

Hands down the most amazing thing I’ve ever done.  We literally were walking on the scaffolding and ladders that the EXCAVATORS were using to excavate the villa.  Let me say that again, walking around on the scaffolding and ladders that the EXCAVATORS were using. Unbelievable.  So VIP is giving us a history of the villa, showing us the roof tiles that look brand new that are actually almost 2000 years old, and showing us the frescoes on the walls that have been preserved so perfectly due to being protected by the rubble.  And then he says that where we’re standing is actually the second story of the villa – that there is a whole story worth of the villa filled with rubble and ash and rock below us.  What?  I’m getting giddy just remembering.

They had found bones of some people who were in the villa at the time of the collapse, and he told us about the different rooms in the villa and just gave us as much history as he knew about it – which was a lot.

After we made it back up the ladders and across the scaffolding we made the drive back home.  More traffic.  But this time we weren’t in a rush.  This time we were all sitting there like, “Did that just happen?  Did we just DO that?!”

Yeah, it did.  And we did.

And that’s why my 4th of July kicked your 4th of July’s ass.  It’s nothing personal…it’s just fact.

Tagged as: adrenaline, bragging, Coolest Thing Ever!, Life Abroad, Photography, Things to Think About