You were sort of punk rock I grew up on hip hop but you fit me better than my favourite sweater and I know that love is mean and love hurts but I still remember that day we met in December

after italy the thought of aubergine just makes me feel sick

Lyrics: blue jeans / lana del rey

JT gets all fucked up in some karaoke bar after two drinks he's a loser after three drinks he's a star getting all nostalgic as he sings I Will Survive

i had a dream last night that i was back in italy with college but then mount vesuvius erupted and people were running screaming into the sea and i was scared but according to our tour guide it was fine because we were in sorrento

sorrento isn't actually as close to vesuvius as it was in my dream, in my dream it was like right next to it but yknow

i could see all the lava and it was glittering and people were running but literally no one cared for some reason, then the lava hardened and looked like tarmac but we just went off to pompeii

Lyrics: bleed like me / garbage

She said I love you boy I love you so she said I love you baby oh oh oh oh she said I love you more than words can say she said I love you baby

the last day started a lot earlier because we had to be out of the hotel by half seven..i found ants on the bathroom floor which was disgusting they were all over the balcony too and it was horrible so i was glad it was the last night

hardly anyone ate breakfast because they'd all reached that point where they thought 'there's no point anymore i'm going home'

we kind of offended the hotel because no one wanted to take their packed lunches and the manager like chased us with them so we had to take them but everyone threw them away at the airport

we had a delay so we sat around for a while before we could check in. security was easier in naples but it was also more strict like more people were searched than back home

the departure lounge was nicer, it was actually quite posh but more expensive than at home me and H bought chocolate and iced tea and crisps and we agreed to sit next to each other on the plane because i needed someone to distract me

the flight was nicer, more turbulance but it went by faster i slept for a bit then me and H played a game where it was like colin firth or hugh grant (colin firth, if you're interested) and that took up the rest of the flight in between eating junk food and discussing T's bad mood

then we were back in england..the landing was much better than the first one and our college actually applauded and you could see the other people on the plain going 'wtf why are they applauding??' which was odd considering a lot of the people on the plane had flown with us on the first flight too

first thing i ate in england was a bacon sandwich and i was just kind of glad to be at home with my family again, now i kind of miss italy because at least in italy i didn't have to go to work or college haha

Lyrics: she said / plan b

I'm on the edge of glory and I'm hanging on a moment with you I'm on the edge with you

day 3 started like the one before it only i actually got up a little earlier because M wanted to use the shower first

i didn't eat anything for breakfast because i couldn't face it and i didn't see the point when i wouln't enjoy it, i had some tea again but it just made me feel a little ill, which wasn't good

then we drove to pompeii which was further away from the hotel than the other places..it was near the pizza place we went on the first day and it was surprising how busy pompeii was i don't know what else i expected but there were groups of tourists everywhere and it was a really lovely day..at first walking through to it it didn't look like a set of ruins it looked like a park or something, it was really bizarre

plus no one else thought we were english they seemed to think we were american we spent the time walking round pompeii being yelled at by french/italian/spanish people who were calling us americans and quoting american tv shows at us, that was weird because we didn't think we actually LOOKED amercian but apparently we did

but yeah, back to pompeii, it was really fascinating walking around it and it was actually quite beautiful the ruins were amazing to look at, probably not as well-preserved as herculaneum but it didn't matter because they were good enough, i found out some really interesting things i didn't know before and i could have walked around it for longer than we did

pompeii ruins

seeing the body casts was horrible though, it was sickening because you could see the pain on their faces and it made me feel ill, it was kind of too morbid for my liking..plus one of the casts was of a pregnant woman which upset me quite a bit

the other thing that upset me was the brothel, they have frescos on the walls of women and men doing various sexual acts and everyone walks through the brothel (seriously it was like the most well-preserved section) and giggles at these frescos and takes pictures and i didn't find it funny, i was thinking like, "prostitutes then were actually slaves, they were women forced to do this, it was practically rape, and that's quite sad really" i mean i know it wasn't all involuntary but most of the women were slaves, taken from other countries and different lives and it just bothered me a little bit because obviously people now find those pictures amusing and put them on fridge magnets and post cards and they don't think about it

we had lunch in pompeii, i couldn't have stomached the sandwiches they gave us so i bought my own from the restaurant and it was really nice, it was mozzarella and prosciutto ham and it was seriously the best thing i'd eaten since arriving in italy

after pompeii we went to solfatarra which was another volcano but it was like a flat plain, there is no lava in it just hot steam and it 'erupts' when there's earthquakes i did NOT like being in an active volcano with steam coming out of it but everyone else was more bothered by the smell, basically it also releases sulphur which naturally stinks of rotten eggs, a lot of people (mainly girls) were gagging and one girl was being sick

it did smell bad but i was, like i said, more concerned about the fact the ground could crack and steam would come out of it i know it wasn't logical because they wouldn't even let us near the place if there was a danger of that happening but a girl's allowed to worry

solfatarra

instead of going straight back to the hotel we headed into sorrento afterwards and i bought some last minute souvenirs but i broke something in one shop and had to buy it which was awkward, then we got lost..we managed to find the meeting point though and then we just had to wait for everyone so we could get the train

we were like yelled at by this man who said 'the english are shit' at us and that was a bit awkward because we couldn't speak italian

then we were back at the hotel. dinner was terrible again, i nearly didn't even get served, but then we just went back up to our room like the other nights to play card games this time my friends T and H joined us and again it was just a really nice, fun night..

until they all had to leave and W and C went out on the balcony again but then the manager of the hotel was out on the street screaming at us to go to bed and get off the balconies and he started going into people's rooms so we just gave in and went to bed

Lyrics: the edge of glory / lady gaga

It happened on the day you put your hand in mine you went up to my head just like a glass of wine girl you spark my attention like a firefly and make me happy to be alive

day two of pompeii i set my alarm for half six and then fell back asleep because i was still really tired, but i was still the first up and ready in my room and i was one of the only ones properly dressed in time for breakfast

breakfast was just as bad as dinner it was a buffet sort of thing but the choice was very limited, their tea was horrible it tasted like just water and sugar and i'm such a big tea drinker but i really struggled with it

the first place that we went was herculaneum, which is kind of like pompeii; basically it was destroyed in the same volcanic eruption that destroyed pompeii but if i'm remembering rightly it was for different things, pompeii was covered in ash and herculaneum was covered in lava

but herculaneum was fascinating, it was really well preserved and looked after..it was really odd walking through these houses and baths and knowing that thousands of years ago people walked in the same places you did, people lived in these houses and slept in the beds we were taking photographs of

and then thinking along the lines of so many people died here, that was kind of spooky and so weird..

herculaneum

then we drove to vesuvius.

right, climbing vesuvius was easily one of the hardest things that i've done in my entire life i am really not fit in the slightest, my idea of exercise is getting a packet of crisps out of the kitchen, and vesuvius (being a volcano and everything) is really steep and the surface is difficult, it's lots of little pebbles and you take one step and it slides backwards again

so i really, really, really struggled climbing vesuvius. i didn't even want to do it because i wasn't a geography student and the fact i was on the side of an active volcano really freaked me out, plus everyone else apart from me and H went storming off like super athletes and i felt a bit down about it tbh but that's life i suppose

we reached the top and had this talk with this man and he walked us around the top of the crater telling us about how the volcano works and the echo and how we can see pompeii from the top and so on, then we had to walk down and it was better than walking up but it was more dangerous because we kept on slipping

plus vesuvius was the part where it really hit us how careful you have to be there when it comes to souvenirs and stuff every single souvenir stall on vesuvius promises that its products are handmade by the owner, genuine lava etc etc and then you realise that each stall sells the exact same thing and so does a shop on the other side of naples

the view from somewhere up vesuvius

once we got back down, we went straight back to the hotel..we had like a half hour break and then V was sick and then the teachers announced we could go to the beach if we wanted but because V was sick and me and M didn't feel like it some of us stayed back at the hotel and sat in our room listening to music and chatting

then they all came back and we started playing card games and stuff but then we had dinner which was vile and then the teachers said that we could go out to the bars in town if we wanted and have something to drink

i chose not to go and stay with my friends T H and S and that was pretty nice, we sat in their room and read this book on naples and the mafia and listened to music and ate junk food..

when they all came back i went to my room again thinking i could go to sleep but that wasn't to be, instead W and C came in again to speak to M and some other lads came in too, we didn't play card games though..when they were sent to their own rooms W and C sneaked back in because their room was next to ours and we had joining balconies. so then we carried on talking for a bit longer and we had a laugh

when they had to go back the other lad in their room had locked them out so they had to go and get the room key of the other boy they were staying with who was getting more and more drunk in one of the other rooms, so that's how we left them

V went straight to sleep after that but M and I stayed up a bit longer talking about other people on the trip, but then we realised that V was asleep so we gave in and went to sleep too

Lyrics: firefly / jimmy needham

Well you said that we would still be friends but I'll admit that I was glad that it was over

so after i went to see the hunger games, i went home, had my tea, and then watched tv

i stupidly went to bed at around midnight, which was funny considering i had to be up at 2 o'clock.

getting up that early was so hard i never thought i was going to manage it but i did, then my friend H came and we picked up my friend T and then H's mum drove us to the airport

i'd never flown before so i was pretty scared i didn't really know what to expect..we didn't have to wait long at the airport for everyone else to arrive and then we checked in which was easier than i thought it'd be, security wasn't pleasant because i had to take my shoes off and i forgot to put socks on so that was a bit awkward but at least the sensors didn't go off and i didn't get my bag searched

we hung around in a cafe for about an hour eating chocolate croissants before we had to board the plane, it was still really dark outside by this point and it felt dead strange when we finally had to walk out to the plane. i ended up sat next to my friend T and H sat with another girl S..T is a nervous flyer and it turns out i am too so it wasn't the best of pairings haha

i really didn't enjoy flying, i mean it wasn't so bad but i just didn't like it i can't really explain why..i felt like i was in a coach and i hate coaches. the man sat next to me ate a burger king really loudly and obnoxiously so i automatically hated him but then his pregnant wife fainted and he ended up moving, this happened when i was asleep so it was a bit awkward when i sat up and it was some guy from my college just sat next to me giving me a funny look because i might have grabbed his ankle in surprise

the landing was horrible the plane actually bounced and people screamed, it was terrible but we were in italy so i was excited and i forgot about how horrible it was and now horrible the little bus was that took us to the airport

the weather was lovely in italy though, once we had our luggage and got onto the coach you could really see how sunny it was. the buildings there were rundown but there was a certain charm to them but you literally couldn't move for buildings; it was bizarre because in england there's a lot of countryside and spaces without buildings but this was the opposite. on the coach we met our tour guide, he was this very stereotypical italian man who turned out to be a casual racist which was uncomfortable sometimes.

he took us for pizza at this restaurant, pizza was quite nice i suppose but the waiter refused to give us any change and he got angry when the teacher tried to argue with him so we just left it especially because we were convinced this old man sat there glaring at us was a mafioso of some kind

then we went on to the hotel we had been promised that it was a four star hotel but it probably wasn't. it was nice in its own way, it wasn't a bad place at all everything was good quality it just hadn't been kept as well as it could have. i ended up sharing with two other girls, V and M (V i have been good friends with since year 7 and M is in my classics and we talk every so often)

once we had settled in we went to the beach which was a really loooooooong walk..the beach was nice though some people went in the sea but i didn't, i sat there with H and we had a chat about how moody T was being because she didn't like italy

walking back to the hotel practically killed me because i'm so unfit and we had to go up all of these stairs, it turns out that most of naples is on a hill of some kind which destroys your legs after a while

we'd only been at the hotel for 5 minutes before we set off for the train station to go to sorrento. the train was all right because it turned out to be more like a tram which i'm used to from home plus the journey was quite short, sorrento was nice and there were some cute shops there, could barely move for oranges and lemons though

we stocked up on bottled water because we didn't know what the hotel would give us

dinner was disgusting though, the minestrone soup tasted like salt, and whoever concieved of giving us aubergine and chips for a main needs to be shot. i think that we all went to bed hungry haha.

by this point i was exhausted and going slightly mad because i was running on 2 hours sleep more or less and the teachers kept us doing things constantly so i was realllllly tired

but an early night was not to be as it turned out because M has these friends, C and W (both boys) who wanted to sit and talk to her so they came into our room and then all of V's friends (all boys) came to sit with us too and it wasn't long before they cracked out some beer and C got out his playing cards and we played bullshit and poker until the teacher came around and told them to go back to their own rooms

no one bothered arguing because we were all tired and we crawled into bed and went to sleep ending our very long day

Lyrics: somebody that I used to know / gotye

So bottle up old love and throw it out to sea watch it away as you cry a year has passed the seasons go

yknow..this month is really full haha. i've got the visit day, a party, and then i'm going to pompeii..part of me thinks i'll be glad when it's all over because i like having time to myself hahaha

Lyrics: my paper heart / all american rejects

I can't build real love out of papercuts and plastic couldn't decide what to give so I left you the facts and that's it

you know when you agree to go on a trip abroad with college it's easy to forget that your young good looking teacher will have to see your passport photograph taken when you were 14 had acne and weird hair

not good

Lyrics: ps / jenny owen youngs

You are the hole in my head you are the space in my bed you are the silence in between what I thought and what I said

today has actually been really busy i went shopping with my mother and blew almost my entire wage on clothes for Pompeii and on random jewellery as usual hahaha

i'm exhausted now though..i was up too early and out too long, just relaxing now and waiting for food :)

Lyrics: no light, no light / florence + the machine

Some say I'll be better without you but they don't know you like I do or at least the sides I thought I knew

i've got like 3 weeks before i go to pompeii

it's weird :(

there's like a proper rush on to buy things and pack lmao and that decision, hand or hold luggage? big decisions

Lyrics: he won't go / adele

This is how it works you're young until you're not you love until you don't you try until you can't you laugh until you cry you cry until you laugh and everyone must breathe until their dying breath

reallllly need to book my tattoo i want it before i go to pompeii i just can't decide which one i want first hahaha my mum and dad said they'd pay for one for my birthday but that never happened but as i see it their offer still stands haha

it's either a star on the back of my neck or a rabbit on my left wrist..

i mean i want loads more than that trust me but they're the main ones i want soon i'll probably go for the star first just because i can

then i want my helix pierced three times, my antitragus done and my rook, plus my lobes a second time and more than that

not necessarily all before pompeii of course that'd just be silly

Lyrics: on the radio / regina spektor

Pass me that lovely little gun my dear my darling one

Just applied for an EHIC for Pompeii

Lyrics: o children / nick cave and the bad seeds