Ciao! After a long day of travel, we arrived in Rome last night eager to explore our new city. Everyone was excited to try authentic Italian food, and our first meal consisted of none other than pasta and pizza (accompanied by Gelato of course)! We were all excited to begin exploring, and following dinner, we had the chance to take a short walk around our hotel. We discovered the many plazas (or “piazzas” in Italian) and marveled at the beautiful architecture in our surroundings. To quench our thirst after dessert, we had our first taste of Roman tap water once we learned the proper way to drink from the unique water fountains built into the ground.
Today, we left for a trip to Pompeii. Watching the movie “Pompeii” on the bus definitely helped to set the mood, and give us a feel of what it was like to live in Pompeii! Before arriving at Pompeii, however, we stopped at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples to look at some of the excavated artifacts up close. As with our other trip to the museum in Athens, we had a mission, this time is to look for a common theme amongst the artifacts and sculptures.
As we explored the museum, some of the themes we found included facial expressions and similarities between the Greek and Roman gods. Once finished at the museum, we were all excited to have real Neapolitan pizza for lunch! Instead of eating with our hands, we ate pizza the Italian way, with a fork and a knife. And in celebration of the birthday of our fellow student and blogger Cora, a delicious Nutella pizza was served as well!
After our delicious lunch, we hopped back onto the bus and arrived at Pompeii soon after. We stepped off the bus, and into the cobblestone ruins of Pompeii. It was a truly unbelievable experience walking through the streets, and seeing all the detail that went into building the city! There were so many commonalities between the city and life in big cities now such as New York.
We saw what could have been a ‘fast food‘ restaurant, buildings with shops below, and even an oven! As we walked further through the ruins, we found beautiful murals and had the chance to walk through the bathhouses. After walking through most of the city, it was time to get back onto the bus and head back to Rome. We have lots more to do in Rome, and can’t wait for the days to come!