Where to even begin... This morning feels like at least a week ago! So we woke up at 7 am for our breakfast. I checked and tripled checked our room, paranoid I would leave something and headed downstairs to the dining room. Something funny that I've noticed is that corn flakes seem to make it everywhere, the Motopo Hills in Zimbabwe, Africa and our off the road hotel by Pompeii, Italy. I loaded up a bowl with some classic corn flakes, grabbed a croissant, and went to sit down. Janae had this tangy juice that was almost good and Taylor just settled for some yogurt, still complaining about how full she was from last nights dinner. Although I could definitely relate, I didn't want to miss out on the ~free~ Italian experience so I ate my cereal and nibbled at my croissant. Oh and people here LOVE Nutella! So there is some on every street corner and at our breakfast and lunch tables. After breakfast we said "ciao" to our hotel and loaded onto the bus.
We got off the bus at Paestum (pie-stum. Not paste-um. Some people were confused😒) an old Roman city with lots of ruins. It was a beautiful day and the temples looks amazing against the blue skies and bright green grass. I know this is the "arts and gardens" tour, but I just cannot for the life of me get into plants. Like they're pretty and all but do I really need to know the scientific name and fun facts about them?? It's funny though because the two guys who are horticulture majors are like, "I LOVE PLANTS they're just so awesome!". They're really great guys, so it's not like they're weird or anything, but to each their own. Just like the boys and their plants Janae still loves her rocks. She spent an hour walking around the grounds after a group of us left for lunch, but she said it was awesome so I'm glad someone can really appreciate all the insane work put into these buildings.
For lunch we grabbed pizza and gelato and I met some more of the group. I think I almost know everyone name. Pictured above is my delicious coconut gelato. The pizza was subpar but the gelato was awesome.
Because of finals, I didn't have time to form many expectations about Italy before my trip here. Yesterday while in Pompeii, and this morning in Paestum, I couldn't help but compare them to the other cities I had seen during my earlier travels (Lima, Cusco, Johannesburg). All these cities have buildings built at similar heights, have stained staccato walls, level tops, and have few feet between each one. We assumed the towns weren't big enough to be cities but no one was completely sure of that. Since I didn't have high expectations I didn't think much about this and just noted these similarities. When I woke up from my bus-nap I was STUNNED by the buildings in Naples! You could tell it was a city not a suburb and the buildings were from the 18th century. The doors were as tall as the building and the windows went from the ceiling to the floor. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to walk around the city but seeing those buildings got me so excited for Rome!
We drove two hours to Naples to stop in a museum where a lot of the exhibits were actually closed. On the way we passed the Amalfi coast which is supposed to be insanely beautiful, but it was pretty cloudy so I don't think we got the full effect. And we were in a bus so that probably didn't help. At the museum we got to see real Pompeii ruins and other really beautiful sculptures. If you remember from my last post, I mentioned the pornographic pieces found in the original search for Pompeii. Well, there was one "erotic" part of the museum where they had collected all the "erotic" pieces of "art" and put it in one place. These pieces had been kept hidden for so long, people began to spread the rumor that Pompeii was a very scandalous city. They said that is why it was destroyed by lava and ash, as a punishment from God. It was a very strange place my walk-through was a very quick one.
Original artwork from Pompeii
Only having traveled to Spanish speaking countries, I keep finding myself wanting to ask Italians something in Spanish. It's a really weird feeling only being able to communicate with someone through charades. We ran into this issue when we were kicked out of the nest after a 20 minute walk through of downtown Rome. In a group of about 12 girls we started on the hunt to try to find an authentic, yet edible, cheap, yet delicious, casual, but still nice, restaurant to eat dinner at. After getting lost twice, and realizing it was 9:30 pm, we settled on one cute restaurant with outdoor seating. I split an 8€ lasagna dish with my friend and ordered a water. Italy is supposed to have the best red wine, but I took one sip of someone's and oh my did I missed my Barefoot moscato. I'm still working on that acquired wine taste. Dinner was absolutely DELICIOUS and was so rich I couldn't finish my dish. You can actually tell a difference in the cheese here and it. is. awesome. But of course when someone proposed the idea of finding a bakery/gelato place I had to get somewhere there too. When in Rome right??? Stuffed to the max, and with Taylor navigating us home, we waddled up to our hotel at 11:00. We survived our first night alone in Rome and hopefully tomorrow night I'll have some more fun stories for you!
Until next time, Caio!
~emily
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