So March came and went and I was starting to feel the pressed for time. I only had a month left and so much to see and do as well as papers to write and presentations to finish. There just didn't seem to be enough time to do everything that I wanted to do in a small span of 30 days. Luckily, I was able to get one last trip in during Easter weekend where my three friends and I went to Naples and Pompeii. That was an amazing trip and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to go.
We left Friday afternoon by way of Blah Blah Car which is a website similar to Uber where people post where they are coming from and going and you ask to join them and pay them a small fare for driving you. We happened to pick a very busy weekend to go, but the traffic was moving well so we were able to make it in a little over 5 hours. We had to go in two separate cars because there were four of us. We were able to make it and reunite together to get to our Airbnb host which happened to be a really nice hotel near the train station. Unfortunately, that side of Naples is the trashy side so we thought that Naples was a really dirty city until we explored a little more. That night we went to one of the oldest and most famous pizza places in Naples and boy was it good! We waited two hours, but it was so worth it. The menu is simple; you order a pizza with or without cheese and a drink. That's all they offer. On the bright side it is cooked in a wood burning oven right in front of you and is made to order so when you get it, its super fresh. The best part is, it's only 4 euros and a little over 5 euros with a coke. As you can tell we ate a lot of pizza in Naples.
On Saturday we made our way to Pompeii and Herculano. Pompeii is huge and beautiful, but most of the artifacts have been taken out and spread around to different museums. When you go, you'll see a lot of empty buildings. Some places still have the artwork and stone work and it was very beautiful. Most of the frescos were badly faded or destroyed when the city was buried. We were able to find the amphitheater and go inside which was probably one of the highlights of the tour. Most of Pompeii is under going restoration so we couldn't see a lot of parts nor did many places explain what they were.
After lunch and a short train ride to Herculano, we explored another city also affected by Vesuvius, but not so badly damaged. It used to be a port city although when you arrive, you'll never be able to tell since it is rather far from the coast. When you look down in the hole you'll see dry docks for boats. These dry docks are also where many people fled to for protection against the volcano and where they suffocated and died. Although you can not go right in front of them as you walk out to leave, you'll be able to get a good view into them and see all the bones that had been found. The rest of Herculano is much better preserved than Pompeii. They still two or three story building almost completely in tack with stairs and such. You obviously can't go up because they are not stable or there is no actual floor up there, but it is still really cool to see how much survived. They have artwork and stone work and theaters. They even have a building that has wood beams that have become petrified wood. That means that over time the wood was slowly replaced with minerals but the structure stayed the same. You can still see the tree rings. Although Herculano was smaller, I personally liked it better.
So if you want to stay in Naples and still visit Pompeii and such, it is really easy. There is a special train line that goes from Naples to Sorrento. The different stops are clearly labeled so you just need to decided where to get off. To enter Pompeii and other places, you'll need a ticket. They have a deal where if you pay 20 euros, you can get into all 5 ruins and it lasts for three days. Herculano and Pompeii are rather expensive to get into. Two of the three other places are less expensive, but not as big, and the third place is free all the time. So its up to you. If you plan on doing all the ruins, this is a good idea.
On Sunday, since it was Easter, two of my friends and I went to a cathedral for service. We looked around on the internet for a church close by that was having an Easter service and we were able to find one. Unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs and none of us were really prepared for this weather. Even though the church wasn't that far, we were drenched by the time we got there. Since it was an old stone church, there was no heating inside so we had to sit there wet in a cold church. It wasn't the most fun experience ever, but the church was very big and beautiful on the inside. There was lots of art work and architecture. Afterwards we went out for lunch at a caffe and pretty much relaxed in our hotel room until the evening when my one friend and I walked around and found one of the castles close to our hotel after the rain finally stopped. We then found dinner as well at a small restaurant near our hotel and continued to relax at our hotel.
The next day, another friend was leaving in the early afternoon, but we really wanted to climb to the top of Vesuvius. The park opened at nine so we got up early and road the train to the Herculano stop. There you can either ride a bus run through a tourist place which wasn't open when we got there or there are plenty of taxis that will take you up there for a little bit more. Overall it takes about an hour to get up there and about an hour to walk up to the cone. We took a taxi up there because for some reason the bus was not running yet. Luckily it wasn't raining like the day before. When we got up there, it was a total change in temperature. It was cold and snowing slightly and extremely windy. We did not bring the right clothing with us and were all cold, but we were already there and were going to have to pay the taxi driver so we went up anyways. I think it took about an hour to hike up and then back down through the freezing wind and snow. It was cool to be at the top of Vesuvius and see down across Naples and Pompeii. You can see the coast and the Mediterranean sea from there, plus I got to be right on top of an active volcano. It was an adventure for sure. Also, word to the wise: if you ever decide that this would be a great idea (as you should) bring warm clothes! Even in the summer it is still freezing. It is a tall mountain and therefore does not play by the same weather rules.
After almost freezing to death we made our way back to Naples to grab a pizza from the famous place before my friend had to leave. We didn't wait as long as before, but it was still a wait to get in. My friend had just enough time to get her pizza before having to run to catch her blah blah car back to Siena. After a lunch my last friend and I decided to go to the Natural History Museum because they are known to have many artifacts from Pompeii and Herculano there. On our way, we happened to pass the Duomo of Naples and took a peek inside. It was not as grand as Siena, but still large and beautiful. It is worth a peek inside. The Natural History Museum is this huge historical building that used to be someone's mansion. It is now filed with works of art from all over the world. They had a lot of unique exhibits, but like I had heard, the museum also had many artifacts from Pompeii and Herculano. There was even a room dedicated to all the different penis artifacts that these people made. Yes you saw that correctly. It was not autocorrected or anything. These people did not really worship penises but it was an important symbol in their culture. I'm not going to lie, that part was really weird. There was literally thousands of sculptures and paintings representing penis'. There was an awkward moment where we were looking at something when we first got in and then a man came up and was looking at what we were and he got a surprised look on his face and kind of chucked when he realized what it was. It was kinda funny, but mostly just awkward.
After the museum we walked around a little bit and then went to find dinner. So pretty much more pizza because why not.
On our last day my friend and I decided to just walk around the city and do some window shopping. We also found a market and walked around it. My friend was able to find a nice pair of shoes for her boyfriend for super cheap. Other than that we didn't really buy anything, but we did see the sea and the bay. We also found another castle. This one was better preserved, but it cost money to go inside so we saw what we could and then moved on. After that we went and had dinner because you have to have one more pizza before leaving Naples for good. Then that was it. We left to go find our blah blah car home and then we had the longest car ride of my life. Since it was a long weekend and everyone was leaving to return home and the highway was really full of people and it wasn't moving very well. At 1 am I was finally able to lay my head down to sleep.
Only to get woken up four hours later to go to Rome with my religion class. Yes I got only four hours of sleep. I guess that's what I get for ditching a day of classes, but I wasn't about to miss out on an adventure to Rome and the Vatican. Plus I had to go because it was mandatory for my class, but you know, details details. We left at 6:30am from Siena and arrived at about 10 to the Vatican where we got to see the Pope give a speech. It was an interesting experience because I never really saw myself ever going to see the Pope, but what better place to see him than in Italy. After his speech we got to go inside the basilica which is enormous and very grand. For those of you who don't know, the Vatican is extremely wealthy. They not only get tax breaks and a small portion of taxes, but wealthy people with no heirs would give their whole estate to the Church making it very wealthy place. So the basilica is mostly made of beautiful marble in all different colors and patterns. When you step inside it is just amazing how large and grand it is. You almost forget it is a place of God since it is so elegant. The basilica has tombs of famous priests and popes. The are very decorative and rather beautiful. They take being dead to the whole new level. It was a very a really cool place and I wish we had had more time to see more in the Vatican.
After that we were free to roam around for a couple hours before the three hour journey home. I went with Juan Carlos and a couple other people and we walked along the river and saw a few different sites. We also found this hole in the wall gelateria that had amazing gelato and so many different flavors. The outside was covered with colored glass and it looked so beautiful. I will have to go back for sure. Other than that there wasn't much time to do too much. We had to get back in time for dinner. Maybe one day I'll come back and explore Rome in its entirety.
My roommate's family came to visit as well this week. My host mom wanted to make them dinner so on Thursday I got to meet her whole family and my host mom made a delicious meal. It was really nice to meet her whole family and watch everyone try to communicate, but I kinda missed home a little. I knew all my friends and family back home were busy doing stuff and I wanted to be there to do these things with them.
The next week SIS took us all to the beach. We were all so excited and it was the talk of the week. We all got up early on a Saturday and walked through the cloudy and cold streets of Siena in beach clothes. We got several concerned looks as we made our way to the bus stop. Luckily for us, the weather at the beach was perfect. It was sunny and warm and no rain! The water was very cold, but a very beautiful color blue. A group of like 25 of us played volleyball and that was a lot of fun. We even got gelato to finish it up. After a wonderful afternoon, we all had our last dinner with the Lewis and Clark students because their program ended two weeks before everyone else. All the teachers came and we enjoyed joking and talking with each other as a big group. We had a great semester together and we all got along pretty well for the most part so there was a lot of hugs and crying because who knows when we are going to be able to see each other again.
And like that all the Lewis and Clark students left Siena either returning home or going on an adventure in Europe. It was sad because a lot of friends left and also our program was ending as well. Who knew a semester could go by so quickly! There was so much to do and so much planning to be made that everything got hectic the last two weeks. I had to say good bye to my two classes of students that I taught English to. It was especially hard to leave my fifth graders because they always enjoyed when I came in and taught/played games. They gave me hugs and said goodbye and it tore at my heart.
After that, I had two final papers to write and the second CILS test to take and finals to study for. Everything happened so fast. The papers took longer to write than I expected because not only were they 2000 words for Art history and 3000 words for religion, but it had to be written in Italian. So I had to write very basic sentences about my topics and it took forever to write enough to get to the minimum. For the CILS test, I was taking a level up from the rest of my class because I was offered the chance to try the higher level test. I was super worried about taking it because all the practice packets I tried were very difficult and I struggled with them, but the actual test was difficult, but not as much as I imagined. So in the end I am certified as a B1 level Italian speaker. Pretty good for only being here for less than 4 months and coming to Italy with zero Italian experience. Finals week was rough and stressful just like back home. Reading and rereading notes, preparing presentations, trying to remember everything that was discussed throughout the semester. After each test was done and as I turned in my final papers, slowly the stress began to lift off my shoulders. The new stress now was to pack my life into a few bags. I had accumulated a lot of stuff as well as presents for people back home and now had to consider how to pack everything. After some struggle and a lot of rearranging, I was able to get everything squished into my suitcases.
To finish off the program the rest of us had an avertivo at Bruce's amazing apartment overlooking Piazza del Campo and enjoyed a nice afternoon together. I also climbed the Torre del Mangia which is the famous large tower on Piazza del Campo where you can see the whole city in a panoramic view. Luckily it turned out to be a nice day and were able to see for miles all around the city. It was beautiful and it made me love my second home. It also brought sadness from the fact I was going to have to be leaving soon. Leaving is so hard!
So that was April and like that it was done and over. All the goodbyes were said. People went home or continued traveling. I went my separate way on May first with a couple friends as we took on London and Dublin Together. (see next post for more info)
Cori
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