Pompei in a Day

I did take a two-day excursion back to Rome and then to Pompeii with Peter and Anneke from the program just to break up the time in the mountains. We spent two nights in a camping villa outside of the center of Rome. This place was fantastic! It was like a whole other world and not nearly what I expected. We lived in a chalet all alone with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a porch and even air conditioning! This was so foreign to me I had trouble controlling the temperature in the room and seemed to always make it colder than it should be. The camping villa was filled with chalets and bungalows and various bars, restaurants, a pool and even an Internet café. I was in love with all of that, but it got even better when we could see the stars and the moon shining so brightly in the sky above us. This place was perfect and we took advantage of its beauty every night. There was also a supermarket across the street, so we raided that and bought a bunch of food so I could cook us dinner. I fried up some potatoes, zucchini, peppers and eggplant, as well as fried up some lemon-peppered catfish. Delicious. I was so excited to sit down like a family out on the porch and enjoy a home-cooked meal together with a nice bottle of wine to go along with it.

The next day Peter and I spent in Pompeii because we wanted to take a day trip further south and we chose Pompeii. We had no idea what to expect and though we did our research on how to get there, we still managed to get lost. Hey! It wasn’t our fault because we specifically asked a “worker” at the mini train station (that brought you directly to the Pompeii archeological site) what track the next train for Pompeii was leaving and he told us so we trusted him. Well, we waited for about a half hour and fought to get seats on the train and lo and behold it was the wrong line. We kept riding in the wrong direction and decided to get off at one of the stops that we could transfer onto the right train. We backtracked a little, but we met this nice English woman who took us under her wing and showed us the way. We finally reached Pompeii and walked toward the site together. Our stomachs were growling and since we now knew the way, we stopped for a small pizza just to fill our tummies. We did the wrong thing and stopped at a touristy place, but really we had one of the best pizzas we’ve had in awhile there and enjoyed all of the other tourists around us. There were true Italian old people sitting behind us, so it gave us a bit more reassurance that it wasn’t completely touristy J Of course I ordered my pizza Neapolitan with fresh tomato sauce, basil and anchovies. Yum!

When we finally made it to the archeological site and paid the 11 euro entrance fee. I tried getting the student discount but when they asked for an EU student ID I had nothing to give them…oh well it was worth a shot. The map was only help to us later on our journey through the site because in the beginning we kind of just followed roads here and there and stumbled-literally- upon different sites and things to see. We followed the main road and it was fascinating how much we could see how the old city used to be. The street was so well preserved and so well excavated at that! We followed the road down and there were houses on either side of the street and it was as if it was still a functional city! Pretty amazing! We peaked in a few houses and some were still filled with mosaics and paintings on the wall and even barrels and pottery still sat at various rooms of the houses. It was totally how everyone describes it- the eruption came and preserved everything exactly in the way that it was functioning that very day. No one had time to escape and there was no time to move anything. Incredible. When we walked into a house, we noticed that it was set up like a kitchen. The information panel explained that it was the “fast food” lunch hall that people used to visit for a short time, grab their food and drink and then head back on the road to go about their day- it was just like the Romans did it and pretty much how we do it today.

The day at Pompeii ended quite sooner then we originally planned because we got a phone call from our Italian friend Renato. He was leaving to go back home to Sicily and there was no way we were going to let him leave without a proper goodbye at Roma Termini! SO Peter and I power walked our way through the rest of Pompeii, even though we didn’t see all of it, and caught the next train back to Napoli. Once at Napoli, we ran to the train to Roma. We planned on taking the 5:30 train, but somehow even after making a long stop in the bookstore, we made it to the track in time to catch the 4:30 train that just so happened to be leaving 15 minutes in ritardo (late). How crazy! We ran and got a seat and sat in with some older guy who must have thought we were nuts. We got comfy and though my ticket said leaving Napoli to Rome at 6:30, the ticket lady let me go and Peter had his 7-day pass, so there was no problem there! Perfect.

We made it to Termini with even enough time to browse the bookstore there and get lost in the aisles. Renato called us and we met up with him for a quick dinner before he left on his overnight train. It was so sad to see him go because he was the one Italian that we all bonded with so much. He was a computer-engineering student and just about one of the brightest kids we’d met. He doesn’t have a Facebook because he knows how evil it is J He speaks English really well and always helped us when we wanted to learn new words in Italian. There was no way we wouldn’t have fun or go on some sort of adventure when we were with him- he is so full of life! This guy is one heck of a person and friend. If there is one person we will always remember from the trip it would have to be Renato.

Then there was me and Peter yet again and we were off to our camping villa outside of the city to meet with Anneke. There was the three of us left and we had nothing left but memories. I cried when we looked at pictures on Facebook and talked about all the crazy things that happened in the past month. But I always remember having a smile on my face while the tears rolled down my cheeks. There was never a thought in my head that could deter me from feeling so happy and in high spirits about my time in Rome. I will surely miss the neighborhood, the kebab shop and our favorite café and gelateria, la residenza, the workers in la residenza, the Italian students, the professors and professionals we met, the ponte 2010ers and the whole feeling of being in another country- a country I call my home- with so much to do and so much to learn and experience. Most importantly though I will miss the long, sweaty, hot, congested bus and Metro rides that we had to take nearly every day and sometimes twice a day to get around the city…NOT!