I’m living in a dream!

These past two weeks have been absolutely crazy! Not only did I have midterms and presentations in most of my classes, but I of course, spent both of the preceding weekends traveling to awesome places in Italy, seriously cutting down on my preparation/studying/sleep time. To fully explain my situation to you, I should tell you that last night, when I sat down to finally update this blog, I woke up 2 ½ hours later on my computer to the laughter of my roommates! Despite their craziness, these two weeks have been absolutely amazing!

Two weekends ago, I got the privilege of going with one of my on-site classes to Pompeii-it was an archaeology major’s heaven! To be able to walk around an almost completely preserved Roman city, and see it as if I were visiting it 2,000 years ago, was an experience that I will always love and remember. The experience was enriched even more because I was able to go with my favorite professor/class here, learn about Roman domestic architecture and have an expert explain to me the significance of everything I was seeing! I must admit that I was so enthralled and enjoying myself so much during the experience (despite the fact that it rained most of the day) that it didn’t even occur to me to take a picture of myself while I was there! One of my favorite parts was just walking around the streets and seeing the number of Bars/eateries which lined the street front. It reminded me of the way streets in Rome look today- Italians sure haven’t changed much, they still love a nice break in the middle of the day to stop in to their local bar for a slice of foccacia pizza (I was informed in Naples that most of the “pizza” in Rome, shouldn’t be called pizza but should be classified as Foccacia). I also had the privilege while their of doing a report on the Villa of Mysteries, a beautiful Villa right outside the city walls, which belonged to an important 1^st century family and houses the incredible Dionysian Frescoes- no one is sure exactly what they depict, possibly a Dionysian festival, a wedding celebration or an initiation into the Dionysian mystery cult. Whatever it may depict, the paintings are beautiful and interesting to study in light of its context and 1^st c. upper-class culture! 

a view of Vesuvius from the Forum

the amphitheater- it's an early form of the Roman theater, you can tell they're still experimenting because of the stairs on the outside of the theater!

a picture of a little bar along the street front

Villa of Mysteries

the Dionysian paintings

Our tour of Pompeii ended by 4:00 pm and since my roommate (Virginia, who is in a different class that went on the field trip) and I had woken up  at 5:30 am so we could make it to school by 6:50, we immediately took the train into Naples and headed to our lovely little hostel, the Welcome Inn, to dry off and rest for a little while. Our beds were so comfortable and we were so tired we almost decided not to head out to try the famous Neopolitan Pizza. Luckily we were able to convince ourselves to venture out into the rain again, and we headed to the hostel workers’ favorite pizza joint, just at the time (around 8:30 pm) when all the locals were heading out for Pizza. Although that meant we had to wait for about an hour to get in, it was fun to be surrounded by the locals and do a little bit of people watching, plus I had an amazing prosciutto and mozzarella pizza with a sprite to top it off (that's only the second time I've splurged on pop here, somehow it seemed fitting to have with my first Neoploitan pizza!).

the dorm room we stayed in had a little terrace with a beautiful view of the city

The next morning another one of my roommates, Divya took the train down to Naples to meet us and we headed to the National Archaeological museum. The place was a treasure trove of archaeological awesomeness! My three favorite things we saw there were:  the seemingly endless rooms of coins (who knew coins so be such detailed little pictures!), the room of secrets (for those of you from Ashkelon, think of that special collection of Roman lamps), and the room of mosaics (we had fun imagining having Roman style rooms filled with mosaics in our future houses!). 

me with a map of pompeii!

Virginia explaining to me the Roman philosophy behind this mosaic- It's a reminder to its owner to enjoy life, because we in the end, we all die

Me pointing at a table with Lion paws for table legs! It's exciting because I found a similar lion paw last summer at Ashkelon

Me admiring a mosaic depicting Alexander the great defeating the Persians

After the museum we headed out to the famous Da Michele pizzeria, featured in the Eat, Pray, Love books and movies, and supposedly the best pizza in the city famous for inventing pizza! We ended up sitting with a local, who though he didn’t speak much English, was very nice and assured us that he woudn’t eat pizza anywhere else! I was definitely not disappointed! It was delicious, and probably the best crust/cheese combo I have ever had, though I thought the sauce had been better at the pizzeria we had visited the previous night. The wait for Da Michele had taken almost 2 hours, so by the time we were finished eating we only had time to walk around a bit, enjoying the unique atmosphere of Naples, and then we headed back to catch our train to Rome. On our ride back to Rome, we all decided that we needed to be more proactive about meeting Italians and practicing our Italian, since we are so often surrounded by Americans at school. To our delight we made friends with a group of three cool Italians, headed into the city for a concert, and had fun discussing America, music and food with them. They are the ones who informed us that the Pizza we get at the little bars (p.s. bars in Italy literally means an establishment that has a bar in it, none of the bars here serve alcoholic beverages) is properly called focaccia (they are large sheets of Focaccia with a variety of toppings on it, which upon request is sliced off to a size of your choosing, weighed and heated up for consumption-a delicious little lunch!). We also met a Brazilian man (who didn’t like soccer!!!! I was extremely upset) and an Italian photographer on our bus back to our house! 

Da Michele's- the famous pizzeria

Julia Robert's with the Pizza guys!

The Pizza!

Me devouring the pizza!

So I think this post has reached its maximum length for a single single entry, check back VERY soon for an update on Venice, and some of my other ramblings about Rome. Thanks for being patient (mother) while I took forever to update!