I'm writing this on Tuesday because I'm very behind . . . a full day makes for no energy left at night. Yesterday was an amazing first day experiencing Italy.
We began the morning by taking the metro and an extremely crowded bus (apparently this is normal?) to get to the Catacombs. Seeing the catacombs was amazing, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures there :( It was interesting to learn that slaves and other workers built those catacombs beneath the ground by hacking away with pickaxes and other tools. They built the tombs underground because it was cheaper than building a structure aboveground to hold them. Within the catacombs we saw various (empty) tomb sites and objects like pottery and oil lamps. There was a small room that had two open "caskets" (I guess you'd call them that)—one held (mostly) preserved human bones and the other had a mummy. Now, the mummy really looked more like an elongated pile of dust or spiderwebs than one of the guys Brendan Fraser goes up against, but it was still cool to think that it was once a person. Cool and/or creepy. Overall, very cool.
After the catacombs we traveled (walked) to the Appian Way, the original ancient Roman road. It is a really long road, so we didn't walk along the entire thing. But we walked really far. Really far.
Here are a few things we saw along the way:
After the Appian Way, we went to The "Fosse Ardeatine" Memorial, a memorial for 335 Italians who were massacred by the Nazis on March 24, 1944. The memorial includes a mausoleum were all the tombs are placed in rows, with each tombstone bearing the name, age, occupation, and a photograph of the person who was killed. It was a really solemn place, but absolutely worth seeing.
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| The mausoleum |
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| The tomb of a 20-year-old |
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| Location of the shootings |
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| Memorial plaque at the shootings |
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| My first Italian pizza! |
First things first, we had to get some lunch. We took the metro to the Spagna stop (location of the Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps, etc.) where we walked around until we found a small pizzeria and got slices of pizza. In the shop, they have many different types of pizzas all in big rectangles. You ask for a certain-sized section of the pizza, which they then cut off, weigh (price is based on weight), then heat up in the oven. When they take it out, they fold your rectangle section of pizza in half, so you eat it like a sandwich.
I ordered (in Italian!) the pepperoni pizza, except "pepperoni" is the American version . . . and I couldn't remember the Italian version of the pizza. So I ordered the "pepperone" because that is the literal Italian translation, and the lady (who spoke some English) said, "You mean the 'salami.'" I guess what I would call pepperoni is actually salami! Regardless, I got the kind I wanted and it was delicious.
After pizza, we spent a couple of hours walking down Via del Corso, a street lined with all kinds of shops. We went into Zara—which is like a European, classier H&M—and other random stores. We all wanted to buy so much stuff, but a lot of it was expensive. I ended up buying a cool postcard for 50 centi. Big spender.
When we were walking down one of the small streets, we saw a vendor selling watercolor paints, and one of the girls I was with, Rebeca, stopped to look at them. We had a long conversation with him in Italian, which was really fun. Mercedes and Rebeca, girls in our group, both bought paintings from him.
After going through the stores, we were pretty close (or we thought) to the Trevi Fountain, so we decided to look for it. About 15 minutes later we finally found it, and it was incredible. It is absolutely beautiful and HUGE. We were only there for a minute, because we will be going later this week as a group, so we didn't throw in coins. It was really nice to just sit and look at the fountain for a minute though. It is really amazing. |
| Fontana di Trevi |
After visiting La Fontana di Trevi, it was time to head back for dinner. We had to be there at 7pm, and could not be late. (Cinzia, our professor, was adamant about this, since we had all been late to our meeting time earlier that morning . . . oops.)
So we made it back to the metro and went back to our hotel/apartment to have dinner. And since we couldn't stand it, a couple of hours after dinner a small group of us went to get gelato. It was wonderful to walk the streets of Rome at night, when there were hardly any people out and it was a nice, warm but breezy temperature. I ordered Twix and Stracciatella (chocolate chip); with a gelato of any size you get two flavors, and possibly even three.
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| Gelato! |
This was no ice cream. This was buonissimo. Absolutely delicious. Fro-yo will never cut it again. It was my first ever gelato and it was the greatest.
And yes, I did take pictures of everything, even my gelato. It was my first day in Italy! I had to! (Except I will probably be taking pictures of everything until the very last day, so I don't actually have a legitimate excuse.)
It was a successful first day, and I am already getting used to the metro and getting better and better at understanding and using the language. It is so strange to be the foreigner, but I am loving it. I especially love when the Italians are so friendly and encouraging when you make the effort to speak to them in Italian. It's a wonderful experience.
That's all for now. Busy, amazing days ahead! Tomorrow (Tuesday) we head to the Colosseum!
Ciao!
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