Back in the USA

I've been back in the States for about two weeks now and I think I had a smooth transition. There were some immediate differences that took me off guard a little bit though.

 The first was that it was actually Winter!!! What? Well see in Italy it was still pretty warm and humid, but the second we stepped outside of the airport, that cold bitter air that tastes like ice was ready to greet us. It was rather comforting though since I had missed my seasons acting like they normally do and I was already back to wearing sweatshirts for jackets. Although my hair is not loving the dry air and has just died and gone to hair hell where frizz and static reign supreme. 

Sitting on the toilet was also a weird first experience back. I didn't notice the change when I went to Italy, but coming back to a more supportive seat was a little weird at first haha.

The third reverse culture shock for me was actually the fact the people we're speaking English. Now I had been to Dublin for a couple of days but to actually, permanently be back was odd. I missed hearing other languages and I think I still do. I've been keeping up with my Duolingo just to hear Italian again, and eventually I'll start tackling German. 

I'm definently glad that I made this trip and took the chance to really leave my comfort zone and everything familiar. I feel like I grew in places I wasn't expecting to and just really started to round out who I really am and want to be. I also learn valuable life lessons like how to cook, and properly shop for food aside from microwaveable products.

It does feel very good to be home though and I can't wait to blend my life in Italy into my everyday life here finding my happy medium. 

One Final Time

On the 26th, I took my family to Perugia, the place where I spent the last 3 and a half months studying.

While there I showed them the two museums that I interned with plus another that I did a project with. I did a project on their Naked Lady (Pictured to the left), in which I simply identified her ethnicity and age. I then expanded on her dialog from the Museum Bio of her.

We also saw the Frontone Garden, which was my favorite place to see trees or run too while in Perugia. After that I finally got to ride on the Merry-Go-Round that's been up since the Chocolate festival so that made my day!

The last thing was saw was this underground market. Literally, under Piazza Italia and inside the city walls is a nice little market place that I wish I had discovered sooner. It would've been nice to explore within the city walls more since it was clearly some underground tunnels that had been carved away in the past.

Florence Round 2

My parents had arranged a trip to Florence so I got to see the David again and even buy a nice lisstle coin purse. This would've certainly been nice to have earlier on. I often caught myself with a jingling purse as I walked. So now when I return home, I'll have something to put my coins in so that I never have a jingly purse again.

I also got to see the inside of the Duomo, which is wicked empty and only the outside it worth seeing to be completely honest.

The Colosseum and Roman Forum

Tis a horse

When I was in Rome for a weekend with my Archaeology class we walked over to the Colosseum and Roman Forum, but arrived too late to go inside.

This time we did and it was pretty cool. It's more impressive that so much of it is still standing and that you can make out the figures of old buildings and such. Some people were touching the ruins on display with old graffiti on it, and that annoyed me. Do you want to destroy history? Because that's how you destroy history! With your oily fingers destroying things. There were also some cool animal bones and skulls, which was pretty wicked from my point of view.

The Roman Forum was also cool, we got to see part of the Golden House of Nero, which is huge. So this guy was obsessed with money and power and built this giant house.

The Vatican Round 2

I returned to the Vatican this past week and as promised early I will give a more in depth post about it now that I've been three times.

So the first time I came with my Archaeology class and we visited the Pio-Clementine and Gregorian Museum. Mainly because they held artifacts from the Etruscan Period and that's what the class was focusing on. There were certainly a lot of cool artifacts and I learned that Museums are named because they are a shrine to the 9 Muses. After the field trip we had to write about an artifact in the Belvedere courtyard and I picked the River God Fountain. The basin is a sarcophagus with war scenes and the god himself is under speculation as to which river he reigns over.

The Second time I went with my family and we went straight to the Sistine Chapel (which I had been at before) and had the most fantastic tour guide of our trip. She called herself our Mamma Bear, and had worked in the Vatican Museums previously. She even called the Pope, Frankie, and said that he would wander the halls sometimes on his own and say "Hi" to workers. We also got the see St. Peter's Basilica and Square which were just massive and wow. So much skill and math went into that church and it's truly impressive.

The third time I went was on Christmas, to St. Peter's Square for the Pope's speech. I can now say that I have seen the Pope! The small white blob, hundreds, maybe thousands of feet away that make up Pope Francis haha.

Villa D'Este

I hadn't visited the Villa D'Este before this week, it was something my parents had planned, so it was nice to see something new since most of our trips were repeats for me.

We mainly went to see the gardens, which were five levels high and filled with a bunch of fountains. It was really pretty here, and it was interesting to see the gardens overrun by the years and weathers.

Pompeii Round 2

Back in September the school offered a trip to Ischia, Capri, and Pompeii and I went on the trip. With my family they also wanted to visit Pompeii so I got to go twice but this time I got to see more.

I did not like our tour guide, I found him not funny, and the headsets we had made it hard to tell if he was speaking Spanish or English, since the tour was in both languages. So JP and I ended up branching off on our own for the most part, since it was allowed. It was fun, I talked about the places I had been to last time (a Roman House, a public bath house, and a brothel), and then we also explored some places that I hadn't been so that was interesting.

We slept a lot on the bus rides there and back, mainly because it was early in the morning and a long ride, but also because they were still adjusting to jet lag, and I was just tired.

The size of Pompeii still amazed me, how a whole city is just sitting inside of a modern city and the incredible things you could find hundreds of years later.