Getting Here

I'm finally in Italy!

I left Cincinnati to head to the Dayton airport to catch my flight to Chicago then straight to Rome. There were some delay issues, but nothing that couldn't be sorted out with ease! Upon arrival, we were given a small orientation where we met our USAC team leaders and had a city tour of Viterbo. I'm so excited about getting to know this town. The city is set inside walls and is from Medieval times. 

It is gorgeous; my apartment is in an old palace with a bright blue front door. 

This is not the side with the bright blue door, obviously

After we saw our apartments and met the town, we left for 5 days in the south of Italy, staying in Sorrento. 

The first day we went to Naples (Napoli) and explored the city and its underground water systems and theatres. We also visited the amazing Archeological Museum. It seemed like a really great city, but I wish we would have had more time to explore it in depth. We had pizza, a Napoli classic, which was amazing and a nice welcome to the city. Walking through the streets filled with vendors reminded me a bit of New York City and New Orleans combined, but there were many more languages to hear and better smelling food.

Next up was the most interesting day so far, perhaps: Pompeii! We walked through the ruins for a few hours and saw a couple of the plaster cast bodies. I really regret not seeing the traveling Pompeii exhibit now! I learned so much on our tour of the ruins from one of the USAC professors. For example, Pompeii was more affected by the ashes of the eruption than the lava itself. Also during the time of Pompeii, rather than reading tarot cards or palms, people would study the flight of birds or the innards of dead animals for fortune and knowledge. Salt was a form of wealth and power during this time as well, causing wars and conflicts. I could go on like this for a while...

The next day was a free day for us and we had several options to choose from for our day trip; my group chose Capri! We had to take a ferry to the island and when we arrived we were approached by someone asking if we wanted to rent a private boat to take us around the island. We took them up on this offer and it was the best decision thus far! Our driver took us around the island, including to the Blue Grotto, a major attraction on Capri. He played music for us and told us facts about the island, and made the day super fun. Then he let us off at a beach to swim, which was interesting because the beach was all rocks instead of sand. Painful, but so worth it. A great day.

Day four was on the Amalfi coast. An interesting fact we learned about Amalfi is that they make their own paper! I bought some local paper and it feels amazingly beautiful. We visited a beautiful duomo (cathedral) here named for St. Andrew. There was an amazing courtyard area called Chiostro del Paradiso (cloister of paradise). After our tour here, we were on our own, so we went to the beach again. The beach was SO HOT because the rocks had been soaking in the sun's heat all day, but once we reached the water we were in heaven! After some gelato here, we made our way back to Sorrento for the night.

On our way back to Viterbo, we stopped in at Caserta's palace. This thing was huge and gorgeous! It was built in 1751/2 and took 22 years to complete. There were so many rooms to see and we only visited a small corner of them. There were no hallways included in architecture at this time, so everything was very much walking through rooms to get to another room, requiring a very strategic flow. I loved the super gorgeous ceilings and paintings throughout this palace! After lunch, we were free to roam the 3+ km long park in the back of the building, where the high-class ranked people of the town would gather. Awesome day.

Once we came back to Viterbo, we have just been exploring the town to get to know our home for the next 5 weeks. Tomorrow is our school orientation and first day of classes! I am very interested to see how everything goes! I'll keep you posted!