I was sad to spend a last morning in Rome. I realized I could become Roman. A real one. I could unpack and stay here, find a job, feed the homeless with my breakfast sandwich, and bargain in Italian better than real Italians can. I never want to leave this place. But there`s so much to go see, so I set off to Naples with two girls from my class and the boyfriend of one of them who joined us at the train station that day.
Naples was gross. Grey, filthy, littered in creepy dudes and abandoned construction sites. The walk from the train station to the hostel was scary. I feared for my life. Everyone around seemed like they were either criminals or packing up to get the heck out of there. And we were coming in. Getting into the Hostel of the Sun was like walking through the Pearly Gates of Heaven: bright colors, happy tourists, and a very nice smile from the woman at the counter made me feel right at home. They all spoke wonderful English and helped us with all our problems. We ordered food, too tired to go out (not like the scenery was particularly motivating anyway), and watched Gladiator. I slept like a baby until the next day. We took the bus to Pompei.
The ancient city, still under constant excavation, is already large enough to spend a full day walking around in. Followed by a few of the 47 stray dogs that live in the park, we discovered life as it was frozen back about 2000 years ago. The courtyards are brilliantly organized to catch rain water. The marble counters are equipped with what used to be ovens and stovetops. A few walls contain political messages and graffitti. The city is a labyrinth where you can keep walking on and on and only find a few bits of rubble, then turn a corner and see a fresco that looks as if it may have been painted just days ago. The walls are still stained with the pigments, some houses still have a roof and second floors. This is where people lived. And I walked there 2000 years later. All that's left of these people today are plaster shapes they managed to salvage from the burnt bodies. Although they were few and placed in a row behind a glass wall, the positions they have been petrified in chills the bones: babies, teenagers, adults and the elderly all shared the same fate, and all died in awful pain or despair, or both. Pompei is definitely a must if you ever come around Italy's side of the world.
I left Pompei with one of the girls from the group, leaving the other and her boyfriend to go along their own path (to Greece), and we took the train to Paris. We had been given separate beds in separate cabins, in separate wagons. I was doomed to sleep with an overweight, overly horny Indian man who kept running his hand through his greasy hair saying "what's your number?", so I ran to my friend's cabin, who had been placed with 5 smelly, obese people. I took my courage and for once, complained about the situation I had been placed in to the conductor. Luckily, there had been a free cabin where my friend and I had been placed. An American woman joined us later: she had been put with 5 men who stared at her intently but said nothing. We got along wonderfully, but were quite happy to finally get off the train the next day.
Paris was a special place. For one, I couldn't seem to get my bearings. I also didn't find many hospitable Parisians, maybe except for the family friend whose house we stayed at (who is, in fact, American), and her partially Algerian partner. There were many inconveniences and arising issues that we hadn't prepared for; for instance, cameras needing new batteries or new memory cards, getting lost, arriving after the opening hours or to find that there was a 3-hour line-up, getting lost... Despite all these setbacks, we managed to run in and out of the Louvre, Orsay, Notre Dame de Paris, Versailles (this was the only place we truly took our time), Moulin Rouge (seeing as the shows were out of our budget range, we went to the nearby eroticism museum), Sacre-Coeur and Paris' Fine Arts College (Ecole des Beaux-Arts). Our time spent there may have been short, but it have been deeply engraved in our memory. The most special moments were: staring at a REAL Delacroix, feeding brave pigeons, and walking along the endless busts and paintings of the "War Room" of the Versailles Palace.
PS: the food there was brilliant. I have never been so excited by breakfast before, or lunch. The hot dogs, croque-monsieurs, crepes, gauffres (waffles), and breads and cheeses were delicious.
Unfortunately, not enough time was spent in Paris, and I soon had to head for home. I took a train back to Rome to catch my flight. This time, I was rooming with 3 Texan teenagers on an end-of-the-year school trip. It was entertaining, to say the least. The train was late 4 hours because of an accident on the railway causing a fire, which caused the track to be closed down, which caused our train to be late, which caused me to... miss my flight... I spent 20 minutes trying to get on the plane (it was boarding as I arrived, but the gates had been closed 20 minutes prior to my arrival), and then the next 4 hours served to get me another flight, call my parents, and find a place to sleep at until the next day. Thankfully, everything turned out great. And I didn't get sick on the flight back, and I saw my family at the station waiting for me, and I went home, and life went on...
WORD OF THE DAY: Arrivederci
They say that when you throw a penny with your right hand over your left shoulder while looking away from the Trevi fountain, you've just made a wish to come back to Rome, and that wish will come true. This is what I did, and I hope with all my heart that fate brings me back to that place, and if not Rome, at least Italy, and if not that, then at least Europe. Arrivederci, literally translated in French: "a la revoiure", means something like, "we'll see each other again". This is what I said to the Trevi fountain, and to Rome, and to Italy when I left it.
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