How are things? Good? Excellent. I'm still here, in case you were wondering. I just finished my exams yesterday, so massive sigh of relief on that front. I never have to worry about my Victorian Britain module again! That class is a great example of the differences in higher education between Britain and the United States. At home, we meet for class several times a week and discuss weekly readings that are (usually) linked into a cohesive whole that covers several aspects and/or perspectives of the topic that the class concerns. In Britain, the system is much more independent. Classes meet once or twice a week - for my history class we had one hour of lecture and one hour of seminar each week, and I found that there was no sense of continuity from week to week and no attempt to connect topics. Instead of assigning particular articles or what have you for our seminars, our instructor gave us a massive bibliography that it was our responsibility to go through and teach ourselves the topics. Consequently, I didn't learn anything about Victorian Britain until about three weeks ago when I started revising for our exam. Fun times. I'm not a huge fan of this system, just because I don't think that it's as effective for learning purposes, but it certainly teaches a measure of responsibility and independence that can be absent from the American system. Typical British inefficiency for you, though (I stopped being annoyed a long time ago; now I just find it amusing): the exam period lasts for six weeks. At home, I'm used to having about six days, including reading days. I don't know why it's so spread out here, but it seems like a colossal waste of time and resources, as faculty have to be paid, student residences have to be lit, housekeeping staff have to be paid... I don't know. Mind you, I'm not complaining, as it has given me more time to enjoy being in England, but staying on for five weeks to take my one exam does seem a bit ridiculous.
Anyway, onto the more exciting bits of life, basically those parts that don't involve taking tests. If I recall correctly, I was in the middle of detailing my Easter holiday adventures (referring to it as "spring break" will get you strange looks here). Well, after Pasquale sent us off with what I'm sure were lovely and eloquent wishes for good travels expressed beautifully and incomprehensibly in Italian, we got our train from Rome to Naples, which was a complete change of pace.
Naples is absolutely crazy - it's loud, gritty, colourful, teeming with humanity - people don't stop for tourists here. It's not a tourist city - people live here and have their everyday lives here, which means that it doesn't necessarily have the touristy façade that cities such as Rome or Venice have. Just compare the views of Renaissance churches in Florence or Venice to this one in Naples - there is a marked difference. In its own way, though, Naples is beautiful. Although you literally take your life in your hands every time that you cross the street. I don't know if I could stay here for any length of time, but I actually liked Naples. I know, shocking - me, the girl who nearly had a panic attack in Times Square because of the masses of people and who couldn't wait to leave London for the same reason. Just for the record, I love London more and more the longer I'm here, and I think that I could possibly live there someday. What has this year done to me?
Our main reason for going to Naples was to hit Pompeii, which is about a thirty-minute train ride from Naples. So I visited Pompeii with two archeology majors... So. Much. Archeology. So everyone knows the story - Pompeii was a rather swanky city in the Roman Empire, and then WHOOM! Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., burying Pompeii under several metres of ash and effectively preserving it intact for hundreds of years until it was discovered in 1749, apparently by accident. Can you imagine just stumbling across something like that? "Oh hey guys, I just went for a swim and I think that I found Atlantis..." Geez.
The Temple of Apollo.
This is a collection of some of the artifacts that archeologists have unearthed in Pompeii, which has still not been fully excavated, not by a long shot. You can see one of the plaster castes of a body lying on the table there. It was a bit unsettling to see that.
For some reason I never considered that Pompeii is a city, which means that it's big, that you need a map to navigate it, and that it will take you all day to see it, although after a few hours all of the houses kind of start to blend together. It was broken up slightly by a group of Obnoxious American Tourists complaining, "This doesn't look like the Doctor Who episode..." Oh boy.
Here I am giving a dramatic poetry reading in the smaller theatre - the tourists in the background were obviously enraptured. Pompeii was quite big on entertainment - there was this theatre, a much larger theatre right next door, gladiator games, an amphitheatre, and don't even get me started on the brothels. Sarah and Caitlin didn't believe me that Pompeii was famous for being a fairly free and easy place until we got to the National Museum the next day and saw the "Cabinet of Secrets" that holds all of the pornographic artifacts from Pompeii. Fun fact: penises were considered symbols of good fortune in Pompeii, ergo they appear in lots and lots of decorations. Sorry, digression.
The House of the Faun, one of the most iconic spots in Pompeii. This house belonged to a very wealthy family and contains the famous Alexander Mosaic. I was quite bothered by the fact that the faun in question is not actually half goat. I believe that this negates his faun status.
The Alexander Mosaic, hanging in the National Museum, which we visited the next day (this was an incredibly educational trip, if I do say so myself). It's assumed that the main figure is Alexander the Great, hence the name. Clever, right?
There's Mount Vesuvius just lurking in the background, looking all innocent...
There were some amazingly well-preserved frescoes and floor mosaics in Pompeii. This is the Dionysus fresco from the House of Mysteries, which I may have referred to as the Department of Mysteries all day. Don't worry, dear readers, that has not changed this year - if there is a Harry Potter reference to be made, I will find it and make it. I was also extremely archeology-ed out by the time that we got here, so that may have been a contributing factor.
That more or less finishes our jaunt through Italy! The day after we did Pompeii we somehow managed to navigate the cramped, terrifyingly busy streets of Naples to find the National Museum using only the horrible, horrible map in my Europe guide. I'm pretty sure that whoever created that map invented some streets, because we certainly couldn't find them. It was an adventure. But we made it back to the train station and got on our way to Bari, on the other side of the country. There we met my faithful travel buddy Sarah (I know, another one), who had just flown in from her own adventures in Amsterdam, and we embarked on a ferry for Dubrovnik, Croatia! That will certainly get its own blog, as it has to be the most beautiful, incredible place that I have ever seen in my entire life. Oh my.
All that's left for me to do now is wrap things up in Norwich - I head back to the States in four days. I cannot believe that this year has come to an end. It has been the most incredible experience of my life, and I think that I'm still in denial that it's coming to a close. Now is not the time to be sad, however - there will be plenty of time for that when I'm at home being unemployed. Right now I am going to wring every drop of enjoyment from these next four days that I possibly can - carpe diem!
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