La Vita E Bella

Now that I am back and refreshed from my trip, I figure that it's time for a blog post :) 

I went with two Canadian friends - Allysa (who also goes to Western) and Danielle. On Saturday we left Lancaster and took the train to Manchester to spend the day there, we wandered around and did a bit of shopping. But we couldn't buy too much because RyanAir only allows a carry-on (aren't you impressed that I managed to fit 5 days of stuff into one carry-on?!). I had heard legends that there was a Tim Hortons in the Manchester airport so we also went to search for that....it was there but definitely a disappointment - only self-serve coffee and a few stale donuts; no wonder everyone in England wonders why we think that Tim Hortons is so great! At the hotel that night we asked to have a cot in our room and when we got back there was a crib set up in there! In England cot refers to a crib apparently, although I'm not sure why the front desk would have thought that 3 students without a baby would want a crib!

The next day we had to wake up at 3:30 to get ready and go back to the airport to catch our 6:00 flight to Rome! After we checked into the hostel we went for some lunch and had the most amazing pasta ever! Then we walked around Rome, and thanks to my excellent navigational skills seen the Colosseum and the Roman Forum and had amazing pizza for supper; then wandered around some more, had some gelato and headed back to the hostel (hey - we woke up at 3:30, we were tired!). 

The next morning we got up early and took the city bus (which is free in Rome) to the Vatican and spent the morning wandering around the Vatican Museums. Then we wandered back to the Colosseum, the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain and of course had some more food and went to the amazing gelato spot by the Trevi Fountain that I found on my last trip to Rome :). That night we went out to the bar attached to our hostel and met lots of other international students. 

Tuesday we woke up early and hopped on the train to Pompeii (if you're keeping track, we used plane, train, cab, city bus, shuttle bus, and subway while in Rome - like I said, I'm a great navigator!). It's about a 4 hour journey, most of which we slept through, and once we got there we went to explore the ruined city. For those of you who don't know the story about Pompeii, it got buried in ash in 79 A.D. and everything - people, buildings and all - got perfectly preserved by the ash until they excavated it. The city there is easily one of the coolest things that I've ever seen - even the paint is still on a lot of the buildings! The casts of the people who died are there too - they're really cool and detailed. The city is huge though, after around 5 hours of walking we only still had time to skim through it! Then we went for our last Italian meal (more pasta and gelato of course!) and headed back, packed, had a drink at the hostel and got ready to head home! Pompeii was definitely the coolest part :)

Now I have to spend the rest of my Reading Week actually reading and writing... 

Ciao, 

Alexis