Rome via Brooklyn

408 words, 2 minute read.

Our first free day! After the events of last night, I was convinced I overslept this morning and wouldn’t make it to the tour of the Vatican Necropolis. But by some miracle, the time said 9:30 instead of 12:00 when I checked. I’m so grateful I didn’t sleep through it, because this was one of the coolest things I’ve seen on this trip so far. Archaeological sites are always going to be the coolest things to me though, as I dream to work on one someday. I also found it hilarious that the necropolis is accessible through a parking lot; I think it fits the vibe of Rome perfectly.

Walking on platforms so far from the mausoleums had me itching to touch them even more; I want to feel the same things that people did back then! Our classes have made me notice things I haven’t before, like random jumbled up tiles on mosaics being botched restorations.

At the end of the tour, we were shown a video about the excavation process for the necropolis. It honestly made me quite emotional, it really set in stone for me that this is the career path I want to go down. Being constantly surrounded by all this easily accessible history in general is making me emotional, I really can’t wait for the day I can professionally be involved in it all.

After the necropolis tour, I went on a fun little outing with Khadija around the Pantheon area. We planned to visit this antique store we saw the first day, and it ended up having a whole lot of nothing. Honestly, the whole area felt like one big tourist trap, which is obviously to be expected. We did find a reasonably priced place to get lunch, and I had the BEST seafood pasta of my life (which I tremendously fumbled ordering for).

After, we found a gelateria that surprisingly didn’t rip us off tremendously. I got my go-to gelato order: lemon and strawberry (mix it together, it tastes like strawberry lemonade!). The sun was still violently hot despite it being 18:00, but we still made it back to our apartments after a quick grocery run.

My room feels a bit empty without my poor roommate to fall victim to my rambling every night, but I have a great day to look forward to tomorrow!

–Nico Vila