Rome via Brooklyn

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I would categorize my Naples experience as interesting, to say the least. I woke up early with anxiety about taking the train to Naples and then to Pompeii later in the day. Still, I reassured myself that this would prepare me for my upcoming trip to Florence, which I was extremely excited about because all my friends have been hyping up how beautiful the city is. I packed my bag the night before, but I may have overpacked for just a day. I would rather be overprepared than underprepared. I traveled to the train station with my roommates, and we met at the meetup location. We wandered around Boris Books, and I saw my best friend’s favorite author in Italian, and I had to send it to her. The train ride was enjoyable, and I was mainly trying to sleep because I had a massive splitting headache. 

When we got outside the train station in Naples, I was greeted with the familiar smell of weed and pollution, and I felt like I was just at home. My brother went to Naples while on his Eurotour and told me it was like the rougher parts of Santo Domingo, and I agreed. While crossing the streets, especially when I was like this is definitely Santo Domingo. Julia, Joseph, and I went to different churches, which I thought was beautiful; however, we went to one with a funeral going on, which was awkward. Other than that, we went to another church that had preserved mosaics on display. Whenever I go to a catholic church, I like to think I am in a situationship with religion because I grew up in the Catholic Church. I think the catholic churches are beautiful and invoke the feeling of divine holiness and the crossing of thresholds. I have been picking up on the sense that this is a line I just can’t cross while others roam freely. I will explore this feeling later. 

The pizza was excellent, and I am happy that the waiter didn’t fully understand that Khadija and I wanted the same order and not to split it. I am glad we split the pizza because I was definitely not going to be able to finish it on my own. I loved the potato croquettes, they were amazing, I could’ve eaten 30 of them. 

Word of warning, I will be talking about medical stuff!

After lunch, I started to get a flare-up that was not good, and I felt horrible. Before coming on the trip, I recently got diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that affects my joints, my tear ducts, and overall causes lots of pain in my body. I didn’t believe I could make it to the Naples museum, which I wanted to go to because I did a research assistantship for the stolen coins from that museum. I mainly studied the law in my research because I was playing with the idea of going into art law, and let me just say that it was confusing, and the creation of solutions is not easy, but also not complex.  I wanted the full circle moment, so I pushed through, and Prof Yarrow gave me her parasols, which made me buy an umbrella for the harder days. 

While I was there, I was in awe of the space, and I loved Ace’s presentation of Hercules, and now I have been taking non-stop pics of statues of Hercules. I also loved Elena’s presentation about the secret cabinet. I had to send some of the stuff to my friends and explain all the apotropaic symbols. I loved seeing the frescoes and the statues, but I couldn’t be there for very long due to my pain increasing and not having my smaller doses of pain meds with me. 

Prof Yarrow asked the TA to accompany Tina and I back to the hotel, which is a simple task, you would think. While walking back, I asked him are we going to go where we stowed our bags first and he was like, “It’s in the direction of the train station, right?”. I affirmed that it was, and then he suggested that we split up and he would meet us at the train station. We took advantage of the fact that he left us and went to the pharmacy for pain aids and the supermarket for cold beverages because we were so thirsty. We made it to the train station, and he met up with us, and we headed to the platform. We boarded the wrong train… at this point, both my portables died, and we were entirely lost. He said all we had to do was a quick transfer. The transfer was not fast; it was an hour wait, there was no Uber, and we were at a shady rest stop for the train. He bought us what we wanted, and we waited. Tina’s portable came in clutch, I will say that. We got to the station, and he asked, “Do you guys have the hotel’s location”? We said yeah, we do, and said do you want me to walk you guys because I am going to get dinner. We let him get his dinner because clearly he didn’t want to walk us to the hotel. After the 14 minute walk we were the first to leave and some of the latest to arrive and I was pissed, tired, and hungry. I ranted about it, then went to dinner with Nico, and the food at the hotel was terrific. I ate it so fast that it was not even funny. I also got myself dessert because I deserve a sweet treat, and Joseph joined our table as well. 

I later showered and went to bed exhausted from the day and I prayed the next day will be better and not so shitty.