Saturday - Pompeii

In August 79 AD, Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed by the eruption of nearby Mount Vesuvius. The eruption went on for two days. The ruined city was discovered nearly 1600 years later, in 1748. Some digs have shown that the city had likely suffered from the volcano or other seismic events before 79AD, due to findings of street at different depths. Pompeii was founded by the Oscans of central Italy around the 6th century BC. The city now serves as a snap-shot of what a Roman city was like in the first century AD.

Getting from Benevento to Pompeii involved taking a nap on the train from Benevento to Naples and then standing on a grossly hot metro type train for about half an hour to get from Naples to Pompeii. Six of us went together: me, Will, and four of his friends from Universita degli Studi del Sannio. We ended up splitting into two groups, the three Polish students and the three American students. Apparently Americans are more interested in taking picures of everything, and the other three didn't want to stop and wait for us all the time.


At one point we found an area that was debatably open to the public. It wasn't actually close off, but we did have to crawl through a hole to get into it. For the most part the ruins in this section looked the same as the rest of the city, but it was nice to walk around without so many other people trying to look at all the same things as you. It was also exciting to simply be somewhere we probably weren't supposed to be.


One of the most intersting sites was the amphitheater, a site that could be found in most Roman cities. In fact, a communities amphitheater often became the symbol of its attachment to Rome and its membership in the Roman Empire. Scattered throughout what was the Roman Empire, the remains of over 200 amphitheaters have been found. Amphitheaters differ from 'regular' Roman theaters in that they are fully circular, and theaters were semicircular in shape. In ancient Rome Amphitheaters were used for games and sports rather than theatrical performances.

Previous Monday - Bologna

(Pisa was actually after Bologna)

In Bologna we walked through a museum before touring the area where the Ghetto had been. The museum wasn't all that interesting; the only interesting part was when we discussed how Jews in Italy got their last names while looking at the map hanging in the museum. The idea of having your name changed everytime you moved to a different city seems very strange considering the emphasis placed on last names in our society.


The tour of the Ghetto had some very good points, like seeing that "hell street" was the main street through the area. That really helped to show what area of the city was chosen to become the Jewish Ghetto. As the tour guide said, it had been a very poor and ill-reputed district.

After a very good lunch Ilana, Joe and I went shopping along the main street of Bologna, not that any of us bought much. Still, it was fun to walk around a city that is so different from Florence. It's smaller and less crowded, not nearly as much of a tourist city. It was all over a different experience than we usually get walking around Florence.

Friday - Pisa

Friday was the group trip to Pisa. We started the visit in much the same way as our other day trips, we went to the Synagogue. Similar to other Synagogues that we learned about, if you didn't know what it was you would never think that it was a Synagogue.



After that we went to the Jewish cemetery which is situated just outside the walls of the old city. What was most interesting about the cemetery was the age of some of the tombstones. Ones originally from the cemetery dated back to the 1600s, however there were also ones from the 1200s that had been moved there. Our main activity was to do a grave rubbing. I chose to do a rubbing of the grave of the communist teacher that was killed in front of his students.

After that Ilana and I headed to the train station to catch our trains for our weekends away from Florence. It turned out that we were actually on the same train, but not sitting together. We still managed to spend a fair bit of time together, which helped make the five hour train ride go by a lot faster. The exciting part of the trip was when I missed my connecting train in Aversa because the train out of Pisa was 20 minutes late. Luckily I found a pair of British women who spoke Italian that were in the same situation as me, and I was able to follow them around in order to get where I needed. I actually ended up getting in to Benevento only 40 minutes later than I was expecting to.

Sunday - Rome

On sunday everyone went to Rome. We met up with Rachel, AJ, Joe, Ross, and Will at the Colosseum. Apparently the time worked out really well when Will tried to meet up with the other four before finding the rest of group, which is lucky because I don't know how we would have met up otherwise.


While walking around the Colosseum Will was telling me about his research, and I have to wonder if we are the only ones to have ever walked around the site discussing gravitional fields and other lofty physics things which I didn't really understand. Only I would be walking around Rome discussing those types of things..... oh well.

After that the group followed Randall around to a bunch of other interesting sites of ancient Rome, such as the forum and the pantheon. Lunchtime finally came at three, and Ilana, Rachel, Sam, Will and I went to this really good sandwhich type place. It was definately different than the places we had gone to in Florence, but very yummy. During Lunch I mentioned that Will was in the Generics and Rachel kind of freaked and can now die happy because she knows one of the members of the group.


After that Will and I went back to the Trevi Fountain to throw our coins in and take more pictures. We then attempted to get to some type of pyramid thingies, but managed to take a wrong turn and end up rather far away from them. I place all blame on Will's map.

Thursday - Siena

On Thursday the we had a group trip to Siena. First we went to the Synagogue there and learned about it's history and the history of the Jewish Ghetto in Siena. After listening to the speaker (or at least Prof. Cooper's translation of the speaker) we took a quick tour of the Synagogue before heading out to get lunch.

For lunch most of the group went to a very interesting restaurant at the bottom of the hill. It was situated on a farm, and in one part of the farm ther were making a recreation of a medieval farm with all, and only, the the vegetation that would have been found on one. Another interesting thing about the restuarant was that it employed people with mental disabilities and people who were being reintegrated in society.

What struck me the most about Siena was how different it was from the last time I had been there. Since I had come for the Paleo the last time I wasn't able to get a feel for what the main Piazza actually looked like. I also didn't have the time to explore the rest of city and see things like the church that we walked through. This time I got to experience Siena for itself, rather than just seeing crowds of people all around. I really enjoyed seeing the church, even if the mummified bodies were kind of creepy. It was also interesting to see how it had gone from a convent to a school.

Saturday - Synagogue in Florence

On Saturday Morning I went to service at the Synagogue with Ilana and Rachel. It was interesting experience even if I couln't understand a word that was said. I definately felt out of place during the service because I didn't understand the importance of the things going on around me, and I felt like I had to watch everyone around me to make sure that I didn't offend anyone. The only other times that I've been to a Jewish service have been for family services and I was surrounded by family members.

After the service Rachel, Joe and I went to chabad for lunch. Interestingly enough, I ended up sitting accross from a man who lived in Queens, NY. It's always interesting to be in a foriegn country and meet someone who lives very close to you. It shows that Florence really is a tourist city and that there are thousands of Americans visiting at any given time. In fact, almost all the people that the three of us talked to at chabad were tourists in Florence. Where people were visiting from was fairly diverse though. We met a couple from England, and Joe spent most of the time talking to two Persian women. The shared faith of those all eating together allowed for an environment where people were open to talking to strangers and learning about eachother. Again I felt out of place, but it was more because I knew that I was probably the only person there that wasn't jewish rather than because I didn't understand what was going on. In most places I go I am a member of the majority, and it was interesting to experience what it feels like knowing I was different from the people around me.