Submitted by Kristina Demou on the 2017 spring semester program in Rome, Italy…
Over the weekend. I got to make a day trip to Pompeii, Italy and visit the ruins of the city that was entirely decimated so long ago when Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the whole city in lava and volcanic matter. I had heard the story about Pompeii very briefly before from friends who had been there and from my history professors, but going into it, I still didn’t know what to expect. I wasn’t sure if I would get there and just see a bunch of rocks that vaguely resembled buildings, but were still so destroyed you couldn’t really tell.
When I got there for my tour and started walking around, it was actually incredible to see how well restored everything was. I learned a lot of cool fun facts from my tour guide, too, like how the locals in Pompeii had their own kind of “fast food” system, how they had big bricks that fit together like Lego blocks, and how they even had “man caves” back then – a room in the house/estate just for the man of the house to go hang out in.
This was probably the coolest historical experience I’ve had abroad because I got to hear about their lives while walking through the city and seeing everything firsthand rather than in a book. Moreover, it was cool to hear these little facts that could draw comparisons to things that exist today. Sometimes it’s hard for me to wrap my head around life in ancient times because everything was so entirely different than it is now, but it’s fun to learn that we had some things in common. I never would have guessed the Ancient Etruscans liked fast food, too.