After lunch, we went to see an extinct volcano. A scientist was there, studying the volcano, I think. It smelled like sulfur, but the earth moved beneath our feet when we jumped. We formed the word 'EHEU!' with our bodies and took a picture.
After we saw the volcanoes, we started the bus drive back to Rome. It took a few hours, and I alternated between sleeping, reading, and looking out the window.
We finally reached Rome, and we saw the New Appian Way. Someone asked, "Is this where they fell in the ditch?" (In our textbook, the characters fall into a ditch on their way to Rome.) It was not where they fell, but it was still pretty funny. I remembered when I found out that the characters were only stuck at the ditch for about a day when it took us about a week to get through that story.
We drove through Rome on the way to our hotel, and the architecture there is amazing. I felt like I was in another world, a world without harshness.
We passed by the building with the Mouth of Truth inside. Ms. Green and Ms. Wickham remembered my love of Roman Holiday and pointed it out to me. I love that Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck spent time here, walked these streets, saw these churches, admired these statues. I feel that somehow we have a connection, something in common. I fancy I feel the ghosts of them, wandering through Rome. Every time I see a scooter, I think of them.
The city is a city full of beauty. I wondered if the people who live here ever get used to it, start to take that beauty for granted. I'm sure they do; I know I take the beauties of Chicago for granted all the time. The idea saddened me, though I know it's human nature.
When we passed by the famous fountains and churches, I thought of all of the books I had read about Italy. Most of them took place in the 19th or 20th century. (To be honest, I considered bringing a Victorian dress with me, but I eventually admitted to myself that it wasn't practical.) Though Daisy Miller actually took place in Rome, what really struck me was the adventure of Lucy Honeychurch in A Room With a View. I suppose Italy is the best place to really experience life, to understand it. Though Lucy met George Emerson in Florence, not Rome, I like to think that she felt the same thing I felt. I like to think that she saw the beauty as potential for a better world, a world "free from all the superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate each other in the name of God." I thought of how some things really can stay, they really can define humanity at a moment in history, though we are an unpredictable and volatile species.
We had a wonderful dinner across the street from our hotel. Afterwards, we took a walk and we saw a fountain at the center of the city with an obelisk in the center. I could see the stars overhead, and I thought of how rare it was, being able to see such beauty perfectly mold with the different beauty of nature. I thought of how rare it was to see stars in a city. I thought of how the magic of Italy comes from how it retained the expressive sort of beauty that nearly all of the world had a few centuries ago.
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