When in Rome...

Ciao! I'm wiring again from the train out of the city and onto Florence. ( This train is slightly better since its only about 2 hours long and we seem to have a great view of the countryside for a good part of it). Rome was impressive, just as I thought it would be. Coming in and not knowing any Italian was  a little bit difficult, but since it's such a tourist destination most people know enough English to understand what we are trying to say. After we checked into our hostel (we're staying in another 4 bed dorm, so there are two bunk beds in our room and two other people with us) we went out for dinner and quick look around. Dinner was noche and beef meatballs, delicious! The noche, which is a potatoe pasta, was so light and unlike anything I had had before. It basically melted in your mouth. Even the best in the states tasted nothing like that did.

 The next day we left with the intention of going about the main city to see all the monuments before touring the Vatican city later. Even though we were trying really hard to get to the Trevi fountain, it seemed like we accidentally found all the other places before finally finding it right before lunch. Street signs are really more of a luxury than a staple here. If they have them, they are etched into a building on that sits on the corner and not posted on a sign like we are used to. This is problematic for so many reasons! For one, they just aren't even there a lot of the time. If they are there, they can be worn away and hard to read or covered up by scaffolding or something else. The buildings are also not always on the actual corner, so you may have to walk a good twenty feet around the intersection before finding the right face of the building. And to top it all off, there are so many side streets that about a third aren't on the maps anyways. Ah! Luckily we hardly ever have a time commitment so getting turned around isn't a terribly thing. It actually worked in our favor that day because we ended up passing a Swatch store where I bought a pretty sweet purple watch (my battery in mine died and apparently they just don't really have watch normal watch batteries for sale here. Oh what I'd give to have a Target every now and then!) I just chalked it up as my Italian souvenir.  Once we hit the Trevi fountain, the spanish steps, the pantheon, the vittoriale monument and many unknown plazas, we grabbed a pizza ( prosciutto and mozzarella...yum!) we made our way to the Vatican city. From there, we paid a pretty penny to join a tour group but with them we had someone explaining everything in the museum and the Sistine chapel to us and more importantly, we got to skip long lines to get in. Totally worth it. The Vatican museum, which is a mix of art collections from all of the different Popes, was overwhelming but impressive to say the least. I was more taken with the sistine chapel though, both for the famous and incredible ceiling art and for what takes place in there. I couldn't believe that we were standing in the place where the Pope is elected. I can only imagine the significance that would have for Catholics since I only know a very small part of the catholic doctrine and I felt overcome with spirituality and sacredness.   We devoted the whole next day to the coliseum, the forum and the palestine gardens. They are technically three separate areas but are all part of the famous ruins that you think of when you picture Rome. All three are very much worth seeing!

After getting a great tip on skipping the lines (you buy the ticket at the entrance for the gardens instead! Same ticket, a hour less wait) we cruised right in and explored the forum where the basis of the roman empire can be found.  There are just piles of rubble and blocks of marble, half statues and destroyed steps, all waiting to be stumbled upon. In hindsight, I wish we had gotten a tour guide to show us around because all impressive as the campus was, we still have basically no idea what the majority of it was. We really only wish we got a tour there because we got one in the coliseum and it was totally worth the 6 euros. Not only did we get information that wasn't posted anywhere, we also got to go into areas that are closed to the public. One of those places was a reconstructed floor out where the gladiators would have battles lions and tigers for their lives. The floor was awesome because it covered about an eighth of the whole arena and gave us an up close view of the labyrinth of corridors below the stage where the men and animals would wait to fight.  We also got to go up further onto the third level to get a better vantage point to understand just how colossal the arena truly was.  Besides the obvious gladiator history, the coliseum is also incredible because 1: it was built where there used to be a man made lake and 2: it is one most impressive feat of architecture and engineering of the roman empire (it seats 50,000 people, 10,000 more than the size of the Dean Dome and the RBC Center combined) a culture of superiority, and incredible feats, this place is what they were most proud of. After it was built, the government continued to use it as a show of Roman power, forcing Christians that refused to deify the emperor that were forced to fight to their deaths. In fact, the money that was used to construct it came from the spoils of their victory