Roma Coliseum

The Pope must have suffered quite a fall on the steps of the Vatican Museum in the past, because I think my new friend Ali and I saw more ‘Watch your step’ signs today than exhibits. Which is not to say there weren’t about a million things to see in the Vatican Museum, because there was quite a copious amount. We think we may have missed a thing or two, but we saw gorgeous tapestries, beautiful sculptures, ancient maps, and the king of them all, the Sistine Chapel with its world-famous wall-paintings. I think I saw more depictions of Jesus today than I have in my entire life. It was an illustrious museum, for its exhibits, and its unceasing stair cautions.

We left the Vatican Museum and had lunch in a restaurant nearby, and proceeded to make our way to the Coliseum. It was a long walk, but we made it. We were immediately offered a spot in a tour group (leaving immediately!) to see the Coliseum and the Forum for 22 Euro, and, after having a brief meeting, we accepted the generous offer. We headed inside behind our tour guide, who walked us through the giant structure, built in the first century AD, and told us all about the gladiators who used to fight there. It operated within the Roman empire until 500 AD or something. Apparently, in its first one hundred days of operation, 5000 lions were killed. The whole Roman empire (northern Africa, the Mediterranean, and other places) used to be populated with lions, bears and other wild creatures, but now the populations of these animals is practically extinct in these areas because of the events at the Coliseum. And the gladiators were actually very fat. They needed excessive fat to protect their muscles, so Hollywood gladiators aren’t very true to form. The floor of the Coliseum was wood, covered with sand, which in Latin is called ‘arena,’ and that’s why we call our stadiums arenas! The Coliseum looks different than I expected because the wood floor is gone, revealing the complex tunnel system down below, but they rebuilt a portion of the floor and covered it with sand to give everyone an idea what it used to look like. The sand was good at soaking up all the blood which was spilled in the Coliseum, which held 75,000 crazy Romans. It was an awesome building to see.

The next tour was even cooler! We walked across the street to the Roman Forum. I’m not sure what exactly it was, except just an area where all the cool Romans used to live. It used to be the Beverly Hills of Rome until the emperor [blank] demolished all the houses and built his temple there instead. He had a private arena to watch footraces or fights to the death or ping-pong tournaments, and his palace took up the entire hill.

Rome was purportedly begun by a man named Romulus. He and his brother Remus decided to build a city, but they couldn’t agree on a site. Each of them preferred a different hill. So, to decide where to build the city, they sat on the top of their hills for one day and counted how many eagles flew by each. Romulus won with 12 eagles, signifying the gods wanted him to build the city. Remus didn’t like this, and to taunt Romulus, he climbed over the wall Romulus had built around his new city Rome, and Romulus killed his brother Remus. It’s a very pleasant story, and marks the recorded origins of Rome at 753 BC.

The tour guide said only 40% of the Forum had been excavated, so there is still fascinating stuff underground in this area. Once again, the history was laid thick. The on-site museum was a renovated summer home of Benito Mussolini.

Today was a really great day jam-packed with sightseeing, and I was lucky to wander around with Ali, who was really fun. From the Forum we were able to take neat pictures of us eating and licking the Coliseum, and we took turns taking cool pictures of each other, and taking pictures of each other taking pictures, or PTS. And, Mom and Dad, we might want to change the password to our garage door. (Just kidding. Sort of.)

Pictures aren't working right now. Update: Today is two days after today, and I'm trying again to upload pictures. One of the Coliseum, one of me and my pet rock, one of Hannah, my/her friends and I, and one of a cool dome.

I'm really glad I had this chance to visit Hannah and her friends in Rome, and I'm very thankful to her and her roommates/friends for allowing me to stay with them. I've had a great time, but tomorrow I'm moving on to another Italian city.