12/4/09 Rome

We left around 4 to get the two buses to Victoria. It was very smooth, we even got to the station about a half-hour early. On the train, there were two French women and a Brit (who was fluent in French too) talking about the greatness of Sting, Phil Collins, and Elton John’s lyrics. It was really interesting, especially when they went back and forth between English and French. Ma slept more the train ride.

It was easy going through security at the airport and we went up and bough some food from Pret a Manger. I had a blueberry muffin, which was good.

We were one of the first people on the flight, after they asked mom to try to fit her bag in the middle measuring thing, even though mine was lots bigger and weighed probably about 70 pounds. We said in the window and aisle seats of the second row and slept the entire time. Mom said she saw a flight attendant with bunny ears at one point, but I think she was just really tired.

We breezed though customs and went to get the train to the train station. I talked to the lady and somehow I agreed to take a shuttle bus with some other people to the station, which turned out to be a good decision probably.

Our hostel is two streets behind the train station, easy to find. We had to take a scary old elevator up four flights and when we got in an old Italian woman was talking to us in Italian and seemed none too pleased we didn’t speak it. A man who spoke English came and showed us our room, at the end of the hall, pretty big, if not a little dingy.

We took a map from the table and went off to find the Coliseum, which we passed on the way in. On the map it looked easy to get to, but we got lost a number of times. Italian streets aren’t easy, they’ll change named for no reason and the street signs are engraved in stone on the upper corner of buildings, with no paint or anything for the words, making it incredibly hard to read. I don’t know how people drive here.

The Coliseum was huge, although not the white color I expected. Turns out it was because all the marble was removed hundreds of years ago for other buildings, leaving giant holes where the marble was attached. We waited in line for a long time (turns out we didn’t have to) and bought tickets for the guided tour (they wouldn’t give me the EU student discount for some reason, I was mad).

The tour didn’t start for a half hour so we walked around and waited. The guide gave us headsets so that we could hear her speaking into her mic, pretty cool idea. The tour was rather short and not all that good, definitely not worth all the waiting we did for it.

We spent about an hour or so walking around the ruins, mostly in the second level. It was impressive, not quite what I expected but I loved that you could actually walk around and touch it, unlike it Greece.

We then went across the street to the Roman Forum, which took us a little while to figure out how to get in. Once we did a kind of crazy guide lady wanted to tour us around, we said no.

The ruins were a lot like the Agora in Athens, just more complete. There was a wall huge church from the second century, all sorts of ruins scattered about, the Arch of Titus, which I learned about in art history, up the hill there were more ruins, columns, another gate, just an overwhelming amount of stuff. It was hard to imagine everything all built up, it would have been sorta like the White City in Chicago.


After we left we tried to get into Trajan’s Markets, which I had heard a lot about and wanted to go to, but it was closed. So we went to find a place to eat and my book recommended Est! Est! Est!, a pizza place, so we headed over there. It didn’t open for 40 minutes, so we went and bought bananas and walked around for a little.


We got a table by the door and ordered bruchetta and I had a marghreta pizza, while ma had a mushroom one. We went to wash hour hands and I couldn’t figure out how to get the water to come out of the sink. I tried all sorts of thing until I figured out you had to push down on a level with your foot. Weird.

The bruchetta was great, different toppings on each piece of bread. We ordered water and then brought us a glass bottle of it, so I asked if we could switch it to water with bubbles like I had all the time in Budapest with Dr. Schmidt. Ma had never had any before and her face when she tried it was great. It definitely takes some getting used to.

The pizza itself was a lot different that American pizza, it was thick and yet it was different tasting, something about the grease on it or something. I don’t know how to explain. None of the Italians eat their pizza with their hands, all using forks and knives, also strange. But since Europeans don’t cut pizzas, it sort of makes sense. I was glad the pizza was different, I didn’t want it to taste American and it didn’t.

When dinner was over we went for a walk around the Colosseum (it looks really cool at night) and then went over to get some gelato over by the Pantheon. The guy serving us was very jolly and helpful, we got to pick four or five flavors for a really good price. Since it started to rain a little, we went and ate it under the portico of the Pantheon, pretty awesome stuff.


We made our way back, getting lost for a decent amount of time before getting back into the right area by the forum. We went back to the hostel and I fell asleep with the computer on me. I was beat.