Yesterday morning (alright, noonish) Cathy and I took the metro down to the Colosseum. Holy crap! You walk out of the station and it is RIGHT there sitting in its 2,000-year-old glory. Standing there in its shadow really made me appreciate my trip. I mean, how cool is that – the frigin Colosseum! We decided it’d be worth the 10 Euro to actually get inside it, and as much as I’m quickly running out of funds, it was worth it I think.
It was really cool to picture it full of Romans shouting for blood. It was built in the first century A.D. (I think) and took 10 years to finish. It could hold up to 50,000 people who could be evacuated in under three minutes – the ACC ain’t got nothin’ on this place. Oh, another cool fact, it could be flooded so Gladiators could have mock sea battles. The arena floor is all gone, so you can see all the corridors and stuff where they would bring beasts up from and crazy things like that.
We decided to take the long walk home so as to see what looked like a really cool part of town just down the road and also swing by the Trevi Fountain. The building turned out to be a palace or something and is easily the most incredible building I’ve ever seen in my life. It is absolutely massive and adorned with a tonne of statues. The fountain was cool to. Some little sales guy convinced me to buy a squishy face thing that you can mould into various shapes and stuff… I talked him down to a euro for the thing, and it was more of a donation to the guy.
Getting back to the hostel Cathy and I broke into the wine I bought (a 1.5L bottle [the big bottle] for 2.99€ – how crazy is that!?!?!) and she cooked our risotto while I tried to get the DVD player working. The second day always seems to be better than the first at a hostel as I met a lot more people last night than I did the first. I actually met a girl who had been travelling to St. Catharines!
A group of guys from Minnisota convinced everyone to go with them to the Spanish Steps, so pouring what was left of the bottle of wine into a Heinekin bottle (Il Poco Vino, or the Heinie-Winie) we were set loose onto the streets of Roma. It was a good time. There was a BIG group of us and we basically just sorta floated around the neighbourhood making fools of ourselves – but hell, finally we out-numbered the locals! Got to try my first Italian gelato (read: Ice Cream) last night, and it was pretty good.
Cathy, myself and two kiwis (New Zealanders) decided to head for the hostel when the rest of the crew wanted to go back down to the fountain. My feet were about to rebel and are arguing with me on a constant basis today because of all the walking, but that’s not going to stop me from visiting Olde Popey today. Yup, I’m off to Vatican City but I don’t know if I’ll see the Sistine Chapel as it costs some coinage and I’m trying desperately to save money. I’m already cutting into the money I wanted to save for Thailand. Gulp.
After the Vatican we are heading to Napoli (Naples) and staying there a couple of days. Cathy has realized that it’s not economically all that sound for her to come with me to Greece as she has to pay for all the ferries and stuff – whereas I can do it all for “free” with my Eurail Pass. So, I think she’s going to go as far as Bari where I’m catching the ferry and then maybe we’ll meet up again if I get to Spain.
Ok, time to go make something to eat and head out.
Is anyone still reading this?
