Roman Sites

My second day in Rome I toured the sites and even bought a ticket for one of those bus tours. Although it was priced at 18 euros, it allowed you to get on and off for the whole day at different points of interest and included free headphones for a tour in your language of choice. It helped me to get my bearings a bit and also helped in getting around to see more sites - much more efficient use of time when compared to getting lost in random streets. Although honestly I still managed to get lost several times over the course of my entire stay in Rome.

By now, I've come to realize that sometimes following the herd helps keep you on the course to seeing the main sites, whenever I started doubting myself, I'd just step aside and let the tour group behind me lead the way, then sort of follow along with them for a bit until I found a sign or got situated again. Kind of like ants you know? The greater number of ants going in one direction, the bigger the piece of food, same with the sites, the more famous the historic site, the greater number of people, the smaller, less well known sites tended to be harder to find, simply because the ant-tourists were in fewer numbers, often almost nonexistent which made it much trickier. Another challenging piece to wandering aruond Rome and Italy in general, is that street names are on the sides of the buildings, not out on a streetsign. So if the camera, backpack and landmark book don't already alert people to the fact that you're a tourist, just crain your head up and stare around at the side of the building trying to make out the name of the street that you're on. And don't get too comfortable because just when you think you're on the correct street, the name will suddenly change, for no apparent reason other than the Roman street designers wanted people like you, just trying to following the map and some random person's directions, to get nice and confused. Somehow it all seems ok though when you see other tourists and backpackers like yourself out wandering around by themselves, or with friends and family and a tour guide. The country of origin, the language, the look, no longer matter because you and your fellow tourists are all in it together, to get out, see the Roman sites, take hundreds of photos that you may never actuially have time to look through, spend lots of Euros on authentic Roman treasures, drag yourseld through museums and cathedrals of huge statues and chapals and must of all, have fun! By the time I'd return to my hostel in the evening, I'd feel like I had been at an amusement park all day, out in the sun, slightly dehydrated, tired, dirty feet, sweaty and ready to do it all again the next day. Several times I talked tih other backpackers who all said simialr things, you got this finally like you had to go see as many sites and monuments as you could, making sure to document the point with at least 50 photos of every angle just in case you and or your friends and family wanted to see exactly how the corner of the historic piece of rock looked from the left angle facing the church vs. the right angle facing the park, and yet who was making you? No one really- when it came right down to it, but boy did you sure feel proud of yourself, when you made it to the top of those stairs, or climbed out of the metro station to discover the most beautiful site, quite an accomplishment - and of course documentation and proof is required via as many photos as possible.

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