A City of Old

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So, I have to be honest here: Barcelona was a much more impressive city than Rome. Granted, there were some cool things about Rome (such as that a bunch of what we saw was built in BCE, and almost all of it was probably older than the USA. However, the food is Rome was, at best, underwhelming. Except for the one dinner we found in the Testevera area of the city, I've had better food in the North End of Boston. Now, it's possible that this is because Rome's tourist area is a bit more spread out, and we were at the north end of it (and north of us was a bit sketchy, so we were only able to get out of the tourist area by hauling through the tourist area).

There were nice parts of Rome: there was something cool to see around every corner (as evidence by the 50-ish photos I posted for the 14th. All of which I took that day. And that was maybe half, at best, of all the ones I took. And their gelato was, in fact, just as amazing as you'd expect. Even in the touristy areas (they just gave you less there). I also liked having a smaller hostel room: in Barcelona there were 12 beds in our room, so we were waking up in the middle of the night when people came in, and waking up early when their alarms went off. In Rome, it was just us and 2 others, both of whom were a bit older: one American who stopped in Rome on his way home from Istanbul, and one Australian who was traveling like us before she went home. They were both very nice, and it was much easier to deal with only 2 people coming in and out.



There was also nicer running in Rome, since we were right near a huge park. It was about 2 miles around, with a lot of paths criss-crossing through it. You could run by the zoo and along the Spanish Steps by it, too. Overall, though, I'd only suggest Rome if you're particularly interested in seeing the classic tourist things (Ancient City, Vatican City, etc.).



On that note, we did get to check out the Ancient City today. We never did make it to the catacombs, unfortunately, but we might make it to the ones in Paris. And the Ancient City was pretty cool, and a lot of it was built BCE. We started in the Roman Forum, which was where all the governmental stuff took place. We also casually found Julius Caeser's tomb. We then continued on to Palatine Hill, which is where Romulus supposedly founded Rome. On the edge of the hill, they're excavating what they believe was his home, which is really cool to see and think about.



After that, we headed to the big ticket: the Colosseum. Fun fact: it was not originally called the Colosseum, but rather the Amfiteatro (amphitheater...super creative, right?). However, the statue The Colossus of Nero was standing outside it (and was 2 meters taller than the Colosseum). Hence it picked up the nickname, and that stuck. We took a tour to learn a bit more about it. For example, we knew that it had a retractable roof, but we never quite knew how: basically, they had huge canvas panels that were operated by a team of 300 sailors. The seats were also split into 5 sections by class (Senators, knights, people, etc.), and everyone had free tickets, either with a gate and a seat number if you were a layperson, or, for the Senators, their names were actually carved onto their seats.



The Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II took 35 years to build. La Sagrada Familia will take at least 150 years in total to complete. They built the Colosseum in 8 years. In the 1st Century CE. With a plethora of different materials. One of the main ones they used was limestone. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get any pictures, but the stone absorbed the pollution and has gone completely black. The Colosseum is being privately restored, and one section has been cleaned and finished. The difference between the bright white of the cleaned limestone and the uncleaned black is stark and surprising.



In terms of use, Colosseum events were usually all-day. They'd have animal fights and hunting in the morning. At noon, the people would often cook or go to vendors (Fenway Franks, anyone? Or, a name idea for the vendors: Colosseum Cookers). At the same time, they may have carried out death sentences in the arena. In the afternoon, the gladiators came out. Fun fact: the story of the emperor giving life or death decisions based on each fight with a thumbs up or down is a myth. Often, gladiators would go through at least 3 years of expensive training before fighting, and they also were often bought as slaves. If the slave gladiators survived 8 years, they were usually freed. Some knights also were gladiators for extra money. You can bet the emperor wasn't about to let a new gladiator die, no matter how bad a fight he put up. It wouldn't make economic sense. So basically the fights were more or less fixed.



Anyway, we're on an 8:15 am flight to London in the morning, so we're out of the hostel by about 6, so we need to pack and sleep so we're all ready to go. Samii and I have had a lot of fun this week, with just the two of us. It makes it a bit easier to do things on the fly, but we're also looking forward to seeing everyone when they get in to Heathrow. It should be a fun two weeks!

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