Roma Antica

Europe » Italy » Lazio » Rome
March 30th 2010

Published: March 30th 2010

I slept very well, as did Kimberly. I got about 8 hours of sleep, felt like quite a luxury. Apparently Kimmy needed more than that, however. I got up at 7:30 and took a shower and tried to get her up at 8. She came to the breakfast room, but was really dragging so I sent her back to bed. I have been having a relaxing morning, will wake her up again in a few minutes.

I did not sleep all the way through the night, however . . . I woke up at 5:30am and could not get back to sleep. I came out to the common area and signed onto Facebook . . . Ann Marie was on (it was midnight for her) and we had a very fun facebook chat. She was commenting on our photos while I was chatting with her, it was almost like sitting with her. Also chatted with Dawn. I love the Internet. Was back to sleep by 6:15.

It is going to be another nice day - not as sunny but a high of 68! Tomorrow full sun comes back. I am just glad it is not going to rain today . . . last time I saw the Colleseum and the Forum it was pouring rain.

Well, time to wake up addormentata bella.

-- Many hours later, it is now 11pm. Trying to get Kimmy to bed, tucked her in at 10:30 and she is bouncing out of bed every 10 minutes saying she cannot sleep.

We got a late start today but still packed in a full day of fun. We left the hostel at about 10:45 and walked to a bus stop to catch the 271 bus to the Colleseum. The look on Kimberly's face when we rounded the corner and the Colleseum came into view was priceless.

First thing that Kimberly noticed was all the pigeons . . . first thing that I noticed was how crowded it was! A late start to the Colleseum during Holy Week probably not a good idea. We were approached by a nice young American woman who cheerfully introduced herself as Taylor. I knew what she was going to say and almost cut her off but decided to be polite. And I ended up buying what she was selling . . . and was glad that I did. For 8 euros each, we signed up for an impromptu tour group. That whisks you right past the hour-plus line and you get a tour of both the Colleseum and the Forum.

Kimberly had been looking forward very much to seeing the Colleseum. She has learned about it at school and has seen so many pictures. She was very psyched to be standing there in person. I had warned her about what had happened there and she dismissed it with an "I know." But hearing it from our tourguide (who admittedly got a bit dramatic in his descriptions) ended up being a bit too much for her. I know what she was going through, the same thing happened to me. It is not so bad in the abstract, in a movie . . . but when you are standing there and the guide says that 1 million people and animals were killed here . . . it becomes a bit more real. If you focus on other cool aspects ... How much it looks like a modern stadium, how they had promotion nights (boxes with a pearl inside, sponsored by your neighborhood politician), luxury boxes, a retractable roof . . . that the word "arena" was first used for the sand on the floor (ummm, sand that was used to 'soak up the blood', ick), the cool mazes under the floor (which were used to allow for a surprise trap door entrance), that they would sometimes fill it with water and stage mock naval battles. All cool stuff. But if you thought about the bloodshed ... shudder. What affected her the most, of course, because they make no choices and have no idea what is going on, was the animals. There were animal-vs-person battles and animal-vs-animal battles. Then they would cook the animals and serve them to the upper level seats (really wish the guide had not shared that. Next time you eat a hotdog at your nosebleed seats at a baseball game . . .)

Kimberly was actually angry. She said, in her best attempt at ahimsa "Who would think of something like that? I want to hurt them. No I don't want to hurt them. I want to punch them to get my anger out but I don't want it to hurt them. I want them to live forever and live in jail forever.° So there you have it . . . Justice, Kimberly style.

I just discovered the inconvenience of working in another timezone . . . my travel database just went down for backup . . . it is 7:30 here but that is 1:30 on the East Coast. Whoops. Now typing in notepad, hoping the autosave feature worked.

Kimberly was very upset about the killing of animals. They had human-animal battles and animal-on-animal battles. They would chain together animals that would otherwise have just avoided each other to force them to fight. She said that she thought the human battles were bad but whatever, that they deserved what they got (I tried to bring up the topic of slavery, but the guide had mentioned that even slave gladiators were paid, so she was not as interested in that discussion. Besides, she was on a soapbox.) She said, in her 8 year old version of ahimsa. "Who would think of something like this_ I want to hurt them. No, I don't want to hurt them. I want to punch them so that I get my anger out but I don't want it to hurt them. I want them to go live forever and go to jail forever." So there you have it . . . Justice Kimberly style. She did at one point pat the building gently and tell it that it was a perfectly nice building and it wasn't the building's fault.

Once we left the killing grounds, I mean Colleseum . . . Kimberly turned her attention to the pigeons. She had already taken at least 20 pictures inside of pigeons . . . she would take at least another 50 before the afternoon ended. She became a pigeon connesssour, noticing slight variations in coloring. She became a pigeonologist. By about 5pm I finally convinced her that perhaps she had taken enough pictures of pigeons. She only promised she was done taking pictures of Roman pigeons. Venice is a whole nother story.

At this point she did not think she wanted to do the tour of the Forum, she was projecting from the Colleseum tour. I convinced her that we had to do at least the beginning so that we can get in on our tourguide ticket. (Colleseum and the Fori are a package deal.) Ends up she really liked this guide. His name is Steve and he is from Rhode Island. He has an amazing amount of knowledge, a good sense of theater . . . and a good sense of humor, he made the tour true edutainment. He also paid good attention to Kimberly, treated her questions with dignity, took an interest in her book, was impressed when she found items he was discussing and showed him.

We toured Palatine Hill, learning so much along the way. We walked as far as the overlook of the Roman Forum, where he described various items from a bird's eye view, then we were free to explore on our own. Of course, right as we approached the Roman Forum (the only part that I saw on my other trip here), it started to rain! Guess a rainy thing was going to happy on the way to the forum yet again. It did not pour rain like last time, but there was still that fine mist in my pictures. Guess that was how I was meant to see these things. Kimberly had fun with the overlays in her book, there were many for down here, she liked trying to find them while looking at the ancient version (nearly as impossible as seeing the stars of Orsa Major as a bear.)

Once Kimberly again started obsessing about pigeons I knew she had had her fill of ancient rome. We exited on the Capitoline Hill side ... and picniced on the original Capitol Hill! Kimberly ate more of the same (stuff we brought from home). I had a really bad pizza from a vendor and a birra. I vowed to find a grocery store.

At this point it was about 4pm and by my prepared itinerary, time to head back to the hostel. However, Kimberly had been asking all day to go to Area Sacra (originally scheduled for the following day) so we walked there instead. I let Kimberly navigate, except for crossing streets. Parts of Rome are really pedestrian unfriendly, and the area around the Victor Emanuel Monument takes the cake. (Haha! An unintended pun. The nickname for the building is the wedding cake!)

Area Sacra is where Julius Ceasar was killed. As an archeological site, it was discovered in ummm, I think the 1920s. At some point after that, cats moved in. And about 10 years ago two women opened up a cat sanctuary. I will post the website later, cannot find the english version. It was a magical place to Kimberly. They care for 200 cats, mostly feral cats that roam the ruins. They trap and sterilize and release. They feed them, and give them medical care. We approached from the far side, so first we saw the cats in the ruins. At first you see maybe one. Then two, then if you look carefully, they start popping out everywhere. Like a trick drawing. Then we walked towards the entrance to the cat sanctuary, and a few were winding their way through the fence and let Kimmy pet them. Then we walked down the metal stairs to find another few cats, some friendly, some skittish. Then we walked into the giftstore, where there are cats seemingly everywhere. We were greeted by volunteers who gave us a tour. They have some cats in cages, these are cats that are currently receiving medical care. Then we went through a double door (like the kind you see at a butterfly garden) into a room where there are free-roaming kitties who are not yet ready to go outside. Kimberly was in kitty heaven. There were at least 20, maybe 30 cats to play with. And like any sanctuary, they all have stories. Some are missing ears or legs. One very happy and otherwise healthy cat has a neurological problem and walks very oddly but loves to play. We stayed for over an hour and I could only get her to leave because there is no bathroom there and we both had to pee. Oh, and I promised more gelato. And most importantly, I promised that we would return.

One chocolate gelato later, we got on the electric tram number 8, and headed back to Trastevere. I let Kimmy navigate us back to the hostel which worked very well. After getting her settled in the room I headed out to a grocery store and for 22 euros got a wonderful assortment of food for lunches and dinners. Oh, and a small bottle of chianti to have with dinner. I made a simple salad and a cheese sandwich. They tasted like the best sandwich I had ever had. Food tastes so much better when you are truly hungry.

It is now 8:20am, and time to get going for today's adventures!

Editor's note: please pardon spelling errors - the spellchecker is in Italian! And also, no time for proofreading until we are stateside . . .

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