Get more pearls: [Day 59] La Dolce Vita

Italy Italy Italy Italy Italy <3

Seriously, one of the most wonderful places I've ever been. Rome was overwhelming and fantastic for so many reasons. I don't even know where to start.

I could start with the cobblestone streets, because there basically was only cobblestone, no pavement. On top of that those cobblestone streets were all tiny, narrow and in every direction you could think of. (Try reading a map of Rome, it's mad confusing. I think the person who set up the layout of downtown Pittsburgh had Rome in mind when he did so.)

I could start with the pizza shops, because they had the best pizza in the entire world. I don't think I'll ever fully enjoy another piece of pizza after having pizza from Rome (not even Pizza Hut Pizza).

I could start with the language, because there's something about the mix of Italian and English that just gets you...and the whole part where they speak with their hands more than their mouth.

But...I think I'll think I'll just start with the part where I got an hour of sleep before we left for the airport. By 'we' I mean me, Sammie, Erin and Vijay.

Our flight from Gatwick to Fiumicino was at 6:50am (I think) Tuesday morning, and the tube doesn't open until 5:30 am so we had to find alternate transportation there. I was under the impression we were taking the night bus to Victoria Station where we would catch the Gatwick Express to the airport. I packed and went to sleep around 1:15 am, woke up at 2:15 and went to Fielden 4 at 2:30 am to meet everyone. While I was sleeping Sammie and Vijay had decided we were going to take a cab that would pick us up at 3. (I could have made scrambled eggs, I was mad.) Erin came over at 2:45 and we got the cab at 3.

The airport wasn't as big as I was expecting it to be, I think I'm flying out of Gatwick for all of my flights except the one to the States. We were part of the few people there and we wandered around half asleep for about an hour. We had breakfast at Wetherspoon's (I got my scrambled eggs) and we all got mamosas just because we could. The waiter didn't know what mamosas were, we had to explain it to him. We got on our plane and I fell asleep right away, just as I normally do.

Rome is one hour ahead of London and I can't remember what time we got there exactly. I think we arrived somewhere in the 9am hour. We took a train from the airport to the train station right next to our hostel. It was pretty convenient because our hostel was only a few blocks away from the train station. I stayed awake for most of the train ride; the country side that I saw looked like any other country side, nothing special. The only thing I noticed was that there was a lot of graffiti on the buildings and a lot of tropical-looking trees. Anyway, our hostel, Downtown Alessandro, was on the third floor of the building and we couldn't check in right away but we could leave our bags there.

We dropped our bags off, Vijay got a map (which was a mistake because I felt confused for most of the day until he let me look at it) and we headed farther into town to see the sights.

That city is something else. It was warm outside, a big change from London, so we didn't wear coats. It's also not as flat as London, so once we walked a few blocks we started walking downhill. There were vespas and pizza places every two blocks and the streets weren't that crowded. Speaking of pizza places, I had absolutely amazing pizza that day for lunch. I had magherita, and then Vijay didn't eat all of his potato pizza so I had that too. (I had five pieces of pizza in two days.) Unfortunately, the goodness came with tons of olive oil and grease, which I got on my shirt :( I did a pretty good job of covering it up in pictures though.

Rome was very different from London. Cars stop for you when you try to cross the street. There are little alley ways off of every road, some of them are even sets of stairs with a little roof over them connecting to another alley. The buildings are mostly orange and brown, but they complement each other very well. The buildings that aren't orange or brown are buildings built by the Romans. Such as the Colosseum, which was the first famous building we saw.

The picture doesn't do it justice. Can you imagine turning a corner (turning left in our case) and seeing that peeking out between buildings? We caught a glimpse of it a few blocks before we should have, but we walked farther down to the main road, turned left and there it was. It's so large and ominous, it almost looks like it's going to start rolling down the street toward you and right over you. I got a feeling similar to the one that I got the first time I stepped out of the Westminster tube station and saw Big Ben right in front of me. It's a pretty overwhelming feeling.

We stopped every few blocks to take more pictures of the Colosseum and when I turned around to pose for a picture, there were more columns and buildings in the distance. It was so amazing I can't even find the words to describe it. In the distance on the left was my favorite building, Vittoriano o Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II. In the distance to the right were some columns, I think they may have been part of the Roman Forum, but they might have just been some columns. In any case, it was breathtaking.

For the majority of the day, the sky was beautiful. It was cloudy but the sky was so blue sometimes. It was a little chilly in the shade, but I was happy I didn't have to wear a coat. We went into the Colosseum, I think it was like 12 euro or something. I wasn't expecting it to be so large. I don't know how much time we spent in it, but you could probably spend most of the day in there. There were a lot of artifacts inside and a lot of things written in Latin. Erin and I had fun trying to figure out what all of the Latin meant, since we both took Latin in high school. I read some of the sign posts (there were a lot) and learned, or should I say re learned since I probably learned this all in Latin class, a lot about the Colosseum.

Ampitheatrum Flavium began construction in 70 AD under Emperor Vespasian and completed in 80 under Emperor Titus. It could hold 50,000 people (and I definitely believe that after being there) and it was used for different events like battles, shows, and animal hunts. It's called the Colosseum because of a statue of Nero that used to be nearby that was called Colossus or something like that. It has a lot of underground tunnels and rooms, some of which we could see when we were at higher levels, to house animals and slaves.

I think I was most amazed by how big it is. I think in today's times we're used to having huge ampitheatres and stadiums, but it just always seems like ancient things were a lot smaller than they are now. I feel like the Colosseum was bigger than a lot of stadiums I've been to.
After we were done at the Colosseum, we walked over to the Arch of Constantine, which was right next to it. The Arch was built in the early 300s to commemorate Constantine's victory in an important battle. We then walked up / toward Palatine Hill, but we didn't know it at the time because Vijay wouldn't give me the map.

Palatine Hill is basically the beginning of Rome. According to legend, it's the location of the cave where Romulus and Remus grew up. They ended up killing their great-uncle, got in an argument and Romulus killed Remus. And so Rome began.

Palatine Hill overlooks the Roman Forum, which we didn't realize we saw until later Erin and I were talking about it and realized that's what it was. I think part of the reason we didn't realize what it was is because it's a lot of ruins. There are a bunch of half columns and crumbled buildings that used to be government buildings and the center of city. It's just so crazy that we were actually there and saw all of that stuff.

We walked down the street to my favorite building: Vittoriano. The Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II was completed in 1935, so it's one of the newest buildings in Rome. It's absolutely gorgeous. It was dedicated to Emanuele II, the first king of unified Italy. It's made of marble and has a statue of Emanuele on a horse and two status of the goddess Victoria. It hold the Museum of Italian Reunification and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There is an eternal flame that burns to commemorate soldiers lost in war. We approached it from the east, or the left side of it, and it was so amazing. The clouds were moving in the sky and I stopped before I got to the front of it and watched the clouds move over the statue on the west side of the building.