Sunday, 7.4: Gladiators and Grappa

How can one go to Rome and not see the Colosseum? As we were on the Metro, Maria and I contemplated whether or not the Colosseum would be bigger than expected, especially since the Vatican had been so much bigger than we thought. We decided eventually that the Colosseum would probably seem smaller than we thought on the outside, but bigger on the inside, kind of like the Tardis [plug for Doctor Who]. The moment we stepped off the Metro and suddenly came upon the structure, we turned to each other and said at the same time, "It's bigger on the outside."

Because it was. I'm not sure exactly how big I thought it would be, but it was bigger. You really can't tell the scale on these things from pictures, but I'll try.

See all the little itty bitty people next to the giant arches? It's still going to be bigger if you go to see it.

We wandered the Colosseum for around an hour before finally moving on to Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Both of these were bigger than I thought they would be and more walking, but in comparison to the sheer vast size of the one building that was the Colosseum, they didn't have quite the impact on my sense of size. Palatine Hill consisted of the house of Augustus, in Maria's words, the hottest emperor ever, his wife's house, some other people's houses, and a garden overlooking the Roman forum. We didn't get the audio guide here so I didn't really have a great perspective on what was going on on Palatine Hill. All that I knew was that it was really hot; the sun was beating down on us and my upper lip was getting all tingly. Every part of me would have been drying up had I not been sweating out all the ions in my body. But with the few areas of shade and water fountains to refill, the trek up the [what was probably not a huge] hill was worth it.

Roman Forum from above:

From the front, with awkward hands and an awkward guy in the background:

The temple of Saturn, which was super epic (one of my favorites from the Forum):

Then, though we were super sleepy and tired, we dropped by the Campidoglio, basically the Capital Hill of Rome, but also a museum with art from many periods of Rome's history. I can't comment too much on the quality of the art there partially because we went through it very quickly and partially because I was half asleep, but since I was using the Roma Pass for this museum, I didn't mind too much that the quality wasn't as great overall as compared to the Vatican or the epicness of the Colosseum. There were some pretty great sculptures though, including:

A replica of Marcus Aurelius (the real one was also inside but this one actually looked more epic since it wasn't as degraded

Romulus and Remus with their wolf mother

And a gigantic body parts of Augustus (these were originally cast in bronze, but there were more of the body parts in the courtyard so I used all of those)

Also, because I do realize it's really hard to tell the scale of these things (even with the window in the background of the foot, here's a picture of his hand, for comparison.

Quickly, we stumbled back to the hostel to clean up and get ready for Mass (Maria's Catholic and St. Peter's Basilica was right there) and we made it...a couple minutes late. This was my first Catholic Mass so it was a really interesting experience for me. Earlier in the summer (and I should have blogged about this, I realize), I had gone with Max and Kelsey to a Jewish service and it was very interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two. Both were very ceremonial; the order in which things were done and way certain parts of the service were carried out had their time and place. Though I had no one to explain what was going on to me during the Jewish service, I was lucky enough to have Maria whispering in my ear during Mass. Because all Catholic masses are conducted the same (in different languages around the world), it didn't matter that the service was in Italian (not Latin; I was mildly surprised, but not really). I knelt when they knelt, stood when they stood, sat when they sat, and everything the priest was doing was translated to me. When everyone stood to take the communion wafer, I went and got blessed and I was very glad that I took part in this experience. The mass was very peaceful and there was an atmosphere of concentration and piety. And when we came out, the sun had dipped behind the church, putting everything in a glow. Hastily thrown on church outfit:

After wandering around the courtyard for awhile, we went back to the hostel and took great naps. And then, we went out looking for some fun.

We had heard that Trastavere, across the river, was a really happening place at night, so we took the tram and crossed the river, but everything seemed very sketch. This may have been because it was only 10 PM and nothing was happening yet, so we grabbed a bite to eat and headed down to the bank of the river where there were booths of people selling jewelry, clothing, food, and even 5D movies!

As you can see, the bank is lit up with these little shops and there were a lot of people milling about there which gave the place an energetic glow. What made it all the more awesome was this guy.

Yeah...not sure what he was advertising for, but very entertaining nevertheless.

We then went on one of the many bridges connecting the two banks and just people watched for a while. We found that there were many more groups of single guys walking around then there were groups of girls. And it wasn't just groups of teenage guys. There were men of all ages, those in their 20s, their 30s, even their 40s and 50s crossing the bridge looking for a good time. There were also couples, holding hands, deep in conversation, which begged the question: where were all the hot chicks, man?

Maria and I hypothesized that because it was only around midnight that the girls were already somewhere drinking, or something because there just weren't that many single girls crossing the bridge. There were also the guy couples crossing the bridge together. Most of them probably weren't couples; they didn't look it, but probably had a solid bromance going on, and would probably being each other's wingmen when the time came. The only questioning bros we found were these two guys that seemed straight at first, then started taking pictures of each other on the bridge holding a soda can. There were also jump shots. Don't know what that was about. Also, there were two corn vendors on the same bridge that started getting into a pretty heated "bro"-like conversation. People watching is fun.

We then hit up Campo del Fiori again hoping to run into all the college kids now that it was our last night in Rome and there really wasn't anywhere for us to be besides the plane in the morning. But the plaza was unusually empty. We think perhaps that the Italians don't party like the Greeks do on Sunday nights, and that the rest of the kids on summer vacation had probably split as well. It was rather sad, so Maria got a glass of grappa, a traditional Italian spirit made from pomace, the seeds, stalks, and other discarded parts of the grape vine and we sat and watched the plaza and the people in it for awhile. We then got approached by Antonio, an Italian-American and met his friends, Paolo and Ben and had some great conversation with them. They were working in the US Embassy in Rome for the summer, so that was pretty cool and we learned that Antonio was 1) a dinosaur 2) a vampire and 3) Jamaican. Hmm....

As the night wore down, Antiono split to go to Mood, this discotech club that we had found one night but didn't seem that interesting, Paolo split to go to sleep, and we followed Ben and some of his friends to what promised to be an Irish pub, but was closed. So Maria and I just wandered the streets of Rome until 4 in the morning talking about civilizations and whatever else you talk about in the wee hours of the morning. The really cool thing was that we saw all the monuments that we saw during the daytime under the glow of the lights and the dark of the sky. If it weren't for the fact that the night ended with us rushing back to the hostel because we walked through a sketch park and everything was way too quiet, it would have been the perfect last night. See for yourself:

Gorgeous.