Italy, Day Twenty-Two

Our second day in "The Eternal City" (that's Rome if you didn't catch on) was wonderful and without crime or worry, which was seemingly becoming the norm for us so we were quite happy. Since we ran out of time yesterday due to the fiasco where we couldn't find each other, we started the day a little earlier than planned and made our first stop the Roman Colosseum. This was seriously one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. It is just so old! And what went down there is just crazy. It actually wasn't called the Colosseum in the beginning. Originally, it was named the Flavian Amphitheater but obviously due to its "colossal" size, it became the Roman Colosseum. This amphitheater could home 50,000 fans and took less than ten years to build, which is pretty short when you consider its size and the intricacy with which it was built. It is actually still in pretty good shape. Other than a decent portion of the outside wall being gone (mostly because people used it as a quarry to build other things like St. Peter's Cathedral in the Vatican) and the main stage floor missing, the rest of the original building was still in tact with little restoration involved. The original flooring consisted of wooden floor boards that had a layer of sand sprinkled over the top. It's interesting that they called this part the arena because when we hear the word arena, we think of this kind of place, but arena actually means sand in Italian, which is where the name came from. The Colosseum was free and open to the public because it was built to celebrate man's conquest over nature, so it had to be free for the public to partake in this celebration. I don't know what kind of celebration involves killing slaves, animals, and many innocent people about every five minutes on the day of a show but apparently the public seemed to like it. Here are some neat pics that I took while I was there:

This is across the street and I still couldn't even fit the whole thing in my camera frame.

This is the inside. The oval part is the arena. As you can see, the original flooring is gone. All of those little rows that would have been under the floor are actually elevators that the victims/subjects/entertainment were put into for a neater entrance to the stage.

This is a sign on the outside of the building that shows that original name of the Colosseum in Latin.

After our detour to the Colosseum, we began the day's main plans, which involved a trip to the Vatican City. We decided to go see St. Peter's Basilica first, which was one of only two attractions in the Vatican, and upon our arrival, we were greeted with a gigantic line that we stood in for almost two hours just to gain admittance. Granted, it was free to get in so long as you complied with the strict dress code of no shoulders and no knees showing. Fortunately for me, I had downloaded a free Rick Steve's audio tour of this cathedral and he had some general history and fun facts that I could learn about before the actual tour started so I listened to those for about twenty minutes while I waited in line. Apparently the square outside the cathedral used to be a race course where they slaughtered Christians for entertainment. How ironic right? There is also a huge obelisk (which is like a tall statue that kind of looks like the Washington monument for those that don't know) that was originally erected in Egypt over 2000 years ago. It was moved to the Vatican after the pharoahs fell to the Romans. The pope also lives just off of this square. Here is a picture of his apartment:

So the building directly behind the obelisk is the pope's building. His apartment is on the top floor of the building and his bedroom window is all the way to the right on that floor

Once we finally made it inside, we were all blown away by the sheer size of the building. This is the largest cathedral in Europe (if not the whole world?) and it totally lived up to its massive reputation.

Me in front of the Cathedral entrance

The main hall to the cathedral

The main alter area in the basilica

 After our visit in the cathedral, we walked over to the other side of the Vatican to visit the Vatican Museum, which is home to the famous Sistine Chapel. I actually expected the chapel to be a lot bigger than it is. Do not interpret this as it is less impressive because it is absolutely incredible and my favorite art that I've ever seen, but I was just expecting a much larger building. It was probably the size of a Walgreens pharmacy store. Maybe even a little bit smaller. Unfortunately, pictures were prohibited, something they were very strict about. I was yelled at for even having my phone out to listen to my Rick Steve's audio guide. So even though I couldn't take pictures, I found some neat tapestries and maps outside the chapel that were pretty cool that I could take pictures of:

A tapestry depicting Jesus emerging from his tomb after his crucifixion

Another tapestry depicting the murder of Julius Caesar

A map of Italy that was made in the 15th century. Pretty good for not having Google maps if you ask me.

By the end of our museum tour, we were ready for a break and more importantly, some food. We made a pit stop at a local pizza joint right next to the Vatican museum that even had a 20% student discount! Score. I forgot to take a picture of my food this time, but just to clue you in, I split a pizza with my friend Mandie that had salami, sausage, and mushrooms on it (it actually came out with each topping separated on the pizza so there was only sausage on one third, salami on another third, and then mushrooms on the last third which we thought was weird but it was still good) and then I ordered a small plate of tomato bruschetta.

We shopped our way back to the metro station where I purchased a Roma, Italia t-shirt which is super soft and comfortable. I love it. We also made another stop at the Spanish Steps one more time just to see what it looked like in the daylight. It was about the same, and if it is possible, there were even more selfie stick salesmen there. We then went back to our hostel to clean up before dinner and rest our throbbing feet. Literally, my feet were so sore that even while I laid on my bed, not using them at all, I could feel the pain in the soles of my feet. Ouch. We rested for an hour, which was not enough for my poor feet, but I trekked on anyways.

We decided that we wanted to see the Trevi Fountain as our last stop on our Roman tour and then just grab dinner in the area by the fountain. Seriously, that was definitely the cutest area of Rome that we went to. If you ever go to Rome, don't leave out the Trevi Fountain because everything was just amazing over there. The fountain itself was actually under construction and was mostly drained except for a tiny portion where you could throw your coins in if you wanted to make a wish. This brings us to today's palabra del dia. The Spanish word for fountain is "fuente". For some reason, my tendency is to use "fontana" for fountain in Spanish, but that's not even a word so I don't know where I got that from. So this is a good reminder for myself just as it is a learning experience for you.

Making a wish in the Trevi Fountain

We hit up one more pasta restaurant for our grand finale of Italy, where I had the best spaghetti with meatballs of my life. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go back to my meat-flavored Ragu sauce when I get back to the States; this pasta may have ruined me for all other pastas ever. But definitely don't skip this classic dish if you ever go to Italy because it was just great. We topped off the night with one last gelato and then headed to bed for our early flight the next day.