Il Colosseo

Feb. 8, 2009

This morning we had to be checked out of the hotel by 10. I had a lot of water and a croissant for breakfast. We had time for a few hours to do whatever before our tour so I went with Molly and these girls Maria, Mamie and Alyssa (LSU) to get cioccolata calda at a cafe. Then we went and got lunch at Pizza Re which was the best pizza I've had so far.. pizza here is SO different from the US, it's so much less greasy and so much fresher. I got a pizza prosciutto e funghi. Then we went back to the hotel to grab our bags and we did a driving tour of the ancient Roman ruins: the Forum, Palatine, Circus Maximus.. I wish that Rome was still how it was back when those ruins were built, it would be crazy to see. We stopped at the Colosseum and got out for a tour. This was by far my favorite part of the trip, it was soo surreal to be there!

FACT: Paul McCartney was the first musician to play a concert at the Colosseum and it was for only 300 people. Tickets were about $3,000... SO worth it.

I wish there were still gladiator battles kind of, just so I could see how crazy it was. Our tour was 2 hours and Fab was our tour guide again. He was wearing the same clothes from two days ago and he smelled like it- but he was entertaining as usual and made sure to tell us that the word fornicate- (derived from Roman forna = arch) from when young people in ancient Rome used to have sex under the arches of the Colosseum.