Rome'in Around - Part 1

Hello friends/family/strangers -

Back again after another month with hopefully a litany of updates. Seriously! I only have roughly 2 weeks left here in Spain, and I'd like to have this blog be as up to date as possible. As always, stay tuned here for frequent (read: daily or semi-daily) updates about the goings-on of RB in Spain. As always, if you ever miss a post or want to look at previous postings, scroll the bottom of the page, pick the month you wish to see and you can choose a post by the title. 

Anyway - About half way through my trip here, my girlfriend visited and we went to Rome, Italy. The city is huge, full of history and crowded with people. English can be found pretty much everywhere, so we really didn't have any problem with that. Our first stop in Rome was the Colosseum. We took the metro to the blue line, got off at the stop named 'Coloseo' and, upon exiting, were greeted with this:

 It is literally right in your face as you exit the metro station. It's epic in every sense of the word. The sheer size of it blows you away, and just thinking about how long ago it was built, and with how much less technology - just wow.

 Out front, there are a ton of tourists (obviously) as well as kiosks selling all sorts of souvenirs. There are also a handful of tour groups that just pop up. People will float around asking you if you'd like to go on a tour. At first, we were a little hesitant, because I never like when someone approaches me on the street trying to sell me stuff. We walked by a number of tour guides initially.

 We headed down to the Arch of Constantine, which is incredible in its own right.

 A cool shot I got of both monuments. As you can tell, the day was nigh perfect - not a cloud in the sky. A bit chilly, but still very nice.

 Europeans love small dogs. I have learned this.

 Anyway, we want to see the inside, and find a tour that costs 20 euros a ticket. We figure what the heck. Apparently included with this ticket price was taking a photo with this dude.

A bit more about our tour: it wasn't as great as I thought it would be. I wanted to learn a bit more about the Colosseum and its history. Our tour guide was this Italian man, with pretty good English. The problem was the method of conveying what he was saying: he had a little speaker hung around his neck and a microphone. If he turned away, you could hear nothing. If there were a lot of people around (which there were) it became really hard to hear. If you were in the back of the group, forget it. Granted, for only 8 euros on top of the ticket price, I wasn't expecting a Segway tour through the basement of this place, but still. Just an observation.

 After about 20 minutes of the aforementioned speaker-man talking, we finally enter. Quite a few people inside. You get an idea just how much detail went in to making this place. You can also tell by looking at the walls all of the additions that were done. In fact, while we were there it was undergoing some sort of renovation.

Here's a decent view of the floor of the Colosseum. I was happy when our tour guide explained a bit more about the infamous boat battles I had heard of taking place in this building. What he said was that they only once recreated a naval battle, before any of the cellar/basement was constructed. Apparently a heavy rain had  flooded the floor level of the arena. They constructed two boats and had fighters mimic a naval battle inside. Interesting.

 A view from inside the Colosseum overlooking the Arch of Constantine.

 I had to give this guy a taste of his own medicine.

 Our tour ended, we were allowed to walk around as long as we wanted. There was a souvenir shop inside the building with incredibly overpriced things (surprise!). We did one full go around, took an enormous amount of photos, and left.

 Now hungry, we decided to find a place to eat. Conveniently, across the street from the Colosseum, we found this mostly empty little eatery. The pizza was really fresh.

 I swear, no two countries do a can/bottle of Coke the same way. Also, Diet Coke as we know it in the US is called Coke Light around Europe. Just something to know!

 A look at the interior of the restaurant.

 This was the view from the table we sat at in the restaurant. Not everyday you can say you enjoyed some Italian food while overlooking the Colosseum that you've only seen recreated in the movie 'Gladiator'. Also, I swear this is not an advertisement for the Mini Cooper. However there are a bunch of those here.

 I was full, but somehow we managed to use the powers of 'second stomach' to choke down this nasty, disgusting dessert...

Cheers!

Stay tuned for part 2 today!