Day 03 - Rome (Day time)

       Man oh man, Clearly the "Married Blog" Is not going to be any better than my old one..... Oh well let's continue on with the trip shall we? Here is another long post, but I’m beginning to think they will all be long when posting about Europe. We’ll get back to short and boring later on.

       To begin with a side note:    The hours of the night were always spent watching the movies I previously loaded onto my laptop, and Googling information on the different monuments we had come across. Not to mention, we had to keep up on Facebook posts, and Skyping home to everyone. Mom in particular loved that she could hear all our stories from the end of each day.

       Day three started off a little better than day two.  Basically, it had stopped raining, which for us Utahans is pretty much sun tanning weather, so we were a little more enthusiastic about having to walk around. (Poor Scott had forgotten to change his shoes before we left so he had been walking around in shoes with holes along the bottom and had soaked his feet the night before.)  The day was also pre-determined to be "Colosseum Day," therefore; I loaded up my bag with extra water bottles and we stopped for some more terrible breakfast. Walking the same route as day two, we started joking about all the McDonalds signs we were passing. People seemed very excited to have some of America’s cheapest food around. We had taken a picture of it thinking it would just be a funny joke, but Scott would be very happy to have found it later that night….

       Did I mention that we had decided to walk everywhere in order to save money?? Well I believe that was one

of the best decisions we had made. See I tend to have A.D.D. about most things in the world, but with all this I couldn’t get enough of it all. I had to stare at the ruins, I had to walk down through them and take pictures of everything. I had to watch the cats living in the ruins and wonder what exactly made them decide this one was the best one. (Which then resulted in a long, made up story about the Romans being re-incarnated in the form of animals)  I loved watched the street performers like they have in Vegas and even the people just walking down the street speaking to each other in Italian. I loved it all.  

          Now, we all know how excited I can get when doing something fun, and we all know how nerdy and unafraid to be a dork I truly am. Well, let's just say that when I got that first glimpse walking down the sidewalk I managed to skip around and sing to Scottie. "Guess what I can see!" You know, not like he was standing right next to me walking down the exact same street. But then again, my eyesight does not require the use of glasses so I like to think that I really did see the Colosseum before he did.

We still took our time walking and taking pictures of the different ruins.  Along the way until we got to a street corner that I’m fairly certain was made just for taking pictures of the monument. This, of course, made an excellent opportunity for people watching again. People make very interesting poses for their cameras, including the classic "I've got this entire thing in the palm of my hand!" We took a couple ourselves, but they were pretty much just us smiling, because we are boring like that.       
      As we walked closer we noticed a line, and decided to just go ahead and start waiting since it looked like it would be a while. Luckily though some of the workers were offering "special passes" that allowed you to jump the line in order to take a tour with a leader.  The little extra cost fit into the budget for the day, and seemed like something that would be worth it. Once we had tickets in hand we both decided to be little rebels and walk around on our own time. Truth is, we actually taught each other quite a lot about everything, having been in Art history lessons from two different schools. I'm pretty sure Georgi had spent an entire week teaching us the ins and outs of the
      Colosseum during 8^th grade. It was so cool to finally have the visual of what she had been talking about. Scott for example, didn't know about all the secret passageways underneath the floor that the kept the gladiators and animals inside until it was their turn to fight. I didn't know about the rumor that the building had once been flooded to put on a "boat fight" type of show either. Who needs a guide when you have your nerdy best friend right?  At one point I even wanted to make a video for Dillon since he has always loved the movie "Gladiator" but I could not think of a single line from the show, which to this day bothers me. I mean, Dillon and I always ran around yelling "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED! IS THIS NOT WHY YOU ARE HERE?!" Picture that in Russell Crowe’s deep voice though. 

                   After a while we decided to find some shade to cool off, which we found in this nice little corner with a breeze. I started filming the view from the balcony and Scott started reading off names that had been carved into the bricks next to me. I was kind of zoning him out when I heard him read "I Heart Alex" and I got all giddy and yelled "WHERE?!" He pointed to a brick that sure enough was carved with an "I heart Alex." (Aww I love you too, Colosseum I love you too.) We walked around some more and found that the Stairs in there are a lot worse than they appear!! It made me realize just how out of shape I truly am. Nothing like reaching the top of a small staircase and not being able to breathe, but It was worth it to get the view of the entire stadium

      Once we walked back out, I taught Scott some history behind the Arch of Constantine that shares the square with the Colosseum. (Once again courtesy of Georgi.) I made a mental note to thank her for teaching me so much about this place, and we started walking back……





So I also feel like giving you guys more of my favorite pictures so here is a bunch!!!