in which i will have my vengeance, in this life or the next

We begin every morning with a feeding of pigeons. The apartment we rented sends up breakfast everyday, fit for eight or so people. As we had been a group of five, we had a TON of extra bread. Which is great, since we cross St. Peter’s every morning to get anywhere.

We gave this bb some bread. A funny story about this bb—we ran into him again on our first afternoon in Florence. I don’t think I have a picture, but you can imagine how stunned we all were!

Pigeons like to roost on statue heads.

When in Rome! Water is completely potable, and you will find a lot of random public fountains from which you can drink. If the water is not meant for drinking, there are signs that indicate this.

One of the highlights of our Roman trip was our visit to the Colosseo, or if you’ve figured it out, The Colosseum. This was the place where all the gladiator games happened! It was very cool. All my wide shots are still in the unprocessed rolls, but trust me when I say that this place, despite being ruins, was utterly majestic.

Aside from gladiator fights, mock battles from Classical mythology were also dramatized here, as well as staged animal hunts, with exotic beasts imported from Africa and the Middle East. You can see the hypogeum on the right side of the picture, which is a labyrinthine system of tunnels that connect to the outside. They were used to bring in the animals, gladiators, and performers, all of whom (if I’m not mistaken) are to be elevated up to the main arena.

There are accounts which indicate that even sea battles were reenacted at the Colosseum (or the Flavian Ampitheatre), where the hypogeum could have replaced an earlier, somewhat waterproof space that could hold water and warships. Since Rome is known for advancements in sewage and water systems, I find this easy to believe.

Sometimes, mythological scenes are also enacted where a hero is played by a condemned man, where the hero’s death (and the condemned man’s real one) is accurately depicted, i.e. being mauled by animals or burning to a crisp.

A lot of the shows held here were sponsored by politicians vying for the favor of the public. Obviously, the Colosseum has turned into a symbol of Rome’s power and, now, permanence.

There were hordes of people. Here is a group, meditating.

There were a LOT of people who posed like this in various tourist spots, poses which they held for a long time, waiting for people to exit their frame. I’ve always wondered how people got shots with no other tourists, and now I know.

Papa!

The Colosseum had the best official souvenirs. I suspect they were designed by an outsourced group whose name I have sadly forgotten.

We continued on with the rainy, drizzly day, with a walk to the Foro Romano, the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, and Il Campidoglio, all of which were in the same vicinity. Pictures in the next post, of course.

A side note: These updates have been more tedious to do than I thought! I didn’t have great internet connection in Florence, Venice, and London, so things—as in updating on the road—didn’t go as planned. I am experiencing random twinges of sadness because life had been so different while I had been on vacation, obviously, and now everything has just punched me in the face.

Anyway, it’s been fun, reliving everything, but my blog has been feeling like a repository of old posts, rather than an updated log, I guess. I don’t know, but I feel quite displaced at the moment.