To the Colosseum and Back

Today was a beautiful day.

The day itself was rather unsightly, wet, and cold, but the very living of it was simply beautiful.  I got up and got ready in record time, and my friend Lisa who's "babysitting" me and I were out the door.  We were nervous at first, because we tried to go see the Colosseum yesterday but the metros were shut down for really no obvious reason, though it may have possibly been because of the raucous university protester-students.  We were determined, though, to NOT let them spoil our day!

After purchasing new month passes and taking the bus to the metro station, we were thrilled to see they were open.  I may have squealed.

We got off the metro at the stop "Colosseo," which is, fairly obviously, the Colosseum stop.  It's always a surprise to me when I exit the metro station and the Colosseum is right there.  It'll give you the chills.

Traipsing across the street and down a few blocks, we turned into Palatine hill and purchased day tickets and marched directly back to the Colosseum, where we entered after being accosted by several chubby gladiators wielding menacing umbrellas.  To our delight, the visitors were few so we didn't have to be herded around like as much cattle.

We immensely enjoyed running around and taking pictures with her camera, but I simply couldn't stop the chills from creeping up my back all the way up to the roots of my hair.  At one point, we were able to go far enough down into the Colosseum that we could almost touch the arena, and my imagination ran wild.  I pictured the pain, the destruction, the torment, the stench of blood, and felt as if I could almost smell the perfume that the workers sprayed to mask the heady aroma of death that so seduced the onlookers.  The persecution that went on in the Colosseum is simply.... indescribable.  It's impossible to be unmoved.

Once we left the Colosseum, we went back to Palatine Hill.  We looked in the museum by Augustus Caesar's home, and it's just all so surreal.  We walked and noticed several olive trees and were intent on picking one, but they were all too high in the branches.  At the end of our tour, we finally found some low enough, and Lisa bit right in.

The look on her face?  PRICELESS.

"This tastes like paint!!!!!!  Ew ew ew ew!!!"  She screamed in horror while I simply, well, laughed till I almost cried.  They were not ripe.  I dropped my olive and we continued.

As we were walking back to the station, she stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed my arm.  "We have to get some gelato!"

My favorite babysitter ever.  When are you ever told that you MUST have gelato?  Well, of course!

We walked up the hill above the station, and purchased some gelato.  Hers was awful (she purchased what she thought was Nutella gelato, but it was actually Nutella and yogurt, and it was tangy) and mine was a delight.  I got mint and chocolate.  Good call.  She finally cracked and bought a new one, which she enjoyed.

Finally, we arrived home and had lunch and watched some Anne of Green Gables until my geometry class while we sipped some peppermint-chocolate tea.

See?  A truly delightful day.  We ended it by making some red velvet cake balls for a dinner we're going to tomorrow night.  But I'll reserve a whole blog post for those treats!

Have a wonderful day, friends.