Roma 4: Really Old Stuff

Day 2 in Rome began with Crepes with Nutella AND white chocolate, which is how EVERY day should begin. I was too distracted by deliciousness to take photos. Then a day of really old stuff was in store: The Colosseum, The Roman Forum, and the Paletine Hill.

To get there, a metro ride was required, on this awesomely graffitied train!

Here's the weird thing. The metro station is literally right next to the Colosseum. You walk out of the station and this is what you see:

And if you're terribly lucky like me, that is exactly when your camera battery dies. I was not happy. Boo.

On the plus side, I had my ipod which has a really crappy, but existant camera. So for the rest of the day I was able to satisfy my need to photograph, just with much less control and way fewer megapixels. Nevertheless, you can still see what I saw for the rest of the day:

Those are hallways underneath the floor of the arena. lots of little rooms, passages and places for lifts below trap doors. Pretty cool.

Here you can see some of the supports for the seating, which is obviously missing.

On the upper level there is a museum of sorts, with various recovered pieces. This is an actual gate that got pretty torn up when everything burned. But it's been around basically forever. Which is crazy.

The senators had reserved seating. And I don't mean a piece of paper taped to a chair. No, you got your freaking name carved into your freaking marble seat at the freaking colosseum. THAT is status.

Also, apparently graffiti has always been around in different forms. This is what ancient graffiti looked like.

Who needs spray paint when you can CARVE your graffiti? Ancient Romans were so badass.

One more view of the Colosseum:

Then we moved onto the Paletine Hill, which is filled with even more old stuff, around which you can wander.

And sometimes even climb:

Oh, you know, just chillaxin on some ancient ruins, like I do...

I think this used to be baths:

There was a little museum with some statues and things. This one caught my eye because it is the first one I'd seen that was clearly smiling!

Ok, here is where you're not allowed to judge. We'd been living in Italy for 7 weeks at this point, and though Italian food is wonderful, and endless supply of past and pizza can get a BIT monotonous.

So when you see an ad for Hard Rock Cafe Rome, it's hard to pass up:

It was possibly one of the most elation-inducing bacon cheeseburgers of my life. I can't describe how refreshing it was to be in a fast-paced restaurant with loud music, strong drinks, and the smell of barbecue sauce.

We DESTROYED an appetizer combo platter of buffalo wings, eggrolls, chicken tenders, potato skins, etc. Even the lettuce became a vessel for honey mustard...

And of course, milkshakes. Oh lord, the milkshakes. So delicious. Mickey almost cried with Joy:

Thus completes my Roman saga! In fact I literally when straight from Hard Rock to the train station and rode home full of greasy american goodness.

Rome was wonderful :)