Colosseo

So, we made it over the ocean, through Warsaw, and finally to Rome. We stayed in the Hotel Impero, not the most luxury hotel, but better than the majority of places we have in the U.S. According to the door man who helped get our bags up to the second floor (the tiny elevator is for baggage only- we had to race it up the stairs), Mussolini stayed in the corner suite next to my room for almost two years, back when the building was apartments. I don’t know whether I believe him or not. My room has a gloriously tall window looking out to the street, and over the roof of the Teatro dell’Opera next door.
Once we arrived, I took a very fast, cold shower before going out to explore with Erin and Matt- It’s 29 degrees Celsius, which works out to almost 85 in Fahrenheit, and very sunny and humid. In the trapezoidal block around our hotel, there is the Teatro dell’Opera, many small shops and ristorantes (including a “disco pub” directly across the street), and the Piazza della Repubblica: a grand fountain in the middle of a rather treacherous traffic circle. On one side of the circle is the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli, a massive red brick building, half of which looks like ancient ruins, and half that looks fairly new, connected by an entrance arch filled with brass-plated doors sized for giants (or angels?). Facing the basilica and taking up the rest of the circle is a luxury hotel, 5 or 6 stories tall, all white stone and layers of curved arches and pillars. The two buildings clash with each other, with the fountain, and with the black-bricked roads around them, but that only makes the Piazza more spectacular and foreign.
To conclude our short exploration before dinner, we found a little Gelateria, the equivalent to our soft ice cream stand (in number, size, and locations only- gelato is far superior to soft ice cream). I spent my first Euros on a tiny cone of Cioccolato Arania (orange dark chocolate) and caffe (coffee), which was well worth it. The intensity of the flavors make the portion size perfectly satisfying.
We then met up with the rest of our group to go out to dinner- walking to the ristortante Da Giuseppe, and filling most of their inside dining room. They fed us a five-course meal, starting with pasta in plain tomato sauce, with Parmesan. Then a small plate of seafood risotto with a single (but entirely whole, eyeballs and all) crayfish on top; then came chicken and potatoes, roasted with rosemary; then a salad, and then small glasses of Tiramisu. The pasta and chicken were both accompanied by bottles of cheap red wine, and bottled water, both unchilled- refrigeration doesn’t seem to be used for bottled beverages here, and ice is only provided upon request. Meals are eaten late, and slowly- dinner started around 9:30 and wasn’t over until 11pm. After dinner, two other adventurous students and I decided to try walking to the Colosseum, as we wouldn’t get to see much of it otherwise. We walked down Via Cavour, a wide street lined with restaurants and bars and shops, all still open and bustling with people. We had to turn up a dark side street to get to the Coliseum, which suddenly appeared out of the darkness, simply amidst the other tall buildings, and strangely at home in the cityscape. Once we got next to it, though, in it’s open plaza, the size awed us. We walked all the way around it, laughing over how we could easily run into something while staring up at the curved wall and endless arches. There were a lot of people around it, locals and couples and families just hanging out, sitting by it or walking around it with friends and strollers. We marveled over how comfortable they were with it. “Hey hun, want to take the kids around the Colosseum before bed?” We had to keep telling each other “hey, we’re in Rome. The Rome. And we’re standing next to the Colosseum. The Colosseum.” We decided that everything we did from now on would be remarked upon by it’s relation to seeing this structure- the dates shall be marked P.C., Post Colosseum.