Saturday

We hit Roma late last night. After our airport to hotel transfer issues - they'd closed just after our flight landed. Nice. We got a crazy arsed driver who I thought on numerous ocassions was going to run up the arse of the car in front, he nearly hit a pole on the footpath and then seemed to be lost trying to find our hotel. We drove past the river and my goodness, it was so beautiful. All lit up with restaurants and people and big houses/apartments. Really beautiful. I knew at that moment that I loved this place already.

Our hotel is right near the forum and colosseum. We drove by the monumento vittorio Emmanuel II and it's at the back of the hotel. It's huge and amazing.

During breakfast I declared i thought it was a really beautiful city. Rach said 'but you haven't even seen it yet'. I don't need to see a whole city to know it's beauty. I see what I see and I feel what I feel. I know that I love this place already.

So, my main dream has always been to see the colosseum. I don't know why or where it came from it's just been that way. And see it I did. Yes it's amazing. I did the standard (I'm sure) "oh wow" but I think I internalized my reaction more and just took it all in in my head than verbally. Just to be able to walk around and see all the levels and picture it in my head how it used to look with all those people and the ground surface area they would have watched the gladiators and the animals. Unfortunately the bottom part is not open yet. I'm disappointed in my photos. Too over exposed and it was so hot today - stifling, the worst we've had our whole time away, that I just couldn't see the screen with the glare to check shots. Maybe 4 are good enough. Maybe I'm too critical of myself. I set a high standard for photos. Mediocrity just doesn't cut it in my world. I'm not a perfectionist at all but for my photos I'm very critical. I just need to learn more.

So the colosseo was amazing and really wonderful to walk around. I couldn't believe I was there. I said to myself 'you're in the colosseum' but it still didn't seem real. I was dripping with sweat to the point I was licking salt off my mouth. I can usually deal with the heat, 40 degrees bring it on, it bares no problem for me. But here..... damn it's hot. The humidity is just whoa it hits you. We've stocked up on mineral water - it cost us 67 cents aus for a 1.5 litre bottle. We got 6.

It doesn't appear that expensive here. It's on par with Spain and I like here heaps more than Paris. The architecture is beautiful, it's so old, the people are friendly and so far not too expensive for food. I'm already dreading having to leave and it's only our first day.

I had pasta for lunch but I'm hungry again! Pasta primavera with zucchini, gorgonzola, peas and Parmesan. So yum. My palette is definitely different to rachs. She thought the pineapple juice at breakfast was too strong-I guzzled it down in one glug almost and I thought the gorgonzola was really subtle. Apparently not. So it's interesting I can stomach the more rich flavours, however I can't do spicy and R loves chili!


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Location:Roma