On Sunday, I left the Mitchell’s apartment before they went to mass in the hopes that I could shower at our apartment and go to mass with Grandpa. When I finally made it up to the apartment and rang the doorbell, there was no answer. I waited for about twenty minutes before deciding to go down to the church. I waited outside for the 9:00am mass to end and sure enough, Grandpa had gone to the earlier mass. We went back to the apartment where I was able to shower before leaving for the Colosseum. It must be noted here that one of my favorite parts of Rome was crossing the street. The drivers won't stop if you are just standing on the side of the road, but if you are in a crosswalk, they have to stop. If they hit a pedestrian, they lose their license for life. Basically, Grandpa and I would wait for a line of traffic to go by, and then step into the road. More often than not, the line would not have a huge break in it, so I would do my best to judge how far the next car had to go to stop at the speed it was driving along at. There are roads where pedestrians have to wait for lights, but there weren't any of those between our apartment and the metro station. We got pretty good at it by the end of the week.
The Mitchell's met up with us at the Cipro metro stop and we headed out together. When we got to the Colosseum, we were waiting to meet up with the rest of our group. We just took everything in. It was a beautiful morning, so there were plenty of people out and about. There were reenactors dressed up as gladiators taking pictures with people and eventually marching around. There was a police band playing down by the Arch of Constantine, so Grandpa and I went down to check them out. They were really good and made me wish I still played flute.
As we wandered back up toward the Mitchell’s, it had been decided that we would just go inside and hope to meet up with everyone else inside. Of all the things I saw in Rome, there were three that I couldn’t believe I was seeing, the Colosseum being one of them, St. Peter’s and the Trevi Fountain being the other two. The history alone that took place in the Colosseum is hard to comprehend, let alone the fact that the building has withstood thousands of years. In a way it was strange to look around and think about the history and then turn and look at the modern world zooming past outside it’s walls. I took some time to myself just to look at the 21st century passing by the ancient walls. If I had been by myself, I probably could have spent the better part of a day just wandering around and looking out from the inside. The weather had other ideas for us, however, after we met up with the rest of the group, it started to pour down rain. We took cover within the outside part of the Colosseum. Everyone chatted, but I just watched as the rain poured down onto the ruins. Rain makes everything more beautiful in my opinion. (If you share this view, watch Midnight In Paris, he’s constantly talking about how beautiful the city is in the rain.) I tried to capture that beauty with my camera, but that moment will just have to live in my memory. Hannah and Anna kept playing in the rain. Hannah wanted to go out in it, but Anna didn’t. I managed to get a picture of them when it wasn’t raining so hard. Once the rain let up, we all proceeded to the Roman Forum. I managed to get some nice pictures of the Colosseum with the Arch of Constantine along the way.
Like most things in Rome, the Forum involved stairs and hills. I was able to take some time to myself once we got to certain areas just to wander and explore. Even for being December, some of the flowers were in bloom and were gorgeous. Trying to imagine what the Forum used to be was a bit more difficult than the Colosseum, because it was more expansive and it was in more of a ruin state. It was still like stepping back in time though, which isn’t something I get to do everyday in the States. It’s probably part of the reason I love traveling in Europe so much, because the history is so rich and it goes back thousands of years.
At a certain point, we all tried to decide what we were going to do next and what was going on later that evening. I followed the Mitchell boys along with Linda to exit the Forum. I turned around at the top of a set of stairs that they had all proceeded to go down to see if the rest of the group was coming, but they weren’t. When I got to the bottom of the steps, Ben asked if I had seen them coming, but of course I hadn’t. We waited for a while before splitting up and trying to find the rest of the group. I tried calling Amy’s cell phone, but it was off so I left a message. We decided to get on the metro and go back to our apartments. On the way, my phone rang and it was Amy. Turns out, they had been looking for us for an hour too. Once logistics were figured out, it was decided that I would just go back to our apartment and wait for Grandpa to get back.
I was a bit distraught when I got off the metro, so I called my mom and talked to her. When it was decided there was nothing I could do but move forward, I went back to the apartment and took some time to properly settle in, since I hadn’t really been there other than for showering. I unpacked my suitcase and decided to start boiling water for pasta. From traveling, I had some laundry that needed done, so I figured out how to start the washer, which was below the stove top. A bit of exhaustion had hit me at that point and I had a reminiscent feeling of being in Dublin just doing day to day tasks. As slid down in between the wall and the washer to watch my clothes spin, I really just wanted to stay in that moment for a while. That moment of European domestic life. I find that I miss living small and conservative. I miss the independence I felt when I was abroad and the freedom to travel. Public transportation is something that people in large cities take for granted until there is a strike, but it’s something I miss every day living in small town USA. Taking a train or a bus somewhere new isn’t an option. I love being able to get on a metro and go a few stops to a completely different part of a city. The simplicity of staring at my spinning clothes was about all I could take at that moment though. As I sat, something occurred to me, earlier in the day when I had been ringing our doorbell, I noticed that most of the shutters had been opened for the day. When I came back, they were all closed as it was night, regardless of the fact that you can close your windows up so no one can see in and the shutters are just there for appearance any more. I pulled myself up by grabbing onto the counter and made my way into my bedroom where I partook in the Italian way of pulling my shutters closed before shutting my windows up for the night. At least I would be able to sleep in a completely dark room, which is more than I can say for my room at home with sheer curtains.
Then I proceeded into my grandpa’s room, where his window was still open and as I looked out it, I saw that he was below with Amy and her kids. I called out to them and hurried down the stairs to let him in. The water had been boiling for a while by that point, so I threw pasta in and heated up the sauce. It was pretty good and a much needed meal in after a long day. We discussed the day and talked about the ordination which would occur the following morning. Later that night I got a text from Michelle saying that the metro and buses would be on strike and that we would have to get a taxi. I immediately pulled out my guidebook and found numbers as well as taxi stand locations. I spent part of the night trying to teach myself some basic Italian so I would know how to tell a driver that we needed to get to San Giovanni.
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