I left Pocatello at 6:30 am on Friday with connections in Salt Lake and Boston (where I met Heather), and we arrived safely in Rome at 8 am Saturday morning. The flights were great and the overseas flight was relatively short...only 8 hours. We took a van shuttle to our hotel, because we were a bit nervous about dragging all our luggage around looking for our hotel from the train station without being able to speak Italian. (It was 25 euros each). We had to stop at a gas station midway to the hotel to have a flat repaired, so we got a drink at the convenience store. I had a yummy peach drink and some chocolate covered hazel nuts. (Yes, my diet is doing just fine! I walked it all off.)
We dropped off our luggage at the Hotel Aphrodite (pronounced "affro-dee-tay") because it was too early to check in, and we then took the subway to the Colosseum (Italian= Colosseo). You have to buy your metro tickets in the tobacco shop (1 euro per ride). We ate lunch at a sidewalk cafe right across the street from the Colloseum (I had eggplant parmagian....yummy) then walked over. There were people everywhere approaching us to see if we spoke English and wanted a tour...we opted out of that and just walked around and took some pictures for awhile. The lines for tickets at the Colosseo were reportedly 45 minutes long, so we had decided to come back during the week when it was less crowded, but go ahead and walk through the forum and palatine. We checked out Constantine's arch from all angles on the way. When we got to the entrance for that (a block away), we found out that the entrance ticket included entrance to the Colloseum, so we bought our ticket there, walked through the forum and Palatine for 2-3 hours and then into the Colloseum. Honestly, this was the part of our trip that I was the least excited about before coming and it was absolutely AWE INSPIRING! I loved it! The Palatine and the Colleseo were especially grand.
Now we are back at the hotel, trying to find the energy to stay awake long enough to go to dinner. The eat dinner very late here...usually between 8 and 11, with 9pm being prime time...they won't even start serving it until 7pm which is in 5 minutes. We are both just beat, so we are going to find food as soon as they will feed us and crash into our twin beds! Good night!
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