Today was an interesting day, and of course it isn't over, but I figured I'd write about it while I have the chance. it was our second go at the Colosseum and Forum and was definitely more crowded than tuesday when I guess some people at least knew it wasn't going to be open..... also, just as I feared and yet suspected, my camera ran out of battery right as we walked through the arches of the Colosseum, so I tried to jump in a bunch of pictures other people were taking, but I didn't get a chance to take my own.

The Colosseum was fantastic, but at the same time it was at least a little depressing to me. It is in such disrepair from the heyday of it that it's hard to even imagine what it looked like. There are

almost no seats, and all the marble has been stripped from the walls leaving only the stone that was the base of the building (it was expensive to make buildings out of marble so normally they just put the marble over the top of it) But I guess it's a good thing it wasn't made of marble because otherwise the middle age people would have destroyed it even more while quarrying the stone from the old buildings. I just can't believe they did such a thing. I can't imagine just taking and using as I pleased such grand monuments. But I'm sure there are times and places in my life where I do exactly that and don't even realize that people could be mad at me in years to come. Although at the same time, things aren't the same as they were. We don't build things that are going to last as long any more. even and especially in such disrepair. although the Forum really doesn't look basically at all like it would have in Roman times. There are no roads like they had and there are very few buildings, and almost everything that had any religious significance (which was a lot: Romans had gods for everything) was turned into a Christian church to eradicate paganism, and later probably because they were too lazy to make their own things. However, as awesome as the Colosseum could be and anciently significant the Forum probably is, it didn't really compare to Ostia like I thought it could. so at noon when we were set free to do what we wanted, I went with a group to get some amazing pizza from a place around where we were on tuesday. for the most part, we even kind of re-traced our footsteps. But it was cool to see the things again, and there were loads of different things happening in the areas we had seen that I missed tuesday, or weren't there tuesday at all.

First off, I must say that I HATE not being able to talk to locals basically at all. I was talking with our waiter last night and he was talking to us in French. he was saying super simple phrases so I could understand him. and while he was servings us I said "merci" to match his language. he got really excited and asked if I knew more french. when I said not really any, he said that Americans have a problem. since so many people learn english, there is not really much of a reason for us to learn other languages and because we don't have to, we are lazy to not try. so I guess he views me as a lazy American because I can't speak Italian to communicate. I really can't wait to learn when we get to Siena!

But it really hit home today when we were out. On tuesday when we were around the churches, Kate took a picture with a cute old Italian man who doesn't know any english at all. like, I didn't ever even hear him try to speak to us in english. well we found him again today when we were in the same area.

we weren't looking for him, but Lucy just saw him sitting on a bench so we all said hi, and then since he obviously lives in the area, we asked where the best gellateria was. He lead us to it, because it's so much easier than just giving us directions, and I guess he figured since most of us couldn't even understand the directions it would have been hard. Then while we ate he just chatted with us. I didn't understand basically anything he said and it was killing me. there were two in our group who speak Italian pretty well, but sometimes he wouldn't give them time to translate, so I didn't always know what he was talking about. and then I would understand a few things, but it was so few and far between I couldn't make connections fast enough. regardless, it was fun listening to him talk and trying to understand things without translating it.

We saw a few other cool things while we were out. we walked past a church where a wedding was taking place. I'm sorry to say we

didn't go in, or even stick around to see the bride and groom come out and get in the decked out car waiting for them outside. We did go into the church later and there was rice outside where it had been thrown! I didn't even know they still do that, and it only made me more sad that we didn't see that actually happen. But there were a few wedding programs sitting on a pew, so I picked one up to read later when I can read more Italian.

tomorrow we have a free day to do whatever we want. I know a lot of people are planning on going to the beach to get away from the heat, but my bucket list includes Pompii, so I am going to try to make it down there tomorrow with a few other people who want to check it off their bucket list as well. I just hope I can make it to the coast at some point this trip. I would love to say that I've swam in the Mediterranean Sea along with the many other things I'll have done by the time I'm home. :)