A Sunday at the Colosseum....

Yesterday, Sunday, was a great day here in Roma!  The sun was shining, it wasn't too hot, and the market was booming!  I started out my day by going to early Mass (well, early for me, Mom and Dad!) at 9:00 AM.  I will probably never go to that Mass again because they didn't sing as much as at 10:30 AM Mass, and they didn't sing the Gloria, they said it.  That is my favorite part of the Mass, and they skipped it.  Oh well, there is always next week.  After Mass, Bliss, Tynisha, and I went to the market while Casey slept in. There were the usual vendors, but the market never gets old.  You always find new things to buy too!  After the market, Casey finally got out of bed and her, Bliss, and I went to grab some pizza to go for lunch and then we took the tram and buses to the Colosseum!

Casey, Bliss, and Me at the Colosseum

It was such an amazing sight to see!  The size of the structure and the obvious care and planning that went into the building of it was awesome to see!  There were tons of people there, so we decided that we had better look for the ticket line.  Luckily we ran into this tour guide who told us about this deal that if we paid 8 Euros on top of the 12 Euro entrance fee, we would get a guided tour of the Colosseum, Capitoline Hill, and the Roman Forum that day.  We said we do it and paid 20 Euros each!  Best 20 Euros I have ever spent in my life!  The tour guide in the Colosseum was a little hard to understand, and didn't stay with us very long.  The three of us felt a little ripped off, but we have fun exploring on our own and taking a bunch of pictures!


We had a blast walking around and looking for new photo opportunities.  Casey kept making fun of me for trying to take some "artsy" pictures.  I took a bunch of them because you can do so much with your camera and with the rock of the Colosseum.  Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took:

"The Stories Etched Into the Stone"

"The Stones Tell the Stories"

I really enjoyed taking those fun pictures, so Casey can make fun of me all she wants!

And of course, as I promised my fellow Doves who work at Krause back at home, I would try and take pictures of my Krause mug in front of famous places, so here you go guys:

Krause Funeral Home goes to the Colosseum!!

After our tour of the Colosseum, we found a gift shop so of course I had to go inside and buy something!  I bought a professional picture of the Colosseum that I want to frame when I get home.  I looks so pretty!  Around 4:15 in the afternoon, we met our new tour guide, Alex, outside the Colosseum to take us to the Forum.  He handed us off to this tour guide name Felicity, or Fee, because he "wasn't feeling well" (we think he had a hot date to go on because he looked healthy to us!)  Anyway, Fee was an AWESOME tour guide.  She was very energetic, very informative, and had an awesome British accent!  I loved her.  She used to be a History teacher.  I wish I had her as my teacher.  I would never skip class!  (Not that I do....)  

Anyway, the Capitoline Hill is where Rome was founded and where the rich and famous people of ancient Rome used to live.  The ruins of their palaces are up on the hill, along with the newest addition of buildings - Mussolini's summer palace.  It is now a museum where people can go to look at ancient sculptures.  We went into the museum to check out the sculptures, and they were very interesting.  Casey wanted to go in so we could tell people that we were in Mussolini's summer palace.  Take that Mussolini!  

The tour of the Forum was conducted from the top of the hill.  We could see basically all of Rome from up there and Fee pointed the buildings out to us.  I am going to go into the Forum for my classes soon, so I will see the rest of it later.  We could see St. Peter's Basilica from the top of the hill - of course, ruling Rome's skyline!  It was an amazing day!  

Casey and I were getting hungry and we saw some dark clouds coming, so we decided to go back to the apartment.  Before we got to the bus stop, the rain started coming down!  It was pouring in Rome, and people went running for cover!  The trams and buses were packed!  In our panic to find a bus, we got on the correct bus line, just going the wrong way, so we rode around town, in the wrong direction for about an hour.  By the time we got back to our tram stop, we were tired, fed up, and starving!  The positive side of the situation, which I always try to find, is that we got out of the rain.  Casey had a hard time seeing the positive side of the situation.  Haha!  We were going to make dinner, but we were so tired, so we went to our favorite pizzeria around the corner from our apartments.  The woman is so nice and always smiles and blows us kisses when we come in.  She always tries to make us order something new, and usually is very convincing, so she succeeds in her quest with us!  Casey, Bliss, and I had an awesome dinner and then went to get some gelato down the street from our apartments.  It only costs 1 Euro and is AMAZING!  After enjoying my gelatoAmalfi Coast of Italy with SAI.  Should be a fantastic week!!