Day Three: Pictures :)

On my third day in Roma I made my first trip in the city by myself, in order to pick up my luggage at the university. I now get to wear my tennis shoes, makeup, and eat peanut butter. :) My roommates and I took a bus to the arch of Constantine (emperor who brought Christianity to Rome) Where we met the rest of our group to take a tour of the Roman Forum (the ancient center of the city) and the Colosseum. The tours were long, but interesting and extremely picturesque. The sunny looking relic on the right is the temple in which the vestal virgins kept an eternal fire burning for the goddess of the hearth. If these young women broke their vow of virginity they were sentenced to death. Because their lives were religiously important their blood could not be spilled, so their capital punishment was live burial. Yikes. We also saw a temple built in honor of Caesar (after his death) The Palatine hill upon with Romulus founded Rome, as well as the senate that Caesar began building before his untimely death. We toured a temple (the temple of Romulus) built in honor of an emperors son who died in his childhood, as well as a church and ...other buildings whose significance I cannot remember :) enjoy the pictures. The first (primo) is a basilica (I can't remember whose) the second (secondo) picture is the temple of Romulus. The third (terzo) picture is of a church dedicated to the virgin mother. The fourth(quarto) is of a marble facade and all that is left of one of the ancient temples.

We then continued our to the Colosseum which was different than what I expected, it is simply the frame of the arena(arena in latin means sand, which is what the Colosseum floor was covered with) it once was and the floor in gone revealing the underground tunnels. After our tour of the Colosseum my friends and I went in search of food, in order to avoid the overpriced restaurants in the area we headed back to our neighborhood Trastevere (pronounced Tras-tay-ver-ay) went to a Gastronomia two doors down from our apartment. One of the woman working in the shop spoke english,which is much rarer than I was lead to believe. I ended up with a meat (pastrami or salami maybe) and cheese sandwich, and it was delicious. It's been a rainy afternoon so we have been cozy in the apartment watching Italian and British television. Ciao for now :)