DAY 49: Let the Games Begin!

Somehow 7 homeless junkies crawled up to the second level of the Colosseum, tents, banners, megaphone and all, to protest... I think they were pissed they couldn't move in. And I don't blame them, who wouldn't want to live in the Colosseum? Huge picture windows, spacious, great stone work... a tad drafty, but that's what sleeping bags are for. OK, maybe there are too many cats to move in, but I was STOKED to stand inside the ol' tiger cage. Our Olympics today are 16 days.... their Olympics- 100 days. The opening ceremony usually consisted of a re-creation of a naval battle, made possible by Culligan Water Systems... the Romans flooded the entire stadium, threw some boats in the bathtub and had a big game of Battleship. If it were a sunny day, or possibly raining, they would pull a big awning over the ENTIRE thing- strips made from sails, by sailors. The engineering boundaries they conquered were just as impressive as Russell Crow slaying a wrestler with knuckles the size of baby elephants. (Random/Useless fact: None of Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" was filmed in Rome! They built a colosseum 1/3 the size of the original out of plywood and plaster, in Malta... for a cool $1 million.) It was surreal to walk around the entire place, on different levels and see name plates of where all the important people sat... similar to Jack Nicholson's court side seats in the Staples Center, big money in front, and all the rest sit on each other's laps in the cheap seats, wiping each other's bloody noses. After 300 years of use (America is 233 years old... put that in your pipe and smoke it.) they began quarrying stone for use in other structures around the city, such as the Vatican. Today was the first day of Digital Italy, my digital photography class, and our assignment was to partner up and take portraits of one another through out the arena. After a few hours in the sunshine, more and more "Happy-Knees" flooded the place, all wearing they're neon yellow hats, following an antenna with a flower at the top... it cracks me up when they carry around a huge tripod with a tiny point and shoot attached... I also saw a guy with two SLR cameras attached to each other, side by side- so whatever the left camera didn't get, he'll have the exact same photo,  one centimeter to the right.

After a morning in the "Arena of Moss," I enjoyed a peanut butter, orange honey and banana sando and a holy apple (I "borrowed" it from the Convent... don't tell God), we worked our way over to the Forum and started at the Arc of Titus. Assignment #2 was to play with our aperture settings and spend time walking through what's left of the ancient civilization... located between Palanitine Hill and Capitoline Hill, Caesar's stomping grounds began as a city of brick and he left it a city of marble (though many of the temples were destroyed and rebuilt several times). I hoofed it up the hill to the stadium... a huge field littered with doric column remnants that now rest peacefully in green grass. Walls jutted up to the sky, only to abruptly stop where stone thieves had helped themselves to materials for their own palaces. Little remains of the ancient ghost town, but what's left behind, lends much to the imagination of life 2,000 years ago and how urban spaces were utilized by our precursors. The only living beings are "The Watchers" and the ear mites that live in "The Watchers"... the mangy felines that stand watch over the graves of ancient militants.

After a lame day of class (!), we climbed to the top of "The Wedding Cake"- the national monument of Victor Emmanuel (1st president of unified Italy) to enjoy a great view of the city. Made of pure, white marble Corintian columns, fountains and statues, this pompous box of frills is hard to miss, especially with Victor himself sitting high on top of Mr. Ed. Majestic staircases make you thirsty, so a few of us stopped at Trinity College (Irish Pub) for a Guiness. Back to the hotel for a chill night of photo editing and anticipation for Vatican City and Petey's Basilica manana! Chow chow :)