Rome

Hey, I'm in Rome. The place is littered with really big, old buildings. Most of them are churches. The other big old buildings are, The Colosseum, statues of various people, monuments, tombs, fountains, columns appearing in the middle of the city etc.

The photo above is from the Colosseum, and hopefully you can make me out in one of the pictures. I was on one side, and BJ was on the other when she took the picture. BJ is very good at taking pictures. Everytime I try to take a shot, it's blurry.

Anyway, the Colosseum is pretty big. The tour guide said that they have lost about 60% of the Colosseum due to earthquakes and stupidity. Completed in AD 80, its a pretty old building. Apparently, the building was held together (by the Romans) with a couple of tonnes worth of iron clamps. Some bright spark decided to remove the clamps and the place started falling apart. Also, it was used as a quarry. That is, bits and pieces of it were removed to provide materials for other building projects around Rome.

I overheard an American tourist (by American, I mean from the USA) say: "Gee, I thought it would be bigger than this". Now I'm hard to please, but, lady, they built the thing in 8 years over two thousand years ago. Give them a break. Maybe it was the massive queue to get it that raised her expectations.

And another thing, most of the outside of the Colosseum is REALLY dirty, from all the car exhaust. They undertook a cleaning project to give it back its like off-white look. However, like the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, they stopped halfway for no good reason. So now, you can see the line where its dirty on one side, and clean on the other. I'll show you the photo later.

A few comments and observations about Europe and Rome so far:
1) I can't see why people catch the 'travel bug' so easily. Travel is a pain. And I gotta say, a lot of the time, it just feels like I'm in Sydney, but not in English, and away from my family and friends and church. What's the big attraction exactly?
2) Why would anyone want to spend so much money building stuff so ridiculously big? I mean, I can see why you'd want to spend money NOW on OLD stuff for HISTORICAL reasons. But why oh why, back in the year WHATEVER, (say, St Peter's Basilica, commenced in 1506) would someone think "let's spend LOTS of money and time building a ridiculously large church". I know it was a different era, but it would have been nice to see the results of someone in power saying "gee, we have a lot of materials, labour and money at our disposal. Let's help the community by building schools, or affordable housing or SOMETHING useful". I know they look nice, but the REALLY HIGH ROOF OF A CHURCH SERVES NO PURPOSE. It might be good to keep the place a big cooler. But if you have the money and expertise to make a dome like the one at St Peter's, I'm sure some shutters would do fine. Okay, I've calmed down now.
3) The tap water here is fine.
4) Gelati is really easy to get. It is really warm here. BJ has renewed her love for Lemon (or Limone) Sorbet. And forget Frozen Coke or Slurpees, the way to go is Lemon Granita (which is basically the same as a Froken Coke, but with WAY LESS AIR pumped into it).
5) The place I'm staying at is a little Zizkov-like, but not that bad. It is interesting to note that, in the immediate area, about 40% of folks are of African descent, another 40% of Indian, and probably 20% are of Italian descent. So much so, there an Eritrean Restaurant around the corner. I don't know of any Eritrean restaurants in Sydney.
6) There are HEAPS of shops selling el-cheapo souvenirs. You know the ones I'm talking about. They smell like moth-balls inside, the signs are misspelled, the stuff is a little on the lame-looking side, and the shop next door is selling the exact same stuff. And not only that, they are all RUN BY CHINESE PEOPLE! WHAT THE!?!?

BJ and I are going to Venice (Venezia) tomorrow. Off to bed now. Ciao.