when in rome

from sardinia, we took the ferry over to rome, where we mostly saw a lot of large, old things, like you do when you're in rome (carmen wanted me to clarify that she is not one of the "large, old things" i was referring to in the picture below).

are you not amused?!. From Italy: Rome

of course you can see much better colosseum pictures than we took online.
what i find funny though, is that everyone seems to think (and the wiki even says it) that this colosseum is the biggest ever built. the circus maximus, about a half mile away, could seat 5 times as many. probably not as many lion-deaths though, so not as cool.

Some random large ruin. From Italy: Rome

roman forum. From Italy: Rome

by far the most impressive part of rome, for me, was the roman forum, a great place to wander around and do nothing. we had a strict policy of not becoming educated on what any of the buildings actually were, since we wanted to assume they were all for battling or sacrificing. (as it turns out, we were always right)

semi-triumphant arch. From Italy: Rome

things i've become desensitized to since moving to europe:
-really huge arches
-really huge fountains
-really huge obelisks
-RENAISSANCE ART

Grasseus. From Italy: Rome

look at their horse hats. From Italy: Rome

Miserable at trevi. From Italy: Rome

pretty much no place on earth makes you feel like less of an individual than rome. every corner you turn is another amazing ruin/fountain with hundreds of people crammed around it. we cast our coins for luck and moved on.

really? only 2 subway lines? From Italy: Rome

rome has by far the darkest subways i've ever been in. this picture doesn't really do it justice, since it was a longish exposure time, but really, you could hardly see the area down on the tracks.

Map Room. From Italy: Rome

i had always been told that the vatican is one of those things you "have to see" and we believed that, but i have to say, unless you are EXTREMELY interested in renaissance art (and by that i mean hundreds of different paintings of jesus and mary), it's not really a "must see". the louvre has much better stuff and is not crammed into a tiny space with thousands of people. and if your favorite art is extremely muscular men with tiny genitals (which we learned was "fashionable" at the time), you're in luck. one definite highlight, though, is this Map Room. all walls and the ceiling are covered with paintings that are really rough approximations of maps of various regions. they are painted very cartoony, so the map of sicily, with its volcanoes, looks like a map of middle-earth.

a lot of naked paintings in the sistine chapel. From Italy: Rome

the sistine chapel, despite its heavenly theme, is pretty much my version of hell. it is about as packed as a frat party, everyone shoulder to shoulder and pushing.. and there are a lot of guys working, whose only job is to yell at you not to take pictures. we got this picture and one more before a guy yelled at us to put it away and leave, which we only too willingly did.
(look directly above us to see the creation of adam.. don't worry, it's work safe.. much too blurry to see privates.)

st. pietro's basilica. From Italy: Rome

what really is a must see though is st. peter's basilica. that place is totally nuts. here you can see the holy light that was shining down on us from high.

horse and pantheon. From Italy: Rome

glamour shots at the pantheon. From Italy: Rome

after this long day of walking, we headed back to our campground, on the metro line just north of town. we explored the campground a little (amazingly spacious and wooded considering it's about 5 miles from downtown), which had a good restaurant/bar/market and bathrooms that played nothing but classical music. we had a bottle of wine and went to bed. (actually, who am i kidding? it was probably a box of wine (they come in tiny juice-box sizes!))

at sometime around 3am, i thought carmen was shaking or something, but then realized that the amount of distance we were swaying was more than our sleeping pads. i didn't want to sound like an idiot, so i just said "umm.. you felt that, right?" "yeah, that was an earthquake, wasn't it?" we knew for sure when it got really loud out with dogs barking, birds chirping, and a car alarm. we assumed it was a tiny earthquake and had no idea it was serious until we happened to look at a paper a couple days later.