Ruins of Rome

So Rome = walking, and I love it. I found myself at an entrance to the metro. There were two rickety elevators and no stairs. Elevator it was. I got on and as every other person stepped in the elevator dropped 3 inches and then bounced back up. I'm sure we were over capacity with the 5 people sardined in the metal box of death.

Trisha and I started out the day by confusion on the meetup spot.  I had drunkenly the night before texted the incorrectly spelled mattress store near where I am staying.  She got there and thought why would we be meeting at a mattress store. Rightfully so, not the best wine induced meeting point. Next time we will be civilized and choose a cross roads. 

We made our way to the colosseum. Holy moly. After some confusion about me purchasing child's tickets and tour guides we made our way in.  We spent the next 2 hours attempting to visually reconstruct the bones of the building in our minds. We both spied a display case of animal skulls and as vet students do, we started to determine what animal they once belonged to. 

We then realized that we needed fortification. Wine. We stumbled into a place that was still open. When we finally looked up from our deep conversation we realized it was almost dark outside. We then decided to continue our wanderings. The forecast had been wrong and my poor Trisha was freezing. We made our way back to the colosseum to find a vendor to buy a scarf from. This might have been the only time that anyone had willingly wanted to get pestered by a vendor and there were none in sight. Finally an older man with arms full of scarves approached us. Trisha was warm. 

We then ambled down the boundary of the forum. It was so pleasant as so few people were out. We finally got the feeling of how old the structures were around us. 

Rome at night is glorious. So few people are out. Everywhere we we searched for words. The overuse of the word amazing became evident to both of us. We tried using other words, but our gasps and ebullient eyes around every corner would have been contagious to the most sullen of people. 

We walked to The little island in the middle of the river, and bravely went down to the banks. The echoes of our giggles and awe became evident as we went under the archa of the bridges. 

We decided after about 2 hours that we needed more fortification. I had a restaurant marked on my map. Honestly I have no recollection where I found it, but since I had at one point thought it was a good idea, we trekked on to it. The route guided us down the narrowest of the cobblestone streets of Rome. We were green with envy. People lived here. Vespas lined the narrow streets. 

The restaurant was a house. There were about 8 tables, for a total of about 26 guests. We walked in and were obviously the only non Italians in the place. We were questioned whether we had a reservation. I used the very little Italian that I know and simply shook my head. They decided that they could seat us at the tiny table by the chimney. I didn't even care about the horrible draft. It was perfect. The host attempted to take our order. Wine. He arrived at our table with our bottle and in his attempt to communicate with us, starts singing "red red wine" by Uber40. Trisha and I were in love. The server was a 70 year old Italian man. He was so precious. Trisha and I drank and talked into the night, so grateful that they were able to sit us, as countless others were refused. 

We were in the process of paying our bill and we had one of the euros for our tip out and were scrounging for more. Our server walked by and picked up the euro and kept walking. We tried to tell him we were getting more, but he was gone in a flash. We fished out another, which he came and picked up again. As a joke we put another one out and he came by and threw his hands up in question with a big smile on his face. 

We decided to try our wine induced brains and figure out how to get back to our different hotel/flat. We failed. So we got a cab. It is here that I learned that ALL traffic rules and signs are simply guidelines for Italians. Red lights do not mean stop, but simply to watch out for other traffic. The left side of the road is for driving on when a bus is going slowly in the proper right side of the road. Speed limits do not seem to exist. Throwing your hands up or cursing makes other drivers ahead do what you want. It is also where I learned that even if you think you know where you are, don't get out of the taxi until he tells you. I then had to wander back to my flat after I misinterpreted where I actually was. Only a 10 minute walk.