Rome- Day 3: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

After a pleasant lunch we decided to walk down the Tiber for a little while. It was a pleasant stroll and we eventually came across a small market that we strolled through. I stopped at one stall and tried on a ring, because what girl can't use more accessories. The vendor told me that this sterling silver ring was 25 euro, a little out of my price range. I tried to walk away and he literally would not let me go, standing in front of me whenever I tried to leave. He asked how much I would pay for the ring and I said ten euro, hoping that it was too low and price and I could just be on my way. Turns out he eventually sold it to me for ten euro; a good deal but I could have lived without the ring. Oh well, in the end I have a nice souvenir from Rome.

We continued on our way to the Colosseum, where we were going to get a tour of the Palatine Hill and the Forum, passing the Castel Sant'Angelo, which served as the papal castle for 1000 years. We also got gelato on our way (we ate a lot of gelato).

Castel Sant'Angelo

With our tour of the Colosseum the previous day we also got a tour of the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Our guide, an Australian man, described the Palatine as the Beverly Hills of Rome. This hilltop was were the emperors and elite lived in marble palaces. Domitian, one of the emperors of Rome, built the palace up here in AD 81 and the marble was so polished that you could see your reflection in it. The purpose of this was so that Domitian could see if anyone was coming up behind him to assassinate him. Turn out his wife ended up killing him. Our guide also told us the story of Romulus and Remus and other stories from Ancient Rome, including the Rape of the Sabine Women, which is apparently where we get the tradition of carrying the bride over the threshold. When the Roman men were abducting the women they would carry them over the threshold. Lovely.

At the base of the columns you can see some of the last remaining marble on the palace. It was once all covered with marble but the Vatican came in a "borrowed" all of it.

Original tiles in the palace. The red marble on the left was exhausted, meaning that there is no more to be quarried in the world. One kg (2.2 lbs) of the marble is worth 80,000 euro! The Vatican owns 92% of it...and they charge tourists 14 euro to go in the Vatican museum.

Up next we got a bird's eye view of the Forum. We could see the House of the Vestal Virgins and the site where Caesar was cremated, where fresh flowers are still laid to this day. One thing I loved about Rome is that you would just be walking down the street and see ruins; they are everywhere and fairly well preserved.

This building still has the original door, locks, and key.

We were extremely tired after our long day and took a very crowded subway back to the hostel to rest up before going out that night. I got into my bed and immediately fell asleep, until the other girls woke me up to get the key to the room because they were going down for the nightly free pizza at 8:30. We went downstairs for the pizza and then got ready to go out for dinner. We talked to our other roommate, Will, who had also been woken up last night by Nick's antics and laughed about that together.

We hit the town late that night and found the Trattoria della Torre Argentina to have dinner at. I was just going to get something small but they had homemade pasta so I had to get that (I wrote this sentence many times in my journal; the pasta is just irresistible). I had the Napoli pasta and Britt and Stacy both had pizza.

Stacy had a friend studying in Rome so after finishing dinner we went to Scholar's Lounge Irish Pub to meet him there. Yes, you heard correctly, I went to a an Irish pub in Rome. Dennis was just getting back from Amsterdam so we waited for him while flipping through the selection for karaoke because it was karaoke night. At the end of the night we ended up singing "Galway Girl," a salute to our Irish home.

And that was Day 3! Here is Day 4!