Monday, May 21
7:45 am, Rome - Well, it was bound to happen...it's raining today. After getting up and eating breakfast (which is similar to the Florence "american breakfast"), we load up the bus and our umbrellas to head to today's tour of Rome. Once we get to our drop-off point, like in Pisa, we are surrounded by street vendors, this time brilliantly selling umbrellas and ponchos (they had to have made a fortune off of all the tourists today!). Several of us in the group go ahead and buy a few, as the rain has picked up a little.
Our first destination of the day is the Roman Colosseum. Here we met our Rome tour guide, Jac, who might be the most knowledgeable tour guide in all of Italy, but would occasionally get a bit long-winded on the smallest detail. Similar to the Accademia Gallery in Florence, we are allowed to pass up the extremely long line to get into the base of the Colosseum. WOW! This structure is enormous, and according to Jac, only took 10 years to construct. We wander to one of the top levels, while Jac continues to fill our heads with interesting history. It's amazing to think that something like this could be built so long ago, with so much attention being placed on the tiniest of detail. Lots of "thumbs down" (which apparently wasn't the signal for death like we learned in the "The Gladiator") came from our players - I wouldn't want to have fought in the arena if these guys were emporers!
As we are leaving the Colosseum, the rain lets up and the sun starts to shine again! This is fantastic because apparently the bus can't navigate the city center streets of Rome, so we will be walking to our next destination.
The second destination for our morning tour is the Forum. These ancient ruins are more of what should be expected of thousand years old buildings. Many of the buildings are now covered by land, but there are several structures that are still standing after all these years. It's impressive that Jac can know so much about even the smallest rock here.
Our players took a particular interest in some of the ancient columns. We're lucky there were no injuries.
As we are leaving the Forum, we run into Trinity Women's Basketball player Kelsey Daniel, who is on vacation with her family. You never know where you will see fellow Trinity people - the TU bubble spans the globe!
1:30 pm, Rome - After leaving the Forum, we walk around for a bit longer, looking for a good place to take 30+ people for lunch. Luckily, we come across a Pizzeria called Dora. The guys look exhausted. Some actually start falling asleep while waiting for their meals. Once the food started coming out though, they were wide awake...go figure!
We finish up another delicious Italian feast. Sadly, this is where we have to part ways with Sam. He needs to catch the metro to the airport so he can get back to work (if that's what you call it) the next day in Spain. It's amazing how cheap it is to fly around Europe - apparently it cost him less than 20 euro each flight!
3:00 pm, Rome - We continue our walking tour of Rome, this time on the way back to the bus. First we make a quick stop by the Trevi Fountain, which is the largest fountain in Rome (the city with 1000 fountains) and quite possibly one of the most famous fountains in the world. This piazza was PACKED. It took us a while just to regroup and find everyone to leave here.
The next stop on our trek back to the bus is the Scalinata della Tinita dei Monti, or as we all know it, the Spanish Steps. This is the widest staircase in Europe and the tourists/locals use them to the fullest. Each side of the staircase is at least cleared so that our guys can walk to the top and back down.
8:30 pm, Rome - Because we added a third game for this trip, we are having our "farewell dinner" tonight, rather than tomorrow night. We head back to the area we were last night and go to a restaurant called Capo de Fero. Like most of the restaurants we go to, we take over nearly the entire seating area and are definitely not the quietest dining guests.
