Another check off the "to do before I die" list..

...Today the beauty of Rome took my breath away. Im not sure what I was expecting, but this city was definitley more... I don't think i've ever felt this way about a city before. being such a small-town girl, i've always valued but never really appreciated what a large city has to offer. Rome was entirely different and I believe one of the only cities where I could spend an entire day, or week, simply sitting with a sketchbook. To say that it's beauty caught me offgaurd is an understatement. I was prepared for the hustle and bustle, and consequently the frustration, that has usually been found in our city visits thus far, and I found much more.
As we climbed the long set of steps out of quite a seedy and smelly subway station in downtown Rome, things were much as i expected. I hated the smell, the taste of cigarrete smoke and exhaust, and the feeling of always being on-gaurd. Looking up, however, I noticed the sunshine cascading down toward us from the city above. Although it partially blinded us as we came closer to the top, our eyes adjusted and the people pushed and shoved around us as our little traveling family stopped and stared with chins raised high. The huge and mighty Colloseum towered before us, appearing quite like a scene on the most beautiful of postcards. After a few moments I dared to look away and take in the rest of my surroundings. More people were mulling about than I have seen since Venice. Intermixed in the crowd were vendors selling plastic swords and sheilds, and people dressed up like Gladiators were posing with happy tourists(..check out the pictures, don't we look happy???). It was a livley scene. We dahsed across the road which stood between us and the commotion, and wandered our way through the maze of people and around the outside of the hugh building. We hadnt gotten far, however, when we were stopped by an incredibly friendly tour guide who was more than eager to give us every reason as to why we would so highly benefit by skipping the apparent 45 minute line-up and taking her tour with "a true archeologist", for the small amount of only 10 eruo plus the price of admission. We kindly thanked her and stepped away, determined to save our pennies, and got a good 10 minutes through the rediculously long line up when we realized that there was a good chance none of us would ever get this opportunity again. We looked at eachother and darted out of the line up, and ended up paying, yes i'll admit it, 21 Eruo each to have a tour through the Colloseum. However our ticketes allowed us to attend 2 other tours for free around Palatine Hill, so I feel it was quite worth the money. I enjoyed it much more than I believed I would.
There is just something about standing in a square and being surrounded by so many buildings that represent such an important time in History. It's amazing, and all of those elementary-school history lessons and "Diana Wearing" on tape or whatever her name was, finally came to life before me. On a more recent note it was very interesting to see some of the exhibits after completing a semester of World Mythology last winter. The history really is astonishing. That we saw the exact spot from where Marc Anthony gave his speeches to the throngs of angry Romans, that we actually walked along the same road as Ceasar. Quite cool, you have to admit. Even if I am going a little overboard on my excitedness, it is quite cool to say the least.
Hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves, although i'm sorry to say nothing can be quite as breathtaking as seeing it all with your own eyes.
We were amazed again upon entering the Pantheon, one of the most amazingly built buildings i've ever seen. Standing inside and looking up at the huge dome above you is bizarre, it almost made me dizzy. The history of this building is quite interesting too, but i'll leave you to look that up on your own, or feel free to wait and ask us later.
The grave, if you can call it that, more like a displayed casket, of Raphael (the artist), is also at the Pantheon and was quite interesting to see. I find it almost weird that the remains of a human who died in 1520 were only a few feet from me. As amazing as his art was, one has to ask the question of why millions of people a year are so interested in starting at his casket.
Anyyway so today was a long, wonderful day, and our feet are sore and our minds full this evening. Tomorrow we're headed to the Vatican, and thanks to our beautiful hostel's location about 15 by train from the city, we're waking at the crazy hour of 6:15am to get out there in time. Apparently arriving after 8am isnt worth arriving at all as the line-ups get so long, and I can promise you I do not know how much longer i'll keep my sanity if I come all this way and do not get to see the Sistene Chapel. I plan on spending at least as long as I want staring at that ceiling, and I'm not quite sure yet how long that will be.
Love to you all - I'll bug chelsea to do the next update and give her a chance to catch up to my mad typing skills:)
-Kait
PS, just to all those wonderfully concerned mothers (and we're so thankful you are!) out there, there's been an update to our plans. After Rome we'll be heading to the small city of Rimini on the adriatic coast of Italy before heading to Milan on the 20th of October to catch our night train to Barcelona. We've decided to spend a few more days in the country here mainly because we found a hostel that looks absolutley gorgeous on the ocean and in a lovely little town, and we (well especially I) feel like we really, really need some REAL "down-time" before heading to the next big city. by down time i mean I plan on eating three DECENT meals in one day and perhaps sleeping for most of the rest of it... :) Thankfully we'll again have a private room, and the hostel has a fully equipped kitchen at our disposal, which is rarer than you'd imagine it being over here. I've had just about as many cold cut sandwiches as i can possibly handle....but thats another story:)