Tuesday 19th: rome forum

[ pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/110144623598348247797/20110419?authkey=Gv1sRgCM6Co4GCho-sNw#  ]

This morning is the last day that I'm in this hostel. I also was feeling a little bit under stress because I'm trying to figure out the ending to this stretch of travel. I need to get back to Nottingham by May 2nd for classes and exam preparation. I originally had planned to catch a ferry from Italy to Greece, see Athens, some Greek islands, then go to Istanbul if there was still time, and then catch a plane back to Nottingham. But at this point it looked like there wouldn't be enough time to do that. I was going to be in Naples until the 25th of April. And the planes back to Nottingham from Athens or Istanbul were both very expensive. It looked like it would be expensive, and I wouldn't have enough time to see as much as I wanted. So I made a new plan to go to Berlin, then maybe some other places, and make my way back to Nottingham. I thought this would be cheaper.

So this morning I tried to use the internet in the hostel to get this working. The previous night the internet had not been working properly. This morning it was also not working properly. But it was at least working a little bit now. The connection was very patchy. I could load one page and then it would cut out, maybe half way through. Not ideal circumstances for buying plane tickets. My brain was also not thinking properly. So I ended up buying the ticket for the right date but the wrong month. I would prefer not to include it in the blog because it's an embarassing waste of money and I felt pretty stupid. But have to include it for completeness. It took me quite a few days to get over feeling stupid for it. I think that the making of some mistakes are common and I have no benefit in making myself feel too bad.

I checked out of the hostel and then walked to the new hostel. This made me feel a little better because the person checking me in at the new hostel seems to be quite a bit nicer than the people in charge at the first hostel in Roma.

I also met a nice person in my room at the hostel. He is a 17 year old guy from Milano in Italy. He's on some school holidays so he's checking out Rome. He is very friendly.


After checking in I went to get a new plane ticket. I can only use the internet downstairs in the reception area at this hostel, and can only use it for half an hour because you have to plug in a network cable to use it, and there is only one cable. I got it sorted out and it's expensive having to buy to plane tickets for one flight. I am happy that it is at least not sorted properly. After that I ate a pizza in my room with the guy from Italy. He went across the street and bought one for me and one for himself. It wasn't the greatest pizza I've ever had. It was basically average dough stretched very thin, with a suspiciously below average tasting tomato sauce and some not very good cheese. But... it was okay.

After that, I walked with the guy from Italy to go and see some things. I think he was keen that I go and look at things with him, since he seems to be the kind of person that likes to have company around. But I said that I was really interested in actually going inside the forum area. He said that it would be fine if I just look at it from the outside, and he didn't want to pay to go inside himself. But I had to insist, and suggested that we could split up at that point and he can go and do his plans. So that's what we did. We caught the subway to the coloseum. It's the first time I've taken the subway. It was only 1 euro for the trip. Pretty good. There are just two lines on the Rome subway though. They are trying to build a third, but according to the italian guy, they keep running into old ruins that disrupt their plans, and maybe the mafia has some effects that is slowing it down.

View from the new hostel. It's on the seventh floor! It's a clean hostel too. Amazing.

At the forum. Lots of ruins. More than I thought. So there are lots of pictures...

This thing is massive. Notice, at the right of the large arch that is furthest away, there are some tiny people standing. Those are normal sized people. This thing is massive. You can also see the waist height railing stopping you from going in, giving some perspective of how huge this thing is. I overheard a tour guide saying that of all the buildings he'd most like to see this one in its original state. I can believe that.

Another arch.

All these buildings are around 2000 years old. Amazing.

I think this thing was buildings built to the side of a hill with openings out on the side so that they had an amazing view.

The inside of some strange thing. This is barred off so I didn't actually go in.

In Rome they seem to be obsessed with the emperor Nero. He's the one most famous for being a bit crazy, having his mother sentenced to death, and alledgedly setting a large section of Rome on fire which caused a lot of damage. In the end he was arrested or something. The coloseum has a big feature on asking whether or not he was that bad, and stating all the stuff he did. This tunnel has lots of stuff to Nero as well. This tunnel was building through the hill so that they could get through, I guess... I think there are also stairs that lead up to people's houses.

They also have a little museum with more statues.

This is some kind of sports ground. This is also massive. It doesn't look like it is from the picture. The hand rails on the side give some idea of scale.

I looked down and saw this strange open space. I just snapped picture randomly. I later realised that this is the remains of the circus maximus. I think that the important politicians had a great view of this from their hill where I'm standing.

This is a strange building which they are still excavating. They have found some very strange features. It is designed in some kind of circular way. There is something in the centre which appears to be a kind of pivoting thing, which they are speculating may have meant that this room actually rotated. This is supported by some writings which seem to talk of Nero having built a rotating room. Amazing. This room also is at a point which had a great view. So it would be a good place for this kind of thing.

At the top of the main hill they have some really nice gardens. The gardens are filled with orange trees. I think it's great.

Afterward I bought gelato. Chocolate, strawberry, and 'limone' (italian for lemon, strangely enough).

This is a photo to check if my face is covered in chocolate. It's not. That's good.

I got back to the hostel and I think there was another Australian girl there. She is from Sydney I think. There is also an american guy who I spoke to the next day.