Day 46

I got up around 8 today and went down to my free 'continental breakfast'.. I think every hostel gets worse and worse! Here all you got was one butter, one jam, a small cup of bad orange juice, a weak coffee and a bun that looked large, but was completely hollow, so was just some crusts... No Milk too!! :( lol. If you wanted anything else you had to buy it..

Well I bought a yoghurt, and then made do with what I had. After this I went back to my room.. had a shower, and then headed off into the main city. First stop for me was the Colloseum. This thing was awesome!! Around it was some cool ruins, and a nice archway. I joined the big queue, but halfway through realised that If I took a reasonably cheap tour I could go straight to the front of the line, so I did just that. The inside was a little smaller than I had imagined.. But then again it is only the skeleton of the original building really. The tour was great, and the Colloseum itself was fantastic, I loved looking around and seeing all the cool things that I had seen photos of before.. but was now before my very eyes. It was already stupidly hot tho..

After finishing at the colossuem I went into the roman forum, which is a big area next to the Colloseum that is full of old ruins of buildings and pillars and arches and stuff. there are a few buildings here and there aswell. I had a little look around and then went back to the hostel to try and book another night. After waiting 30 minutes I finally got to talk to the guy who booked me another night, but said he couldnt cancel the first night in Venice for me coz he wasnt the manager or something.. I triend to ring Venice but they were engaged, so after a while I went back into town. First I went to the train station and booked me a train to Venice on the right day, and after trying and failing again to ring Venice I had some pasta from a nice little cafe and went to the Circus Maximus stop. The Circus maximus was a bit of a let down because I had imagined some of the old structure was there.. but apart from a few small brick structures (brick is everywhere in italy) at one end, it was just a grassy area with banks on each side.

next to the Circus maximus is the Palatino though (English?? dunno? the palace maybe?) And this was great. it is up above the forum, and is very similar in that its a bunch of old brick and pillar ruins. I walked around here for quite a while enjoying the cool atmosphere and beautiful ruins, including a really great open basin type place with some pillars and stuff layed out in some organised pattern on the ground. the heat was off the chart (hottest ive had yet I reckon.. It was over 40 in the forum) so I spent a little while in this little chapel reading and stuff (I always carry my little metal cased bible around with me) and this was really nice and refreshing.

After sepnding another good 30 mins walking around the Palatino I went back down to the forum and walked aroud some more and admired the amazing site. I walked down to the other end and saw this MASSIVE white building with some cool statues ontop and some great sculptures and fountains next to it, and then after buying a tshirt for 5 euros just kinda wandered the streets for a while without using my map. This was quite fun and I saw alot of nice little shops and also another small area of ruins. I ended up by the river and a little island in the middle of it, and after buying a gelato (mmmmm) walked around this for a while. there were a few small dam things that water was rushing over and there were seriously like 20 soccer and basketballs in there getting churned around and around.. It was quite funny watching them get sucked under, then pop back out and sucked under again.

After a while I oriented myself using the map and walked back to the Circus Maximus. It was around 7 and not quite so stupidly hot anymore.. and so I put on my iPod to some chariots of fire type music, and ran a lap of the circus maximus :D!! Noone else was really walking around it.. And a few probably wondered what the heck I was doing clutching my camera, new tshirt, and with my backpack clunking away as i ran around the big track.. but it was cool, and now I can say that I have run a lap of the Circus Maximus.. So thats cool!!

I passed up an internet cafe coz i figured the internet at the hostel would be fixed by now.. but when i got back it wasnt.. *groan*, so for the rest of the night I read for a bit, had a good yarn with the british guy I met yesterday, and then listened to another sermon, before having a shave, ringing home, and getting to bed around 11.

Today wasnt too bad really :) Rome is a great city!! And there werent as many people targtting tourists to rip off and I didnt have to deal with too many rude Italians (met a few nice ones!) Tomorrow ima go to the Vatican.

C u!!