20. History Can be Outside Too?

After spending the last week touring museums and churches, it was a welcome change to spend the entire day outside. We saw Trajan's column - the big one in the picture below - which was built in 113 AD and depicts all of Emperor Trajan's victories in battle. 

We made our way to the Colosseum and found the secret ticket booth that allowed us to skip the entire line for the more public ticket booth. Mother was very proud of this finding. Before starting on the tour we stopped for a quick drink of water. Apparently someone forgot to teach Brody how to drink out of a fountain... 

Our first stop was this archway called the Arch of Titus. It was built to commemorate the Roman victory over Judea and was built by the 50,000 Jewish slaves brought to Rome after this war.

I thought it was interesting to see what parts of it were original, and which had been recreated. You can tell from this picture that the smooth part of the column on top is obviously a recreation.

This is the Via Sacra, the oldest street. It is as uneven and hard to walk on as it looks.

Roman emperors were treated as Gods, and these are the remains of the Basilica of Constantine. They are actually only a third of the original size. The main hall was even higher than these arches.

The use of some parts of the ruins are not as obvious. For example these rooms that are found just off Via Sacra were either slave cells, a cellar, or a brothel. Who knows? 

This picture overlooks the Forums main square.

We saw where Julius Caesar was cremated, and the temple that was later built in his name at that spot.

These three columns are all that is left of a temple where the senate used to meet and the front steps served as a soap box for free speech. 

Here is the story behind these statues. They are the leading Vestal Virgins. The Vestals were chosen from noble families before reaching the age of 10. They were to take a vow of chastity for thirty years when they would then receive a nice dowry and husband. They were treated as royalty and lived in a luxurious two story building surrounding a courtyard. On the other hand, if they failed to carry out their 30 year term they were strapped to a funeral car, paraded through the Forum, taken to the crypt, and buried alive.

We spent the rest of the day at the Colosseum! It was built by the same Jewish slaves that were forced to build the Arch of Titus.

The first level was for the most important people. Apparently all the blood and other stuff that would find its way to the floors of this place and smell so bad that their slaves would go spread flour on the planks to lessen the stench. 

This shows the floor of the Colosseum as well as the ruins of the basement.

As Dad pointed out, all of this was built thousands of years before we thought tipi's were the best thing ever.

19. Brody Thinks We're Catholic

 This is what Rome looks like in the wee hours of the morning. We woke up early to wait in this line to see the pope.

The entire square was PACKED two hours early

But don't worry, this hot Swiss protective jester was right in front of us the entire time. 

Finally, the gates all closed and the popemobile made it's way toward us!

We then had to explain to Brody what different religions were and why we believe what we believe. Visiting and attending catholic churches has left him very confused. After listening to some of the message we headed over to the Vatican Museum. Here were some of my favorite pieces.

We call this one HULKULES. Obviously this man chewed his way out of the underground prison the peasants had trapped him in. 

These two were actually Arden's favorites. The left one depicts a martyr who is having his intestines pulled out of him and wrapped around a wooden log. While he is alive. On the right, two men are being pulled apart and the man in the foreground is winding up to ram them with a rod. 

This statue of Hercules - not to be confused with the aforementioned hulkules - was struck by lightning. That is my sole reason for having a picture of it. 

Every ceiling in Europe is super decorated. Seriously, I have a folder of pictures dedicated entirely to the ceilings of Europe.

This version of Jesus is a great example of the perfect spring break bod.

The Egyptian rooms were my favorite. It's also where my family left me. That's right, parents who actually read this blog, I haven't forgotten. I really did learn some cool stuff. This mummy is from the 21st Egyptian  dynasty, making it around 3000 years old. 3000 years! It takes 70 days to mummify the human body, and 40 of those are just for drying out the skin.

This is where the entrails are kept

I pouted most of my way through the rooms of statues after being abandoned. Then I saw this. HUMP DAYYYY

The security in the Sistine Chapel was pretty tight, and the no picture rule was being strictly enforced, but I managed this selfie. Originally Michelangelo was to paint the apostles on the ceiling of this chapel. But that was no challenge for him! What makes it so famous is his interpretation of the old testament. In the time it was created, not everyone had a bible, or could even read. The Sistine Chapel tells this story so that anyone can understand it. 

To finish the day, we toured St. Peters basilica. Just picture any cathedral you've ever been in, then multiply it's size by 10. This place was HUGE! The layout was similar to most cathedrals, but it could have been the worshiping place for giants. Mom read from the Rick Steve book, and we gawked at the marble statues lining the walls and the decorated ceilings of course. 

This is the famous St. Peter Statue. The right foot may look like a shoe, but it once was a foot with a sandal. The left one is starting to fade as well, but I don't think people are allowed to touch that. But I may be wrong, the guard was talking in Italian... When we had our fill of the great Vatican city, we headed home stopping for pictures along the way.

18. How Everyone Knows You're a Tourist

Travel days are always exciting for the Friend family. The day starts early and we pack up the entire apartment. After quadruple checking that we haven't left anything - not hard, we don't have much to begin with - we set off for the train station so we can get there AT LEAST an hour early. We then sit in the station trying in every way possible to connect to some type of free wifi while waiting for our platform to pop up.

Really we spend a lot of time thinking and people watching. While we are getting a lot of cultural experiences, we are mostly surrounded by tourists everywhere we go. Besides the obvious language differences, tourists are pretty easy to pick out of a crowd and here's some examples that we are very guilty of.

1. We like to match. We all have the same clothes here, shants and travel shirts. On traveling days, backpacks are added to that.

2. We take pictures of weird things. But what a cool twist on phone booths!

3. We spend too much time staring at the shelves at grocery stores trying to translate the labels.

4. We walk around looking up at all the cool buildings with our jaws dropped.

5. We walk confidently down streets that lead to this

6. We block the street and hallway for extensive amounts of time trying to get into our apartment. But who can blame us? Check out the industrial locks on these doors. Why is this normal?

7. We FREAK OUT at street stands that sell things like kürtöskalàcs chimney cake. And hold the line up to learn how to pronounce "kürtöskalàcs."

8. Hiking shoes. 

Every day.

9.  We pose with most of the monuments. 

10. We find that the most convenient place to review a map is in the middle of the street.

So there are some of the ways we stand out. There's no helping it. We will just accept it and keep trucking on with our passport holders under our shirts tucked into our pants.

17. Venice = Labyrinth

 I'm sure a lot of Europe is this way, but it is very apparent in Venice. I know my way back to the apartment from 2 places. The train station, and the Billa (grocery store). Today, we hit 5 churches -who all seemed to have their most important art on loan to the university - and 2 museums. One of these museums was a one story apartment of some famous Venetian screen writer. I think. It would have been nice to know the guy before touring his house consisting of three rooms. We got nothing out of it, but at least it was free! The other museum was a nice palace with a lot of statues. Each of the rooms had papers with descriptions of what was in them. In English! We all took turns reading and admired the wall carpet, fancy furniture, and ceiling paintings. After Scarlet finished reading about the hard work and thought put into one of these paintings, Brody leaned over and said "It just looks like a lot of naked women to me." Ditto, little Bro.

On the way to our last church Mom and I were stopped by a fellow tourist who asked about how to get across the canal to the hotel. Seeing as we walk everywhere and have no clue what to do when there isn't a bridge available, we weren't much help. But we did have a map! Today is our last day, so we gave it to the English lady and  went to catch up with everyone else. We found Arden and Scarlet looking into someones back yard and messing with their dogs. Dad was a distance away with Brody, but we could still see his bald head above the crowd. We began discussing dog breeds and what dogs we should get when we are back in the US. Before we knew it, Dad and Brody were no where to be found. And we had no map. Not that maps help much seeing as we still go down alleys that lead to this:

We tried to guess which way the church was, but after turning around a few dozen times, we ran into the penitentiary, and decided it was time to find the train station and head home. It took a while, but we finally made it back and watched some Italian infomercials until Dad and Brody came home. 

I would still consider today a success! I got a lot of pictures between churches and the weather was perfect!

Way to ruin the moment with your phone dude

This is what a Venetian garage looks like.