Well, Rome was definitely not built in a day. Today we went to the Roman Forum: all of the extremely old ruins of social, political, and religious structures. We saw triumphal arches, old basilicas, gardens, courtyards, columns galore, grottos, the circus maximus, temples, baths, housing, old sculptures, etc. We ventured up the Palatine Hill, where we overlooked the forum below. Keep in mind that there are many layers of Rome. The most ancient ruins of Rome were excavated in the 1930s under Mussolini's efforts. So the levels of the city change. Romans built up: they covered the old and built on top of it. It's incredible. The elevation changes are truly hard to realize unless you see in in person. Everything here stuns me. From the architecture to the customs, to the markets, to the people, to the traffic .. it's so different than what we are used to. We walked, literally, for about 8 hours straight. I packed a pb&j, apple, and water for lunch. By about 3 oclock I was about to run out of steam. I felt like an old lady. My back and feet were killing me! It was all amazing, just exhausting to walk and listen and take pictures all day. It warmed up in the afternoon, not a cloud in the sky. Perfect for picture taking! We came back here, talked on the computers, then took a hard nap. Brit and I woke up, met friends in our piazza, then went in search for food and fun. We found a precious restuarant where we sat in a loft, looking over the rest of the place. Pasta + dessert.. yum! We then wandered around Trastevere (the area we are staying) and found the nightlife spots for sure. People EVERYWHERE. Dogs, scooters, lovers, mini-cars, restuarants, bars, little shops, smokers, cobblestone streets, music. It's all here. We had a great time! Too bad the clocks just changed and it's super late here right now. Not happy about that.

Observation/Thoughts of the day: I still can't fathom how the Romans built what they did when they did. They did things that I can't even imagine people doing today. It's SO much bigger when you're standing there in front of it. We toured structures dating back to around the 8th century B.C. I can't even believe that I saw that. The amount of detail and and largeness of scale is overwhelming. It's surreal.

Anyway, off to bed. Arrivederci Americanos.