Ostia Antica

Today's site visit was Ostia Antica, which is said to be the first colony of Rome. The city and port were built at the mouth of the Tiber river. This allowed Rome to have access to sea trade routs while having some defense from pirates. Ostia was also the location of large salt mines. Sea water would be let into drying fields and allowed to evaporate. The salt would be collected and sold.

As for my experiences in Rome, I'm coming to the close of the first week here. When I arrived at about 5:30 local time I was exhausted and disgusting from being on planes for so long but I was in Rome. I found my party after a few minutes searching but we had other people to wait for so I spent another hour or two at the airport. When we finally left to drive to the city the numbness had settled in and I was glad that I had other people watching out for me.

People in Rome drive different. Hah. I first noticed when we were getting in the van and people were just kind of not paying attention to the lines. Then we got on the highway. The lanes are more like guide lines. And no one really follows them. Then you get into the city. The streets are tiny with tiny cars parked on the sides and pedestrians who don't seem to notice that there are cars driving. Or at least they don't really care. I'll have to take some pictures of the small street so you get the idea. Nothing else really makes you understand. The other thing is that in the cross walks pedestrians have the right of way and they use it. I've become one of them. If theres a cross walk you don't stop and look both ways. No, if you wait for someone to stop for you you'll spend all day on one corner. You just keep moving at the same pace and walk right out into traffic. They slow or stop long enough for you to get out of the way then they keep going. Its very.... exciting. Oh and the mopeds and motorcycles just go around the cars and keep going. And they're everywhere.

The first day I was here, Monday, myself and one of my room mates, Dani, went and got cappuccinos at the cafe down the street. Its become my regular morning routine at that spot, they're very sweet which cannot be said of everywhere you go. Our flat is not in a tourist area. We live in an apartment complex where most of the residents live here full time. Every shop I go into, before I start trying to get what I need by pointing and using what scant Italian I've picked up, I ask, "Parla inglese?", do you speak English? I've found two people in a 5 block radius. They're not rude but the guys at this particular cafe are especially nice. After jumpstarting our brains we took the metro to school, theres a station about 5 minutes from the house. We had our welcome lecture and were then broken up into groups and given a scavenger hunt of sorts. We were to find a monument and answer a question about it. We broke for lunch and had planned on meeting at a certain bridge before continuing to the monument. I went home with the roomies and had my first slice of Italian pizza which I wont even bother trying to explain, I wont do it justice.

I started walking because I figured that I could get to the meeting spot in time. I went down the street and around the corner and looked up and the Colosseum was about 2 blocks away staring me in the face. I almost fell over. I have to wonder if people sit at the Metro stop outside the Colosseum and just watch the tourists eat it when they step out and see this thing for the first time because. Its. Right. There. I walked through this lovely little park, I found out it was lovely later, I couldn't stop staring at the Colosseum. Its really big too. FYI. I continued on my treck and got lost somewhere between 4 and 10 times and was about 1/2hr late. I was also the first one there. We wandered and wandered up and down hills, through city streets and could not for the life of us fine this monument. Finally, some really nice lady who spoke english asked us what we were looking for and we told her and she said it was back up the hill we had just walked down. So we sat down at the bar and had a beer instead. Good plan. About an hour later we met up with the rest of the class at the Piazza del Garabaldi and had pizza and wine for dinner. I walked home with the girls, drinking bottle of wine between the 5 of us, got lost another 4 or 5 times. I think we left the Piazza around 8ish. when 11:00pm rolled around and we still hadn't made our way quite home so we stopped for a martini. We did eventually make it home and on reflection 14hr on my feet the first day may not have been the best idea. But it was an awesome way to get introduced to the city.

Ok I think thats enough for today, time for diner.

Vale!