Ciao Belli

That's "Hello, Beautiful Ones" in Italian, for those of you who didn't know already :) I've just come back to the hotel from a day of sight-seeing. I'm pretty pooped, but it's been a fun day.

We started off at 6:00 (wake-up, breakfast) and were in the buses by 7:45. We have 3 buses (99 kids, 25 adults)! Today we did a LOT of walking ... started at the Colosseum, followed by trips to the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain & the Catacombs. The weather is hot, but sunny & dry. All things considered it could be lots worse.

I've been sitting in the front row of the bus, and I can testify to the veracity of stereotypical Italian driving. It resembles a stampede on the african veldt...huge elephants (buses & trucks) lumbering along; lions, cheetahs & wildebeest (cars & smart cars) darting along with them, and finally the tiny flying birds & insects (scooters) constantly darting in and out among the slower moving vehicles. Seriously, today I saw a woman on a scooter, smoking a cigarette, carrying her kid in front of her and talking on a mobile phone. I kid you not. And she was probably going about 45 mph!


The Colosseum was an interesting place...it's hard to imagine the carnage & blood of its past when it's full of strolling tourists under a clear blue sky. Once upon a time it could hold 80,000 people -- that's more than most major league football colosseums! And all 80,000 were thrilled by continuous mindless entertainment meant to distract them from the clearly rotting empire they lived in -- thank God we don't have to worry about that kind of tricks anymore!

I wanted to jump into this water more than almost anything. But the police were just waiting for somebody to jump in; even a toe dipped into the fountain brought whistles & shouts...


The Pantheon is a huge place. The dome is at least 100 feet tall, with a hole at least 10 feet wide in the top to track the sun. By following the spot on the inside it's possible to know every day of the year. Of course, it only survives today because it was converted to a church; otherwise the early christians would have torn it down for raw material to build another cathedral...

It's about time for dinner (125 people , one restaurant. Should be interesting).

See you later!