Bolg Entry 1: Coliseum

On our first day visiting Rome we were taken to the Coliseum; a structure that most of the world is familiar with and associate with the city itself. In pictures it always appears to be huge, but like most things, when seen in real life it is so much larger and with it so much more real. As though seeing it makes it so. It was the first thing I set my eyes on as I left the Rome underground. It's a hard object to miss, even in such a busy city with everything going in orderly chaos.

The entryway into the Coliseum is hard to put into terms or comparison. A football stadium was the size of which it was compared to, and yet it seems much large than that. Inside the stairs are steep and holes dot the entirety of the structure. Our tour guide explained to us that the Coliseum used to be a much grander place. Before the Middle Ages it was covered in marble; the large holes were meant for rods which would hold the weight of the marble in place. Everything was taken and reused for other things. Trying to image what it looked like then in terms of how it looks now is difficult. Our tour guide, however, was armed with pictures presenting what it would have looked like in ancient times. A vast difference that would be hard to imagine even with what was left was left in place.

The Forum too lays in ruins. Floods and fires have made ruins out of something that was meant to endure.  Somehow it is more interesting like this, as though you can see time time physically manifest itself here.  As though it can be observed fully.  In the Forum so many different centuries co-exist, sharing a small place. Each wall, each building built at a different time by a different Emperor, some of it having been buried for ages. 

In Brazini's impressions of people who travel to Italy, I believe that I fall into the student category in which I want to learn about the culture, the art, the people, and the general experience of a new way of life. I have lived in America my entire life, and consequently have only studied there. Studying in Italy will hopefully widen my world view as well as help me better understand those people in America who are foreign and have trouble adjusting to our own culture.

Italy now seems very real to me. It is a place I have always heard about, but have never experienced. Simply a story, but coming here makes it real.