Seventy-Three

Day Seventy-Three:  European Memories Series #5

Why the Colosseum Means so Much to Me

It was just so big.  I remember looking forward to Rome and not realising what was actually there.  I knew it was going to be Italy, and Italian, and the food and gelati and how important it was to AJ we go and how much fun it was going to be, but it truly hit me when it was so warm and then just seeing the sheer size of the actual building, the Colosseum, and just knowing that it was so old, and important, and there.  I was amazed.  So much history had been experienced there, lived through those walls until this time.  I could feel it when touching the walls that there was something so important, so surreal about this place. 

A lot of people say how underwhelming the Coloseum was for them, but it was overwhelming to me.  To really understand the things around me were around so long ago, and how absolutely stunningly beautiful they were.  We would sit and eat our dopo chaino gelati while the sun set or had already set with the large historical ruin behind us and I would sit in actual awe that we were there.  I was looking through a fragmented view of this beautiful building that I truly loved.  How miraculous, I was sharing an experience with millions of other people around the world, the role this building takes in so many people’s stories is…unbelievable.  My story just consists of walking through around near and sitting, gazing, reflecting in its awe, and loving it.  Such a warm breeze on an October evening with incredible friends and incredible food in an incredible city. 

Italy was incredible to say the least, just thinking back it was so beautiful and elegant and…back street.  I remember walking back to our hotel that first night after seeing the Colosseum dopo-gelati and winding through streets of professionally parked cars, to our building in a beautiful bed and breakfast, where we drank prosecco and chatted.  How relaxing Italy seems now, despite all of the walking and stresses, to just relax on a large bed and giggle and listen to the construction late at night outside the window, or sit perched on the side of an old marble fence looking on to one of the most presitigous sights in the world, and thinking how absolutely thrilled you are to be there.  How intensely strong it feels to say I made it there and back again.  How silly it seems how worried I was to fly there, and how many times I’ve been on a plane since then.  How fascinating the people were, how real the sounds and smells were.  That first glass of wine, that last gelato. 

My last thing I did on the streets of Rome was buy an Italian Vogue from a street vendor thanks to AJ for remembering, it’s sitting on my desk in Waterloo, how simple it was to just pick up a magazine from a street vendor.  How I wish we could fly back right now and sit on a patio and have a glass of wine and write and chat and get drunk until so late and watch the Colosseum with the stars behind.  How strong.

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