Both of my feet hurt. I have worn out my tennis shoes, part of my new sandals, and I'm covered in black and blue bruises. I don't know how the Italians do it. It seems like the days get longer and hotter the longer we are here. We walk everywhere and are under the sun most of the day. Little or no places have good air conditioning. To give you an idea of my day, we usually leave our apartments around 7 in the morning, and don't come home and go to bed until 11:30. Most of the girls don't fall asleep until 2 tho, which is what I hear. It's hard running off of low sleep, no food and being under the hot sun. Because we are in a rented apartment, we are only served dinner, which they eat around 8:30 at night. I am cheap and won't spend money on anything, so I end up running off of an apple and a payday candy bar for an entire 13 hours of my day. It is hard, expecially walking over 8 miles every day, but I dont know what else to do. A lot of the foods here ( the good food) is really expensive. The apartments give us free dinners, but our free dinners end today, so I'm a little nervous how the rest of my week is going to go. Once I get into Sienna, my breakfasts and dinners are served to me. That will be really nice.
Today was really interesting. I learned a lot. As a group, we traveled all over the city Osio. Osio is a really old Roman port that was around I would say 47 A.D? Maybe not... Osio housed around 50,ooo people that included everything from a bakery, fast food, a theater, markets and hotels. It was amazing, and it was huge. The group I was with was only halfway through the ruins, and it took us 45 minutes to get back out. Because the coast has receded, the port is no longer used and is now an archaeological site. When we entered into the city, they still had the same stones used back in their day. Everything they made has lasted forever, even their roads! The Romans were famous for their smooth and effective roads, but to us, it was slippery and uneven. You could still see carriage wheel lines through most of the rocks and I thought that was amazing.
As we entered through the Port Gates, you would see long, carved, cement blocks that were broke open. I found out they were caskets. Back in their day, you could not be buried within Rome's walls unless you were a child, or a worker for the church. Everyone else had to buried outside the city walls, so the street was covered in tombs. ( even the slaves got burial spots).
The town is very old, but is still in great condition. You could see mosaics in perfect condition that were layed on the floors of the pools. They were mostly pictures of Neptunes wife on his Chariot. They would fill up bath houses for the people to come in and use. Romans were big into cleanliness, so everyone was allowed to enter the bath houses, and they were very cheap. We also got to enter their theater which they built themselves out of stone. Because this was a port, they had markets all around the theater so people could shop and enjoy a show. On the floor of the shops, they had mosaics to show what they sold in their shops. They also once had marble covering the entire theater, which is now just stone. They believe that the Colosseum was also covered in marble from the inside.
Once we got into the hotel rooms and the houses, it was really cool. The homes were about 3 stories high. The richer residents stayed at the bottom, and the poorer people had to stay on the roof. It was that way, because they had to carry their water everywhere, and the rich didn't want to carry their heavy buckets up the stairs. They also had a kitchen, and still had a bar which they served out of. The hotel apartments were 7 stories high and were one room. Their was a public bathroom down the road that was not split up between men and women or had doors. The...stuff left over...would just run down the sides and the slaves would carry it out. Nasty huh.
The bakeries and the dining areas were huge. It is weird to imagine people living there once. The men would wear Togas, and the women would wear like a sheet. By law a prostitute had to wear a toga, and a lot of the time, the men would battle nude. (for them it was exercise, and they didnt want to get their clothes sweaty). It was really neat to go see, mom would have loved it!
A couple of us left to go see an old Castle which was built by one of the early popes. This pope would battle and fight with the people. Inside, it was exactly what you would imagine an old castle looked like. Very dark, small cement ceilings and holes for torches. It looked a lot like....the movie King Arthur? With the boy on roller skates, who fed them hamburgers? Maybe April remembers what I'm talking about. The castle was used first as a place for the military, then housed a family, and then was used as a hospital. They had a prison cell inside that had carvings of crosses and dashes for the days. It was amazing to see. The family bedrooms were big compared to the rest of the place. They wouldn't let us take pictures, but it was cool to see.
Anyways, I am so tired. I came home traveling on a train for 45 minutes, another bus for 30 and then one more for 8 minutes. Everyone is asleep then going to H&M afterwards. I don't have money for that, so I am pretty sure I will stay home.
This is the Compo. It is huge..but you can't really tell
