Days One: Rome National Museum, Peter in Chains Church, Capitol Hill Museum, and Amazing Rome at Night!

So... Day One. I was on my own this day, and so I decided to do a few of the things that I thought Sean wasn't going to be super interested in... namely the "artsy stuff". After a somewhat interesting breakfast at my hotel (croissants filled with cream, ham and cheese), I headed out to the National Musuem, which is famous for its sculptures. If you remember, I've discovered that this is pretty much my favorite type of art, so I really enjoyed this museum. A few of my favorites:

Iron Statue called "The Boxer"... it was so lifelike... amazing!

Discus Thrower - amazing just because of how the muscles were executed

It was such a beautiful day, so I just kind of wandered around the city. I made my way to the "Saint Peter in Chains" church, which supposedly contains the chains worn by Peter when he was in jail before he was crucified. And here they are... you be the judge:

After the church, I went to the Capitol Hill Museum. I was feeling pretty museumed-out by this point, but there were a few interesting things, including an amazing view of the Roman ruins. A few highlights:

The foot of an ancient statue... if this was the FOOT, the whole thing must have been HUGE. One thing about Rome - everything is in ruins, so you really have to use your imagination to picture how impressive things must have been.

The she-wolf and Romulus, the founder of Rome... this is a big legend of the city. Supposedly, Romulus and his sibling were abandoned in the woods, fed by a she-wolf, and then founded Rome... there are lots of paintings and sculptures of this in the city. Um, yeah.

That night I was ready to just enjoy the city. I had an amazing dinner near the Campo del Fiori, and then walked around seeing the city all lit up at night - it was beautiful! :)

One kind of sad/amusing story from the evening. So, I'm sitting at this lovely restaurant, obviously alone. There is a table for two next to me which is empty, and then another one next to that. Two American sisters sat at that table, and were chit-chatting. All of the sudden, they stopped talking, so I looked over to see what they were doing. They were just STARING at me. I've started wearing a little more European clothes, so maybe they thought I wasn't American and didn't speak English (note to all my American friends... even if people aren't American, most Europeans also speak English, so watch what you say!!!) Then, they proceeded to have this conversation:

Sister 1: "Man, I would hate to travel alone. That just LOOKS depressing."

Sister 2: "Yeah, sometimes I think I'd like to try it, but I just think it would suck".

Okay, so, you know, it's not like I WANTED to be travelling by myself, and this pushed me over the edge. I couldn't decide between punching them in the head and crying my eyes out. Thinking that it might be a bad idea to get arrested on my second night in Italy, I opted to just have a little silent cry and suck it up. It gave me so much satisfaction when a British couple sat next to me and started speaking to me in English... the look on those girls faces when they realized that I could understand every word I said was PRICELESS!!!

Campo del Fiori at Night

Victor Emmanual Monument at night... Italians don't like the monument and call it both "the dentures" and "the wedding cake". I thought it was pretty!

The Roman Ruins at night

Colosseum at night... wow!!! This has been around since before Columbus discovered North America!!! Amazing!