Roma: Colosseo, Catacombe San Sebastiano

Today was our busiest and best day yet in Italy, and considering yesterdays events, and how little sleep we got, that is good news.

Grace's words perhaps sum it up best: "Wow, it seems that when we're in a hurry and need to get something done, we work well together," and she's right, because we had so many things planned for today that in order for us to accomplish all our plans our minds really had to be in sync, and it seems they were.

We essentially accomplished the following:

Morning - Colosseo
Afternoon - Catacombe San Sebastiano
Evening - Fútbol: Italia 2 - Deutschland 0 (make sure you watch the video clip of Italia's celebration after their win tonight; it's at the end of today's journal entry).

Morning

So we begin with the morning. We visited the Colosseum:

Construction of the colosseo begun around the year AD 72, during the reign of Vespasian. It was inaugurated in AD 80, with a seating capacity of more than 50,000 spectators. Bloody gladiator combats and wild beast shows were held here, iwth "games" lasting upwards of 100 days and nights. After the Roman Empire fell, the colosseum became overgrown, until the middle ages, when it became occupied by two Roman warrior families.

Currently it serves as a reminder of Roman history. All the marble that used to adorn it has either been pillaged or removed and used for other buildings. It has also been damaged several times by earthquakes.

Still, I was moved by its formidable size.

Afternoon

In the afternoon we visited the Catacombs:

Catacombs, or catacombes, are underground corridors and passageways that were built as communal burial grounds. While this was the practise of not only the early Christians in Rome, but also pagans and Jews, it was the Christians who later on began burying martyrs here, so that they would be buried close to the fathers of the Church. Eventually, catacombes became sanctuaries for remembering the martyrs buried there.

The particular catacombes we visited, San Sebastiano, was the original resting place of St. Paul and St. Peter, until they were transfered to the Basilica di San Pietro at the Vatican. In the 4th century, a church was built on top of the catacombs (see picture above), to commemorate the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.

San Sebastiano contains approximately 80,000 tombs (they're still digging, discovering more), but this is by no means the largest of all the catacombs. The largest one, I believe it's San Castillo, is the resting place for more than 500,000 people.

Evening

Finally, in the evening we watched the Italia - Deutschland game. What a super game that was. Both teams played so well!! But again, my team lost...

Funny story related to the game: we watched the game at a restaurant near the Basilica di San Giovanni, but after yesterday's transportation lesson, we wanted to be sure to catch the last bus home. This meant we had to miss the last 15 minutes of the extra time. We were quite bummed about that.

However, while on the bus and stopped at a red light, we saw a whole bunch of people - mostly, uhm, men - streaming out of restaurants, jumping up and down like little children, screaming and whistling. Some of the men jumped on each other, holding, hugging, even kissing one another. The occasion? Italia'd scored the go-ahead goal: 1-0, with less then 3 minutes to play in the game.

Immediately, one of the girls on the bus got out her cellphone and called her friend in order to get the full details of the goal. She relayed all the info to the entire bus. So we too, got to enjoy the goal!

Then, a few stops later, the same girl, still talking on the phone to her friend, announced that Italia'd scored again: due a zero, due a zero! It was the funniest thing. Again the bus erupted into jubilation.

I don't know how else to explain this, but that's what I came to the WM for! The celebration, the fun, the intensity, the unexpected! These kind of moments are priceless indeed.

I love fútbol!!

The game ended very shortly afterwards, and Roma - and all of Italia, for that matter - erupted into one huge gigantic party. After getting off the bus, I got out my camera and used it as a video-recorder for about a minute. Here's the result:



Today's WM scores:
Italia 2 - Deutschland 0