My Afternoon in Rome

A long layover + Rome =

 The view from the hotel.

 The way to get to the hotel room.

We stayed in a suburb of Rome near the beach.

 Apparently, it never snows in Rome; however, it was December and Cold.

This statue looked slightly European, so I decided I needed to have my picture taken with it. I couldn't let myself visit Rome without having proof that I saw a European-looking statue. The plaque said something about it being put there in 2004 because some wealthy people had donated some money so that it could be put there with their names on it.

After our short walk to the beach, we took the metro to...

The Colosseum! 

We got a much closer look than this -- then we walked up a hill full of ruins and found this amazing view.

To top it all off, I had gnocchi with pesto at a restaurant directly across the street from the Colosseum. What kind of music did this restaurant play? Traditional Italian opera? Of course not. Classic American country -- not the kind that sounds like rock with a hick singer that is popular now, but the kind played in the 60s. "The day my momma socked it to the Harper Valley PTA" and other songs I'd never heard before.

From this trip, I have concluded that graffiti is the most popular art form in Roma. And that at least half of it's citizens will die of either emphysema or lung cancer. And that I like red powerade.