Crippled at the Colosseum

day 39 // rome

This morning I woke up ready for another day of touring Rome! But my knee had a different agenda. Continue reading to find out. After grabbing breakfast we met our tour guide outside and started walking to the Colosseum. I was limping badly again this morning so despite my best efforts, I ended up way behind the group unable to keep up. Luckily I had a friend with me so that made the walk better. Someone must have told one of the ladies who works for our program that there was a straggler because she came back to walk with us. It actually worked out quite well because by the time we got there, our group was just going in. They had been waiting in line the whole time, so my timing was great. Heidi and I got to take a lift to the top (she dislocated her knee-cap last weekend so we're gimp buddies). As we walked out to look down in the Colosseum I felt like I had entered a different world. It was so massive and ancient, I couldn't believe I was actually there. We walked all the way around before we went back down to the bottom level and walked all around there too. It was so cool. Then the plan was to go on a quick snack break before visiting some other ruins and the Roman Forum, but as much as I wanted to go, my knee was really bothering me and a few of us decided to sit down at a nice lunch place and ditch the rest of the tour. We found an awesome, modern little cafe place that was up above and overlooked the side of the Colosseum. I ate a salad and a smoothie and was in heaven. After enjoying our lunch there we walked back home... slowly... very, very slowly. (Darn knee!) When we got back to the hotel we all just decided to crash and take a quick nap. Well a quick nap turned into a 5 hour nap but boy did it feel good. When I woke up and got out of bed, get this, I could walk just fine and my knee hardly hurt at all. Being in the same city as the Pope must've caused me miraculous healing. (Either that or the ibuprofen I took this morning just kicked in..... But the first one sounds better.) Either way, I could walk, sit, and bend it comfortably again which felt awesome. We went to the cafe next door to our hotel to grab some quick caffeine to wake us up before we got ready for dinner. We ended up just walking a couple blocks to a nice Italian restaurant. I was dreading possibly having to eat pizza or pasta again (I'm getting so, so sick of them) but my mood quickly changed when I saw they had omelets on the menu. I ordered a ham and veggie omelet and it was heavenly. I had been craving eggs for a while. After dinner we got into our pajamas and all sat up and talked about stories and crimes and mysteries and everything in between.

Update: Today we found out that the boy that was missing was found dead in a train tunnel near the bar he was last seen. You might've even seen or heard about it because it's been on the news back home. It's so sad and I can't imagine what his family and friends are going through. It's just too bizarre that we happened to be in Rome as this is all going on. They're finding out more and more as they investigate, so if you want to know more there's lots of info available online. But like I said yesterday, it's a huge eye opener for everyone on how careful and safe we have to be. It's one of those things that we think will never happen to us, but this one hit a little too close to home.