Our first view of
As we neared the city, buildings sprouted forests of prickly antennas and peering satellite dishes while ditches took on color from smashed plastic bottles and flattened, dirt-creased plastic bags.
We didn’t have time for much of a visit in
After searching the airport restaurants and finding pastries or pizza (I can't eat any form of milk.), we stopped at a deli where Rick had cheese cake and I dug in my bag for tofu jerky and water while we debated a long, long airport sit down vs. the chance of getting lost and missing our next flight. Luckily, we saw an information booth through the window and the person on duty had the perfect idea.
The suggestion was to take a train to the metro and have a quick visit to the Coliseum. "You can't get lost," he assured us. While his guarantee sounded iffy, he proved correct.
As he promised, the Coliseum is directly across from the metro. We found Roman guards eating pizza and coke and smoking cigarettes at the entry. I thought that they were ticket takers or such at the Coliseum but not quite. They offer their images in a photo for 8 Euros. Eight Euros!
Later I heard one say to an American, “It’s 8 Euros – not 8,000 Euros. The photo will last a lifetime.” She went for it. They did put on a show with fierce growling faces and swords at the ready and it takes some guts to dress like that in the chill air but it wasn't anything I wanted to be part of.
Two guards were with a family. The older
An imposing man wore a fox skin – head on feathered-helmet, paws on shoulders, body and tail trailing behind. With his tunic, helmet, tattoos, tights, and boots, his pixels were nearly worth 8 Euros.
We walked around the Coliseum and the Roman Forum while snapping photos of buildings and ruins and a flowering vine deeply rooted in an ancient wall. We also found the Coliseum cat lady and made a donation for her effort of feeding the wild cats.
The Coliseum and forum weren’t as impressive asThere seems to be a cavalier attitude toward the site. Stones lay about, plastic mesh fences defined areas, weeds have taken root in dirt piles and people stand on carved stones to take photos. These stones were once adorning buildings with Fleur-de-leis or flowers or faces and people just walk on them.
The Coliseum itself has huge cracks and is peppered with holes. I supposed we’d know more about it if we had taken the tour but we had little time so we didn’t go in. Most others didn’t walk around outside. Who knows which of us missed more.
An American woman asked if we were American or British. The British never hire guides but Americans sometimes do in her experience. She knows the history of the area she called the center of the world. She said that she only spoke 4 languages so was limited in her opportunities but has been speaking of the history of
To say she seemed unhappy would be kind. She said that most of the visitors were “garbage” and her meager living disappointing. We disappointed her further by leaving her puffing on her cigarette, leaning against a broken wall.
We walked around and found a hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we ate kabobs. The owner knew English and recited his extensive vocabulary – yogurt, spicy, tomato, cheese, pizza, chicken. After that we took the metro back to the Pyramid station. We passed a spider web dress that Emilie might have liked and took photos of teeny, tiny Smart cars.
There’s a pyramid in
From the metro stop we need the train back to the airport so we wound our way through tunnels looking for it. There was one little airplane sign and then there were no more and we were “lost” in a gentle sense of the word so I asked a man who had the misfortune of standing still and he showed me an electric signboard that flashed the name of the airport and track 12. Back on our way, we climbed onto the train, a smooth riding transport with a welcomed toilet. (A mystery toilet. I couldn’t see how to flush it. My apologies to
We were a little later getting back to the airport than we planned because I got us off at the wrong stop so we had to sit in the windy station for 15 minutes for the next train. No matter though. The flight to
We arrived late and the ATMs were out of money. I changed some money getting 177 Hungarian units per $. Em and Josh had gotten 211 per $ last year. We took the mini bus to the hotel and intending to get a fresh start the next day.
1 comment:
Love the cheese horse in the photo.
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