Europe Day 20: Ancient Ruins and Mother Mary

Ostia Antica-my new favorite place within a train ride from Rome.  Once upon a time it was a port town on the edge of a river. When the river silted up the town became worthless and everyone moved away.  Now, it stands as well preserved ruins.  It was so cool!

Considering the city is many thousands of years old, it is in very good condition!  All the buildings were made out of brick, and few have their origional roofs, but the walls are about as wide as most Roman sidewalks, so it was easy to climb on them and get a better view of the surrounding area.  Only once did I go where my Mom might have told me to get down, but I was very careful. 

The floors in most of the buildings were done in mosaic so pretty designed covered a good portion of the ground.  Every thing else was covered in grass.  Kayla, Josh and I wandered to the other side of the city wall.  Here, the grass grew up to my thigh, and we had to tromp around to find a well trodden path where we could walk with ease once more.

There were also some underground tunnels.  We found one and followed it under a few houses.  Apparently, water was sent through these tunnels and heated.  It helped to keep the floors warm in cold weather.  I was a little nervous about going into tunnels that were thousands of years old.  I had to keep the idea of a collapse at bay and simply soak up the mystery of where we were and where we were going.

It was so exciting!  I have been craving adventure, and getting to climb in and one and around things, finding new paths and going so high to see the whole city; it was amazing!  In the three hours we spent there, we probably only saw half of the city.  I would almost go back, if it did not take a bus, a metro, and a train to get there.

Lunch was nutella and jelly sandwhiches.  Peanut butter is rare here, so we make do with it's chocolate flavored cousin.

When we returned to the hotel,  we dashed off to buy tickets to a football match on Saturday.  Italians are crazy about their football, so it will be a real cultural experience I think!  European football is the same as American soccer, by the way.

We dashed into the hotel for a brief moment before heading to see The Peita.  This sculpture by Michelangelo features Mary holding the crucified Jesus on her lap. She seems very young, and he is almost falling out of her arms.  All I could think about was how Mary was holding her son in her arms.  He may be the saviour of the world, but I am certain he was her son first.  And she was his Mother. Did he find comfort in her arms?  Did she find any sense of peace, knowing he did this to save her?  Would she have taken his place if she could?  I cannot imagine the emotions that rolled through her body as each lash of the whip tore the skin from his back, as each swing of the hammer pushed a nail farther into his hand.  Suddenly I understand a little better why she is held in such high esteem in so much religious art work.

For dinner we enjoyed the typical pizza.  I had artichoke, olives, proscuitto, and mushrooms on mine.  It  was absolutely delicious! Oddly, only the mushrooms were on the entire pizza.  The rest of the ingredients only covered a small portion. I had five olives-with seeds-a single artichoke, and two peices of proscuitto.  I felt a little gyped.  I like olives and artichoke, and I wanted them on my whole pizza!  Oh well; it was delicious pizza none the less.

I'm off to bed I think.  It has been a very long day, and I haven't been getting as much sleep lately.  Four people in a room who don't go to bed at the same time always means some one is coming in late.  I used to think I was a heavy sleeper, but I keep getting woken up.  Oh well.  Perhaps if I fall asleep long before the rest of them, I'll manage to stay that way even when they are getting ready for bed.  At the very least, we are not having class on Friday or Saturday, so I'll get to sleep in then!  I am incredibly excited for that!