HAPPY BIRTHDAY PUPPA BEAR. I miss you quite terribly. I'm in Rome and you would love this place so much. It's got lots of history! I really wish I could be home with you to celebrate! I feel very far away. Hope the akolites give you enough birthday loving! Ill be thinking of you!!!

So I'm in Rome! Holy moly this place is amazing. There is so much to see and do much to learn about. I feel in the last few days I've learnt more roman history than I have in all my years of schooling. My friend Jen from Rimini lived in Rome for two years and studied roman history at university and even helped write a book about it! So she knew a thing or two. On my second last night we met up and she took me out to dinner at her favorite restaurant! The food was delicious; we had procutto and figs, and brucetta with truffles for entry they pasta and then tiramisu. We also shared a bottle of wine and with jens contacts we got it really cheap! It was really good to see Jen again, I had gotten a little anxious about leaving Rimini and travelling again. But seeing her again made it not so sudden and cut off so I was able to settle back into the idea of moving on and feel much more confident in it! It just sucks leaving so many good friends behind!

So I am camping just a short bus ride from Rome. I've headed in every day and walked for hours trying to fit everything in. The colosseum was my first stop! It's incredible, I didn't actually think what happened in the movie Gladiator was pretty accurate, I thought most of that was added for entertainment. The colosseum is massive, under the pre-existing floor boards are a series of tunnels and rooms, around the edge is a corridor where workers would use pulley systems to lift and lower animals and objects from the below chambers! They would lift lions, tigers, bear and other animals (sometimes hundreds at a time) to fight the gladiators! The would also lift objects to change up the arena like trees or mountains or boulders, they even once filled it with water! It reminds me a lot of the hunger games movie! The building has been pretty damaged overtime due to earthquakes and also after the games were banned they used the materials in the colosseum to build other landmarks. It's all pretty interesting stuff!

I also loved the pantheon which is he oldest building in Rome. To this day scientists and historians can't figure out how they got the massive dome roof on top. It's pretty spectacular.

I went on a night tour with some other travellers one night. The guide was hilarious and new a lot of interesting stuff about the city. He took us to the trevi fountain. It's huge and so detailed and pretty amazing at night! It was so crowded and everyone was throwing there coins in. I was surprised with the trevi it's in a very contested area. The word trevi means three streets. And so it is at the intersection of three streets connected to an old historic building which used to be a mansion. The owners were so rich they built the trevi in their back yard just because they wanted to!

The craziest thing happened the other day, I was walking through the campsite and ran into an old friend from Canberra! Such a small world! His going to be joining busabout and will be in Florence a few days after I am.

Tonight I am having a BBQ dinner with a British couple I met and then we are heading into town to see the trevi one last time and to say goodbye to Rome before I leave for Florence tomorrow morning.