Day 19

Quiet day...which I am actually thankful for.  My fingers are starting to cramps from describing the past weekend.  The description was well deserved though, a great time to remember.

Still not feeling great, but thankfully class was indoors for a little bit today.  No public transportation, thats something to be thankful for.  I will never appreciate my car more(which is hard to fathom anyways) then when I get back and get to drive.

So this was our first stop out of class.  A massive amphitheater built by Pompey, a war hero, for himself.  This doesn't even begin to show how huge it was, much longer than the Colosseum.

At around the turn of the millennium in Ancient Rome, it was considered very conceited to build a large monument to oneself.  They didn't even allow the building of permanent theaters.  They would build one for an event and tear it back down.  Pompey got away with this because he put a temple at the back, thus classifying it as a holy place.

Once a great monument attributed to a war hero...it is now where many kittys live.  It is actually referred to as the cat sanctuary.  There is no humane society here, so when a "clean up" of the citys cats began around 2000, an animal activist group asked the city if there was an area they could put the stray cats.

This ancient and historical monumental site is now for the cats of Rome.  Good for them.

Back to history. See anything important here?  Probably not.  Well that structure there was the temporary Senate house for Ancient Rome.  Still no significance?

Alright how about this is the spot where Julius Caesar was stabbed by 16 different people while he was emperor?  The popular myth of him being stabbed in the Senate house in the Roman Forum is false, because it was under construction at the time.  So the temporary Senate house was where meetings were conducted, and fearing he would be a dictator, his 16 Senators each stabbed and killed him.  

So I figured I would throw this on there for my parents and Kilwin's.  This is the equivalent of Kilwin's here.  Our professor bought us some gelato because she felt bad class was cancelled last week.  Very nice of her, because 22 of us certainly was not cheap.  

Well that is really all I have for today.  Spent most of the day catching up on the previous blogs which took several hours, but well worth it.  Thank you all for reading!  Tomorrow will be more exciting, and have pictures that were not supposed to be taken....explanation on that tomorrow!