Black Friday at the Colosseum

The day after Thanksgiving we took My Girl on what John likes to call a death march, where we drag the kid(s) around the city and force them to look at things.  This morning we went to the Colosseum, not just to, but in.  This was a new one.  John had never been inside before.  A couple weeks ago we walked past at night and touched the outer wall, but didn't go inside.  Even though he lived here for three years he had never managed to make it inside so we had to correct that.

It was a bit of a rainy morning, but we managed to be under cover when it was actually coming down and stayed fairly dry.  The advantage to going on a rainy Friday in November are the relatively short lines.  It still took awhile to get in and the security point made it feel like an airport, but we made it.

 My Girl keeping herself entertained with her bubble gum

One part that I really enjoyed in addition to learning about the Colosseum was the temporary exhibit of artifacts from Carthage in Northern Africa. (here, here, and here) You may have heard of the most famous (at least to me) Carthaginian, Hannibal and his elephants.  Carthage and Rome fought three wars called the Punic Wars.  It was during the second Punic War that Hannibal famously marched his war elephants across the Alps to surprise the Roman troops.  One thing that was interesting to me was the mix of cultures evident in the artifacts.  You could definitely see the influence of both the Greek and Egyptian civilizations.  Some of my favorite items were a collection of little glass heads.  These seemed to be uniquely Carthaginian.