After a Day in Rome

Today, we got our first real chance to experience Rome. The city is beautiful, there is no doubt about that. It has an astounding ability of incorporating the old into the new to be an ancient city in modern times. To me, the most interesting part of the city was just this. The scenery is amazing, and it is just about what you would expect to see - something I felt silly being surprised by. There are plants and flowers wherever there is room, and people flood the cobblestone streets. My friend said they felt like they were walking on a movie set and this is very much like how it felt to me as well. Except the set would have no boundaries to its illusion and no cardboard façades. Because this is the real deal no matter how unreal it all seems. Despite this fantastic environment of ancient art, arcitechture, and housing, there is something familiar in the workings of the eternal city. Shops line sections of town and commuters deal with traffic in order to get to their destination. There is a feeling of annonymity and self-responsibility. If you remove the ancient artifacts and quaint streetside dinning, there is the unmistakable feeling of a big city. I don't know why this is so strange for me to realize, but Rome really does have a lot in common with any other large city I have been to. The feel of the city (I don't know hiw else to describe it) is uncannily similar even with the camouflage of Rome's movie set appearance. So after one day in Rome, I not only have great experiences seeing amazing sites, but I am also very tired. Unecessarily complex verbiage aside, I need to go to sleep. We do have another day of Rome and then a flight to see our host families in Germany all taking place tomorrow. By the way, I honestly apologize for any typos or grammatical errors I may have made. I'm pretty tired and don't feel like rereading my posts more than a couple times. Thanks.