This city is absolutely amazing. We took the metro to the coliseum this morning and decided that since we saw the Vatican for free, we would take a guided tour of the coliseum, roman forum, and the palatine hill. This allowed us to skip the lines and walk right in. 
The coliseum was spectacular, I have never seen anything like it before. It was built in the first century and is still standing, the architecture is phenomenal. The tour guide didn't really matter until the palatine hill and roman forum where without our friend David, we would only be seeing very old piles of bricks. We saw what was once the market center of Rome where millions would buy, sell, and trade. An interesting fact is that the Romans built much differently than we do today. We build with materials that can rot and demolish the building forty years later but the Romans built for their structures to last forever. Thanks to this, we have what is left of their society (after former popes stripped the buildings of their marble to build churches of course). 
I can't describe well enough how grand these structures were, photos can't even do them justice though we did try. 
After about four hours of Ancient Rome, we found some pizza and relaxed a bit. Knowing that Italians are incredibly proud of their coffee, Ben tried a cafe latte and I had a caffe espresso, both of these were amazing.
While we didn't stumble onto another music festival or see the Pope, we found a restaurant with a 4 course roman meal for quite cheap, seemed fitting for our last night in Rome though. With an early flight to Barcelona tomorrow, we are going to get to bed early. We came, we saw, and we conquered Rome but tomorrow we will be in a new city, a new country, and continue the adventure.
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