Chapter 4

300. 301. 302. 303. 304.

After Leah swiped the card, it made an electronic beeping sound. I ushered her inside and followed her inside the room. We threw out suitcases to the side.

Leah sat on the edge of the bed."God, that was almost fourteen hours of traveling."

"To be fair, we slept for the whole 11-hour plane ride."

One of the first things I did was set a timer for 6 am. Despite knowing we had to meet at seven, I definitely did not want to be late, especially after seeing Ms. Wilson's angry outburst to Leighton. 

I fell into bed a short time later, my mind fading out to the sound of Leah's voice rambling about how excited she was to go to our very first destination of the trip.

As soon as I heard the high-pitch sound coming from my phone, I woke up briefly, feeling disoriented. I blearily raised my head, my eyes checking the time. 6:00 am. I called Leah and told her to wake up, but all I received was a silent groan as she turned around with her back facing me. She snuggled into her pillow before falling back asleep.

The morning was colder than I thought, but there was still some sunlight shining through the window. There were sounds of birds tweeting, which made me feel somewhat more alive. I took in a deep breath, feeling the fresh air inside my body.

We met with Ms. Wilson in the lobby at 7 am, and she told us to get breakfast before we headed out. Just as I opened the door, a group of cheerleaders bypassed me and walked through the door, pushing me aside.

I glanced at the group of blondes, then back at Leah. She rolled her eyes, then stuck out the middle finger as the girls walked away. I was way too tired to say anything, so I chose to ignore it.

What a marvelous start to our morning.

My eyes glanced at my phone to read the time. It was only 7:30 in the morning, and I was already feeling the urge to crawl back to my bed and sleep. The moment we stepped into the restaurant, the pleasant smell of coffee took over my nose.

Coffee is good. I am definitely going to need coffee if I want to survive the day.

I walked over to the drinks section and placed a cup underneath the machine. There was a selection of things ranging from cream, sugar, regular milk, and soy milk. I opted for the classic Americano.

My eyes darted towards Leighton as she let out a loud giggle. She was standing next to Ethan, her face tilted upwards because of his height. She covered her mouth with her hands, laughing as if he'd told the world's funniest joke.

Ethan took his hands out of his pocket and folded his arms. His lips were pursed into a straight line as Leighton kept laughing. "It wasn't meant to be funny."

You could tell that she was embarrassed by the color of her cheeks that were flushing a shade of dark red.

I looked to the floor to hide my amused smile. Her flirty act would've worked on any other male specimen, but not Ethan. I'm too busy replaying the scene that I pay no attention to Ethan, who was making his way to where I was. He comes over to the coffee table and notices my expression. "What's so funny?"

I joked. "I don't know, why don't you ask Leighton?"

He groaned, "Please don't."

I couldn't help but smile. "What did you say that was so funny?"

"It wasn't even meant to be a joke," he said, "I just said Donald Trump said climate change is a hoax."

"Yet he's the one who is boasting about fighting it."

"Exactly!"

Ethan looked at me, grinning sheepishly as he took his mug of coffee. "I see you keep up with the news."

"My dad likes to watch them every morning."

Ms. Wilson cuts off our conversation by telling all of us to finish up and come to the lobby. As we walked there, two guides were standing in front of us. Both had an olive complexion and dark hair. They were holding a tiny Italy flag and flapping it around.

"I'm Alessandro." The man on the left said. He held up his name tag for us to see.

"My name is Luca." The other one did the exact thing and waved at us.

We all split up into our travel groups, and I hugged Leah as she went Luca. They left the lobby while our group stayed.

"Does anyone know the Colosseum?" Alessandro asked.

A few students raised their arms.

"Great, that's where we'll be going first. Let's get on the bus."

Once we all got seated on the bus, Alessandro held a microphone and introduced us to the famous destination.

"The Colosseum is one of Rome's most remarkable monuments with over 2,000 years of history."

Some students were deeply engaged as our tour guide shared more exciting facts about Rome and the Colosseum. The rest were scrolling on their phones or talking amongst themselves.

The sight soothed me as I studied the oval concrete and stone building in front of me. Perched on the edge of the street was the famous construction that had been in situ for thousands of years. There was something magical about it. Maybe it was the fact that real-life gladiators fought in this arena once.

We follow Alessandro as he takes us towards the Colosseum. It was very, very crowded. I felt a bit overwhelmed by the number of tourists gathered around the ancient site, mostly taking pictures and chatting. To add on, the humidity was flustering. It was eighty-six degrees already and not even noon yet. Today was going to be a hot day.

I wiped the sweat that was dropping off my forehead with the back of my arm and mentally thanked myself for wearing something light and airy.

Amidst the large crowds of buzzing tourists, Alessandro tried to talk through the tourists as he showed us around. We stood in front of the outer walls of the Colosseum.

"The wall is 186 meters long and 156 meters wide. It's built with travertine marble and is held together with iron."

"Why is half of the building missing?"

"Good question!" he says, "it was damaged by several earthquakes and collapsed in 1349."

Despite the damages, you could still clearly see the construction of the building. There were many exposed layers of pilasters and arches if you pay attention to the undestroyed parts. On each side of the building were four main entrances.

We went inside to the arena floor where all the action was taken. There were rows and rows of seats, each row assigned to a different ranking level. Alessandro said the best view would be reserved for the Emperors and Vestal Virgins in the box on the north and south ends.

I looked over to see the boxes, the carved names of the senators still readable on the stone.

"The high-class families would sit in the second course, and the generals and public sat on the third and fourth levels."

I could vividly imagine what took place in this very area, the high adrenaline and roar of the crowd as they fought each other. I was currently standing in an area once filled with over 50,000 spectators.

Ethan was the one to break me out of my thoughts. "Are you coming?"

Looking over, the group was a few meters away and heading to another section. I nodded and followed him as we walked to the Hypogeum.

"This was where the wild animals were stored. It was built with wood and covered with hardened sand."

You could clearly see the vast two-story underground tunnels that connected to one another. Though it has suffered some damage, the structure still held strong. It was truly amazing to be able to witness a part of history. 

Ethan stood still and listened to Alessandro talk. He told us many stories about the Colosseum through his thick Italian accent. I noticed that sometimes he would use Italian words to fill in the sentences if he didn't know it in English. To my surprise, I managed to understand it fine.

It's fascinating how human minds can understand sentences as a whole despite having missing words.

It has been over three hours since we arrived, which honestly felt like three minutes, but it was finally lunchtime. I didn't notice that I was hungry until Ms. Wilson brought up the idea of lunch.

As we walked out of the building, I pulled my phone out to take a picture. It was my first time at the Colosseum, but definitely won't be my last.