1. Emporer Titus, who finished the construction of the Colosseum, was no friend of PETA; he reportedly killed 9,000 animals in the inaugural games.

2. I (Chris) have long advocated for a resurgence in gladiatorial games. Two guys on death row, creating income with their dying breaths versus draining society with illogical expense, they have been condemmed after all. Now after being in Rome, seeing the Colosseum and hearing the stories, I wish more than ever being civilized didn’t prohibit such pay per view spectaculars. They would be like Spice Girls or Vanilla Ice albums, taboo to admit to partaking in, but solid gold money makers none the less.

2. After stuffing your face with antipasta, bread, pasta and or pizza – having everyone greet you with “prego” (translation: please / your welcome) kinda feels like a subliminal insult of sorts.

3. Check out the International Herald Tribune if you like the tangibles of a newspaper but need something more substantive than the USA today and more targeted to actual news than your local paper. It only has half the left bias of the Times.

4. Need to redact our classification that Italian table bread is lacking, appears everyone south of Venice took different cooking lessons than their northern friends.

5. Vatican standards prohibit shorts exposing your knee caps – this means Richard Simmons is a not ‘holy-looking’ enough to get in, but the corner hoods are so long as there sag is low enough?

6. This guy in Di Matteo, famous Naples pizza joint, slopped grease on his shirt and the waiter had some sort of aerosol spray to fix him up?

7. Noticed many adults wearing helmets while sitting on scooters yet putting no helmet on little kids standing on same scooter – guess the thought is you can get (make) another kid but not another skull?