Trip Through Ostia Antica

Tyler Sullivan
Narrative Essay
Ewal 1301
Dr. P.K. Muana
March 2, 2010
Trip through Ostia Antica
Towering high above the sky with tips piercing through the thick black clouds, ancient Roman architecture crumbles little by little from the touch of each foreign hand caressing its rigidsurface. Arches open to a new world filled with enchantment and history, while seven feet tall statues watch over from above as a body guard for the people lying peacefully in magnificent graves of marble. As your mind fills with wondrous ideas and you float into a comatose of bewilderment, you hear the soothing voice of a woman take you out of this daze to realize that this world’s antique gates are about to be opened to you. The words appear before you and you say to yourself, Welcome to Ostia Antica, hoping to grasp the true mammoth amount of history located throughout each step you take.
The first step lands on a large piece of cobblestone, around the size of a home plate in baseball stadium thousands of miles and thousands of years away. Throughout the large pieces of cobblestone, there are 3 inch crevasses providing a habitat to the many microscopic organisms and insectsthat inhabit the Roman country side. The anticipation level rises as we pass through the first “section” of the historic city, but is quickly diminished by monstrous sounds of thunder, electric shrieks of lightening, and the slow and steady sound of water droplets methodically crashing to the ground from the dark clouds above. After several chosen words of disappointment, umbrellas are pulled out at a rapid pace and to my surprise, we continue forward. The walk becomes more treacherous as the smooth cobblestone turns to an ice-like surface and mud rises from the grass that was once a brilliant shade of green like a golf green at one of the finest European clubs. The thick clothing layered on my body, soaks in icy water causing my hands to twitch like a Parkinson’s patient. Fueled only by...