This photograph was taken on March 23, 2009 as we approached the Colosseum on foot from the west. The imposing structure dominated the street, and acted as gateway to the other ruined treasures of ancient Rome, which are perfectly located in the exact center of modern Rome. In other words, it seems as if the rest of the city flows out from this point, with the Colosseum as its epicenter. From the inside, the Colosseum is surpisingly smaller than expected, but no less wondrous. We noticed that parts of the walls, especially on the upper Mezzanine, had blocks of irregular bleached white marble with reliefs and geometric designs that I had seen before the ruins of other ancient buildings and temples. These pieces were interspersed in with the plain marble walls, in no particular order, and looked like "fill-in" pieces; as if the ancients had taken parts of other old buildings in order to build the Colosseum. It's struck us as peculiar at first, that they would recycle pieces of other old buildings, until I realized that the ancient people of Rome were just being practical.