the tevere at night & a little award

just a photo i'm pretty happy about from rome.

evening light on the tevere with vatican city's saint peter's basilica in the back.

lovelove.

also, jodi over at if you never did, you should, has a truly amazing blog that i've fallen in love with. she posts all about things to try and gives little tips on how to go about doing them. examples: playing on waterfalls, taking underwater pictures, skydiving... to name a few.

she also recently gave me an award that i'm so thankful for!

in turn, i would like to pass this on to madeline elle. her blog is very sweet and sincere, and i have loved reading it for the past few weeks.

finally, the weekend!

roman holiday

sort of.

i flew into rome before i came to florence, so i had seen a little bit of it already. i returned this past weekend because my school sponsored a trip to rome and although i wasn't too excited to go back to begin with, i'm glad that i did because i got to see a lot of things that i missed the first time:

going INSIDE the colosseum.

walking through the roman forum

(ps- these last two are pretty much a classicist's dream, even if i am a hellenist)

and last but not least...

our school organized a private tour of the vatican museum.

when i found out about this, i thought we were just going to

have a private tour guide and walk around with other little groups.

nope.

completely private.

as in after the museum is closed.

and we are the only ones there.

amazing.

these ceilings were to die for

the halls of the vatican museum

rafael's school of athens (!)

and la capella sistina,

or the sistine chapel

(these sistine chapel photos weren't allowed. i'm terrible, but i couldn't help myself)

the whole time i was in rome,

i wanted to take photos at

the spanish steps,

in front of castel sant' angelo

and

the mouth of truth

but i needed someone to play the

gregory peck to my audrey hepburn.

maybe if i come back with david?

:)

thanks, rome.

the roman sky

after a series of unfortunate events, i am back a little early.

orvieto, i WILL see you before i leave italia.

after exploring the coliseum and roman forum,

wandering the city streets,

and touring the vatican museum...

photos to come, of course.

i hope your weekend is treating you well (:

ps- thank you nicole for featuring

my love story on my teacups in peony!

i think it's a wonderful project.

you can read more stories

and learn more about the project here.

and hello to my new friends!

i can't wait to get to know you.

the trevi fountain at night

Rome

Well.. I am in Rome! As mentioned in my previous, super short post. I’m going to skip all the stuff about flying and getting to the hostel, but after that Chelsey, our new friend Nora, and I went to go find the Coliseum at night. We weren’t allowed inside since it’s closed at night but it was so pretty just seeing it glow.

a blurry Chelsey and me

decorations are still up from Christmas so a lot of streets are lined with these stars

Santa Maria Maggiore Church

Citta` del Vaticano

There was a line 3-4 hours long to get into Vatican Museum. We just went into the main square and looked around. Also, I think we’re going to be back at the end of the month for a school trip.. so I’ll let Stanford pay for my museum tickets ;)

Ponte Sant’ Angelo

first Italian pizza! (delicious)

Chelsey and a view of the city

Fontana di Trevi

daytime at the Coliseum

Everywhere was pretty much extremely crowded… probably because it’s Saturday and right after New Year’s so a lot of people are on vacation. Chelsey and I got some bread, salami and cheese to eat for dinner (trying to save money..) and now we’re just hanging out at the hostel, giving our tired feet a break. Tomorrow we’re off to Florence!

ps- NO JET LAG!!!!