Roma

June 10th, 2012

This weekend in Rome was one of the best weekends I have had so far in Italy.  It started by visiting the Vatican and several other landmarks and ended with a four course dinner and a late night trip to the Trevi Fountain.  The Trevi Fountain was surreal.  It was beautiful and at night it was extremely relaxing with tons of fun people.

Rome definitely made me miss my Poppi though.  Before I left for Italy, I watched the videotapes from when my grandparents visited Italy and saw all the places where they went.  One scene my poppi was videotaping across the street from the Coliseum and I am pretty sure I was standing in the same exact spot 6 years later.  He would’ve loved this trip for me.  I think about how excited he would’ve been to help me practice Italian before my trip; he probably would’ve ended up booking a flight over too! I feel Pop here with me every day and I hope to never lose that feeling.

The next day we woke up and went on several tours of the Coliseum, Roman Forum, Imperial Forum, and the City Hall. It was rainy so it was probably the best day to get all the private tours done.  After the tours we went out on the town as a massive group. It was so many people to keep track of but we were able to stay together for most of the night.  Eventually we split off and met Alfredo, a photographer for Vogue, Brian, an actor doing a movie in Rome, and Luca, who is a designer for Asics shoes. They were tons of fun and showed us a couple different places that were filled with locals and had great food. The club scene is definitely a lot more relaxed than in Florence.  At the club we actually ran into some people we met in Florence the week before which was fun to add some more people to our group.  After a long night we ended it with pastries and headed back to our hotel room.

Today we ditched the tour to go see the Pope say his blessing to the crowd and that was an experience that I will never forget.  People from all over the world showed off their flags with pride as they listened to the Pope bless us in about ten different languages (it was really impressive!).  Next we went to hang out at the Spanish Steps and while we were there we ran into VOGUE doing a photoshoot for their next cover! Today we visited a total of 4 countries: Italy, Spain, France, and the Vatican.  In honor of the thirty year war, the Pope gave ownership of the Spanish Steps to Spain, but at the top it is technically France’s territory which is really cool.  After taking pictures we then went to a park where we rode a four person bicycle – in dresses. It was a mess but we had so much fun and it was a nice break from walking.  Rome was better than I expected and a lot of the people are really kind and funny, it’s definitely going to be hard to leave here so soon! But every good thing eventually comes to an end so now it’s time to head back to Florence to finish writing our papers.

*Pictures coming soon! They won’t upload right now.

girls night out

June 1st, 2012

Best night so far in Italy! About 8 of us ladies made dinner plans to go out to Gusta Pizza, where the kitchen guys made us all heart shaped pizzas and they were so delicious. We sat out by the local church to eat the pizzas and ordered a couple of bottles of wine while we talked with all the locals. Our next stop was to our favorite gelateria which topped off the night.

After that we went out to a local pub called the Lion’s Den which is a college spot out here in Florence and it was packed.  Shortly after, we left to go to a club called Twice where we were able to skip the line and pay no charge to get in.  We were dancing having a great time, then we met professional rugby players who brought us to their table in VIP and paid for everything for the rest of the night.  The club manager brought us out sparklers to dance with and we even got to go by the dj booth and onto the stage. It was amazing and since we were in VIP if anyone was bothering us, the bodyguards would kick them out immediately. It was definitely a night to remember!