The cold weather.

While I have still been having fun and going out, lately when I go outside, it's not as enjoyable as it used to be. I don't sit on my roof anymore and there are no more days to sit in the park and drink wine. Even sitting in cafes is lackluster. This morning however showed me the reason why. This morning I woke up and there was sun on my face coming through the window. The clouds had parted for an instant.

It makes such a difference. Just like having a cloudy sky can make for beautiful sunsets, they make beautiful days when they just take a little break. The sky for the past three months have been solid gray and I forgot how beautiful the blue makes everything. Everytime I see some blue I run outside regardless of my plans to make sure I enjoy the five minutes of warmth and listen to the birds. 

Just a thought.

I just want to know what school I am going to go to next year.

One more month.

The cinema.

France is cool. France decided to release all of the movies nominated for the Oscars all at once. Now it's too hard to decide what to go see. I am thinking a combination of "Sex Friends" (No Strings Attached), Black Swan, 127 Heures (Hours), True GRIT, Le Discours d'un Roi (King's Speech), and Arrietty. I am aware that they are not all nominated, but I have heard good things about them all.

I can also see any movie for 3 euros. Any movie, even premiere nights.

Decisions decisions.

Update: Black Swan, True Grit and the King's Speech are all amazing and I am not sure which one I would have win.

Roma.

I am finally home after my vacation and I feel like I need a vacation. Emily and I did so much while we were in Italy and Rome was no exception. It started out very hectic but it ended up being my favorite part of the trip. When we arrived in Rome we took the metro up to our Hostel but when we got there, we had to go back pst the train station to a different hostel due to a gas leak. Although it was annoying at first, it ended up being for the better. The hostel we ended up at was my first real hostel experience. Up until then, Em and I had our own rooms just because that was the way it worked out. It was a party hostel and Em was able to go out with the travelers there while I met up with two of our friends from Paris. I walked from our hostel (near the Coliseum) to the Trevi Fountain, where we got a buffet dinner and mojitos for 7€ and then got gelato to enjoy by the fountain. We had a lot of fun catching up, messing around, and scaring off vendors who tried to sell us things. We made plans for the next day and I walked back to the hostel past several large monuments. Walking around in Rome and walking past ruined columns, huge domes and statues was really very over whelming and it got to the point that you would walk around and completely miss amazing structures because there where so many. You became numb. 
The next day was site seeing mania: we met up early at the Coliseum and got an audio guide which the three of us shared, we went to a church that a tour guide recommended (pictures later once I steal them from the others) with real gold inlaid in the ceiling, we walked to the old roman baths, the palatine hill, and the Altare della Patria where we went up the elevator and bumped into the same tour guide who gave us a quick tour of the skyline of Rome. We then walked to a famous Piazza (they are all famous really, but it was quite beautiful) and took some more pictures. Ended the day by meeting up with two English girls from the hostel and sharing dinner at a beautiful alley way restaurant with a four course meal and fairy lights. (Again, pictures later) We wandered over back to Trevi Fountain where we watched a very rowdy crowd pretend to throw people into the fountain and a proposal!
By this time we were feeling very overwhelmed but we still managed to make it up to the Vatican City before we left. We didn't go inside to see the Chapel because Italy is very harsh with us North Americans and wanted to charge us fifteen euros plus a two hour wait, but back at the fountain I threw in a coin so I should be getting back there eventually.  

"Let's be really awkward..."

The North of Italy.

How do you start telling about a vacation that is not over yet, and yet so much has already happened? I am in Florence on our second day in the city and I found a lovely cheap internet cafe and figured I might be able to save some time when I get home by breifing what Emiliy Holmes and I have done so far in Italia.

Friday night we decided, like all good teenagers in Paris, to stay out the entire night before our flight. We left the appartment with a group of au pairs at one in the morning and took a taxi to a club right by the bus station to shuttle us to the airport. Long story short, two taxi cabs, a long walk and a shuttle with one hour of sleep we got on our RyanAir to Italy for 9€. We landed in Milan and met up with a friend of our friend Letitia who picked us up and took us to Milan. Driving around outside the city center, I was reminded of Mexico, or rather, Tiajuana (in a less extreme situation). But once we got into the city we enjoyed the gelato and the sun. We visited the Duomo in Milan which is one of the fourth largest in Europe and very very beautiful. That night Emily and I took a train into Venice.

Venice, while it was very clear how beautiful it is, was dissapointing. I blame it on the cloudy cold weather and the fact that we had to travel into Venice on a bus each morning from our hostel out twenty minutes away and in the center of a ghost town. I know I should not let it change my perspective of Venice, so I hope to go back whent he weather is warmer and get the Gondala ride I so desperately wanted.

Finally, two evenings ago, we took a train to Bologna, then to Florence where we found our great hostel and where we enjoyed an amazing lasagna dish ( I have pictures of everything down to the lasagna, but once again I have to develop my photos before that can happen). Yesterday Em and I got familiar with Florence and walked around the whole city and we settled down in our hostel where I was excited to read The Merchant of Venice but I was sadly disappointed with it for several reasons, but I wont get into it just now.

Today Emily and I split up so that she could get some new photos and I could check out the museums, you cant got o Florence without seeing the museums. No photos today, but I definitely enjoyed seeing the David and all the sculptures of the Accademia and all of the artwork (including the Birth of Venus) at the Uffizi.




Tomorrow morning we leave for Rome and to meet up with our friends from Paris.

Ciao!

The (Phantom of the) Opera.

Today after class I went over to the Opera that the metro "Opera" is named after. I have walked past this building a hundred times for school but I never thought about it until Kaitlyn came to visit and she brought it up as wanting to go see it. We didn't go in together while she was here because five euros was way too much when we could get into the Louvre for free. But today, thanks to my au pair mom who gave me her old ticket, I was able to go explore.

The Opera is the same that the "Phantom of the Opera" was based on, and the movie was actually filmed there. I didn't realize this until I got home and looked up a couple of songs on YouTube to listen to while I was editing the photos of the day. This morning I was also coincidentally reading the National Geographic article my Grandparents sent me about the Parisien underground tunnels and vaults. In the article it actually mentioned that, like in the movie, there is an under ground lake beneath the Opera Garnier that the Pompier (Firemen) use to practice dive missions and that the caretakers are actually raising fish in. It was one of the quarries that filled up with water. So in addition to seeing a gorgeous building, I accidentally ended up learning a lot about it. It was such a beautiful building inside and out and walking through you could just picture the Masquerade, with the ball gowns, masks and music flooding the halls.

I guess I will just leave it up to the photos. I have more if you care to see. But less is more.

 

 

 

Miss Patriotism/REP... I am looking at you for this one.