almost a year ago...

my friends left for rome on friday for the UNIV congress. i was fortunate and blessed to have been able to go last year. here are a few pics...i've been feeling really nostalgic, just because i was there for holy week, which starts today.

at the airport avec les autres.

first pic in rome! waiting for the bus to take us to the station.

bella.

wonderful columns. more columns to come!
palm sunday! with the pope! at st. peter's.
the amazing crowd at st. peter's. we love the pope.
columns at st. peter's.elephant trees, as i call them. they're so tall. i wonder if they existed in caesar's time. hehe.
narrow spaces between the rooftops.
romantic tables. perfect for dining al fresco.
even with the crowds, the vespas still manage to pass through. it's really dangerous walking in what we canadians might consider alleyways. hehe.
very brave spanish boy trying to get the pope to look out from his apartment window to talk to us. and he did! he was so awesome and it was so amazing i was in tears.
missed him! i thought i was going to be able to get a good one but...
augh! missed him again!!! next time i go to rome, i'm going to have a better and faster camera!
with nicolette in the background. haha. kinda freaky.

spanish steps.
i forget where i took this from. but let's just say that it's one of the last pictures that i took before raiya, natalie and i realized that we were lost. the other girls had accidentally left us. but it was a fortunate accident! it was exciting being lost in a city we've never been in. it was quite an adventure. we were able to find our way back home.
gelato! i had gelato everyday there. my favorite was avocado and nutella and hazelnut. this is not a good example though of the generous portions they give us. this is from a cafe at the vatican, so it's a really touristy serving. if you go to a further away from st. peter's, the ones that you'll find in the "alleyways", they serve them in big, gigantic mounds. it's sooooooo good.
the trevi fountain! i've been dying to see this, ever since classical studies in grade 9 and hillary duff's lizzie maguire movie. hehe. but yeah, natalie and i had the entire day to ourselves! i cannot believe that we went to a lot of the sites in rome without a grownup or a tourguide. all we needed was our metro pass, a map, camera and money.
market beside the trevi fountain. yummy fruit. everything in rome tastes better. i regret that i never took pictures of their coffee or the staple italian bread we had for breakfast every morning. because those were the best. i would have a roll of bread, a bowl of cereal and two cups of their coffee every morning. their coffee tasted sooooooooooooooooo good. once you have it, you can never go back to timmy's.
and italians have their own metro too (the metro newspaper)!
school of athens
vatican museum
more heads. or busts.
shoes that i got for...10 euros. i got a striped red and white one. sadly i've only worn them once in rome. i haven't worn them at all ever since i got back.
pieta. it was breathtaking. i turned to my right and this what i saw.
inside st. peter's.
in the coliseum. getting ready to use the washrooms. sadly the washrooms in bella roma are really dirty. or really busy. one time i had to resort to using the men's washroom because i really had to go. surprisingly this one wasn't so stinky.
where they did gladiator battles. they used to spray perfume in the air so that they could hide the stench that was emanating from the dead bodies in the field.
postcard-perfect. :)


burger king. i have to tell you, even though the italian food was good, i missed good old french fries and burgers. the combo came with a donut. haha.
at the roman forum. this was so national geographic. beautiful ruins everywhere, each with its own history.

look at the tops!they said that this is where they burnt caesar.
st. paul and st. peter were imprisoned here. this was the miraculous fountain that sprung up from their cell so that they could baptize the prisoners that wanted to be christians. beautiful, isn't it? st. peter and st. paul are some of my favorite saints.
mouth of truth. we wanted to be able to see it and we were in a hurry, so my friends and i actually ran on the circus maximus. i thought it would be something like the coliseum, but now it's just this one great long field.
last gelato in rome. :(with the other canadian girls from vancouver and ottawa.

so there it is. there's no better way to spend holy week but in rome. they make a big deal out of easter there, which they should. and on holy thursday, all you have to do is hop from one church to another to do the visits to 7 churches because the churches are all so close to each other...and it's so beautiful to see children, teenagers, older ones, people of all ages staying there late at night and praying.