roman holiday is the weekend of birkin bags

SUNGLASSES! after a semester long quest they have been found
(and obviously purchased).

this weekend was a much needed break, and we all decided to stay at the palace (i know tough decision right? stay in the palace or travel abroad). friday was the first day in a very long time that we got to sleep in. yay! friday was short, a quick trip into rome, and stopping by GINA to grab a bite. GINA is our new favorite place to eat in rome, in a great area (literally around the corner from the spanish steps), awesome design, and reasonably priced delicious 'light' food. we had already eaten there earlier that week (this is when it shows that we are american ' proud to be a creature of habit'), but it was one of the days i packed my lunch so - i stuck to my budget and just split an appetizer.

when in rome,
EAT HERE!

some of GINA's ballin design.

friday was the cliche 'girl's lunch' with a chocolate milkshake and salad. the milkshake was the chocolaty-ist milkshake i have ever had. it wasn't very icy, but it was GRRRREAT. then my salad was a mixed greens (and red cabbage) with pine nuts, goat cheese and fresh pear. mmmmmmmmm!


the weather was perfect. spring has arrived in italy -finally. i was getting tired of snow, rain and most of all the cold. after a quick trip to 'via margutta,' (look it up it is a famous street in roma) and the purchase of a black and white photo of rome we headed back to ariccia.

for saturday we decided to take the 8:20AM train to get to rome around 9:15AM, which we thought was early enough to go check out the tombs at st. peters. when we arrived to the square at 9:30 we thought 'can this be for real?!' the line for security literally wrapped AROUND the entire square. quickly a unanimous decision was made to miss out on the tombs (better luck next time!). but we did get some amazing pictures in the square. second day in a row of BEAUTIFUL weather.

chigi symbol. one of the family members was pope back in the day...

we never noticed these fountains until today.

spring is here! little floral vendors are on all the corners.

once we were done taking pictures in the square because we wanted to walk around, and ogle at clothing and shoes we can't afford. ya know - CHANEL, prada, MIU MIU, all the good stuff. true to form, when lunch rolled around we all opted to eat at GINA. thankfully the same server we had the last two times was not working. whew. i decided to order another salad. i couldn't really read all the ingredients, so i ordered it with goat cheese. the server gave me a puzzled look (i assumed it was because she had poor english), but when she brought me my salad i knew why she shot me that look earlier. my salad already had cheese. whoops! so it was a cheese overload - but i am not complaining. green lettuce with turkey, tomato, carrots, goat cheese, some other mild cheese and homemade croutons. the day before, lil coco and i noticed a gentleman inhaling (no exaggeration) this cafe colored forzen dessert. we already had milkshakes so we said 'another time.' well saturday was the other time. we asked the server and she said that it was a frozen coffee gelato. we ordered a small serving for dessert. it was creamy like frozen yogurt. so good! and we found it again at a little store in the train station, so now i know where to get my fix.

the dessert from heaven.

next stop on our agenda was people watching at the spanish steps. it was another beautiful day - and we wanted to utilize it to its full potential. it wasn't long until we spotted our first 'sight.' an obese couple rolling around (making out) right behind us. very comical. then we noticed a three-some. it is very popular for the boyfriend to sit a step (or two) behind his girlfriend and then the girl will lean back on the boy. saturday was a totally different scenario. we noticed a guy sitting in the typical 'couples stance' because the a girl was sitting between his legs and leaning back on him. then we noticed the SECOND girl, who was sitting to the right of the boy - and she was hanging all over him. we could never figure out what was going on...or the best way to describe it, so we took a picture. you make your best educated guess as to what it going on...

(they are the 'triple' -not couple because that would mean 2 -
that are closest to the railing)

our observation was...crack. and lots of it. this large group of high schoolers were hanging out beside us on the steps and one of us just causally looked over and - i mean c'mon you can't miss this...

crack kils.
if only they knew this was floating around in cyber space...

after another hour of walking (once we were done people watching of course) around we decided that we were tired and trained back to rome for a movie night (moulin rouge), and getting ready for daylight savings time and palm sunday mass at st. peters.

sunday morning came quickly - thank you daylight savings! of course the day i have to get up the earliest, daylight savings is thrown in too (making sure that i get the least amount of sleep as possible). we take the 8:20AM train (the earliest sunday train) into rome. we were told that mass started at 12:00 noon, so we figured if we were there by 9:30AM we would be there plenty early. we arrive to the train station a little after 9:00AM and then decide to grab a 'pick-me-up' at the bar - a cappuccino. then we hop on the metro and then we are in st. peters square. the first reaction was -goosebumps. literally. it was such a cool place to be. we were walking around and taking some pictures and we heard singing, and i thought - i guess we are going to get to listen to beautiful singing for 2.5 hours. no, it was more like mass was starting. our source had given us the wrong time (she thought it started at 12:00, but it actually started at 10:00 and ended at 12:00). we quickly rushed to the front of the standing section (remember that mass was going to start in 30 minutes after we arrived - so obviously all the seats were taken), and managed to get a fairly good spot.

way in the back when we first arrived.

where's benedict?
he is the red 'dot' under the red curtain, he has his gold hat on if that helps...

scott disick?! is that you?
no, but his backside sure does look like a striking resemblance of
kourtney kardashian's flaky BF

see what i mean?
scott and his baby mama pounding the pavement.

the main man.

all the people at the vatican.

THE pope!

you know you are bad ass when you get to have a personal blessing by benedict.

getting ready for communion.

after communion they say prayers in a bunch of different languages and
everyone waves their flags around. it was really cool.
brought aunt diane's postcard all the way to st. peters to mail -
but the post office was blocked off, so i mailed it at the first mailbox i saw outside of the vatican...

*during our 3 day trip around rome, we saw about 10 hermes birkin bags in the same block - over the course of the weekend. i kind of wished i would have photo documented it. all i want to know is what are they doing, and can i do it in america...oh and that roman holiday part, we hung out in rome this weekend. it was tranquil and relaxing...like a holiday.

ninfa gardens and organic wine.

nature - doin' its thang.

today we went to the famous - ninfa gardens. since the year 2000, these manicured lawns have been considered a national monument of the republic of italy. the gardens have come a long way from the middle ages. a small town was located on the site (which is why you will notice building ruins in some of my pictures) that was eventually 'ruined' over a family dispute (and what was the cause of creating the ruins). the area was then abandoned and plant life took over the quiet countryside. now the area is maintained by a preservation group (they are friends of WWF).

the pictures we saw in class were obviously taken during the summer (everything was colorful and blooming, and the pictures were bursting with natural light), so in the beginning i was worried that i wouldn't be able to take any good landscape pictures. i was wrong, even in the partly cloudy weather with nothing really blooming the gardens remained breathtaking.

first part of the gardens.

i have a slight obsession with water in gardens.

see what i mean...

one of our tour guides.

all this beauty.

these 'star magonolis' reminded me of 'japanese magonlias' -
which are one of my favorite blooming trees.

this beauty takes some serious care.

calla lilies always remind me of nana!

i never knew that is what they looked like 'wild'

reflection.

so i initially thought these were some type of 'grape.' then the guide informed me that they are a beautiful yellow blooming flower - that is extremely poisonous. the little things i thought were 'grapes' are actually the beginnings of the flower, not food.

made in taiwan.

check out how crystal clear that water is,
and all the grasses that are growing in it.

when we were done taking in all the natural beauty of the gardens it was back on the bus to an organic winery! the winery we visited was called 'marco carpineti.' we shared a similar philosophy on life - EAT ORGANIC. ok, maybe it was more deep than that 'respect the plant, befriend the earth, watch your carbon footprint, etc.' the grapes they use to create their USDA certified organic (their american certification, they are obviously certified over here too) are native to the region (of lazio). another fun fact about their grapes is they trim them when they first start producing grapes. this way the plant doesn't have to work really hard and create mediocre grapes, the plant can have less grapes to 'strain' over and thus will produce a better quality product. GENIUS!

cinzia our teacher in the 'wine shop.'

some barrels of wine aging.

when you create a sparkling wine, you add yeast (like you would to beer) to create the bubbly effect. when the yeast 'dies,' it leaves a sediment in the bottle. to extract the sediment you must slowly (over the course of a year or 2) turn the bottle upside down so all the yeast will settle down in the neck of the bottle. once this is done the yeast is frozen - remember that is isn't alcohol so the remaining yeast sediment will freeze into a convenient little block, not the wine. then a machine opens the bottle allowing the frozen mass to escape while relieving some of the pressure. the cork is added and now the sparkling wine is ready for the shelf.

some bottles that are having the sediment gradually moved to the neck.

fun fact: i am sure that you might have wondered sometime in you life ' why does champagne have foil that goes all the way down the neck?' well it is you lucky day, because i have the answer! back in the day when the cork process (that i just described) was done manually the person would not be as efficient as a machine, meaning that more of the liquid would have the chance to escape. so the foil was placed on the bottles to 'hide' how much was actually missing.

norton is respecting the aging wine,
you are allowed to stroke but not tap or knock.

ready to sell!

cool bottles!

the dessert we had after our 'light lunch' (which actually consisted of the traditional 3 courses) was cake a cookies. the cake looked similar to the 'angel food cake' we had the night before, but tasted like...KING CAKE! krystle (my friend from NOLA) and i were sitting next to each other and immediately after we ate the cake exclaimed 'KING CAKE! it tastes like king cake!' after inhaling another piece i decided to go ask our teacher about this cake. she said it was a typical italian easter cake, i told her a similar cake was served during mardi gras - i don't really think she understood. but in italy the cake is called 'columbo,' so if you are ever in italy around easter and craving some king cake (minus the icing and cinnamon) you know what you need to order.

catholic cake.

olive trees! they bottled the olive oil into wine bottles.

organic vineyard.

bad boys and rolling black outs

bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you. well they aren't coming - and by they i mean the ariccia police force. after a prank/attempted break in by some (most likely drunk) young men, we took proper action by calling the local police squad. this was a complete waste of time, they thought we were a prank call! but i guess i don't blame them our phone call started with 'we live in the palace.' and then when we tried to explain men were trying to break in they asked what were we doing in the palace (we live here - duh), they were obviously not taking the phone call seriously. thankfully the men left us alone and soon the palace was peaceful again.

the aftermath.

the night before (monday night) we suffered from blackouts. during the 'dinner rush' in the kitchen, a loud pop sounded and then DARKNESS. at first we thought that the we blew a fuse in the kitchen, but we quickly realized that it was throughout the palace. olivia (our 'momma duck' / gta) called roberta to come to the rescue. roberta lives in the neighboring town of genzano, so we sat in the dark for a good 15 minutes until she arrived with her fiance. they toyed with the electrical box in a hidden corridor and the power was back on! YESSSSSS! but the light was quickly gone, the range made a weird noise noise and gave off a strange burning smell. no light again. thankfully roberta had not left yet and was able to fix the problem - do not use any appliances for 24 hours. good news though, everything is up and running now. i obviously did not get a picture of the blackout - because everything was black.

english poets in rome and the cat colony

famous protestant cemetery.

tuesday = field trip day. currently we are studying about 'the grand tour' of europe. today we visited the protestant cemetery in rome. this cemetery is the famed resting place for english poets keats and shelley.

this cemetery was the first non-catholic cemetery in rome. and the first tomb was erected in 12-30BC for an emperor. currently they have the highest density of famous people buried in one place - in the entire world.

the emperor's tomb

mom - they had your violets EVERYWHERE

keats tomb

it was early into our tour that we learned of a 'cat colony' that resides inside the walls of the cemetery. which might have factored into my request for a return visit (you can play with them from 2-4). a private group cares for them: feeds them, vaccinates them, if they have kittens they raise them too, etc. and at the end of our tour we could donate money to help the 'stray' cats of the cemetery.

member of the cat colony.

he is so cute!

shelley's tomb.
sadly he could not be buried by his son like he initially requested.

a little taste of home, camellia tree.

overall it was the most BEAUTIFUL cemetery i have ever been to in my entire life.