weekend in Roma/ Carnevale in Viareggio

i think i am just going to accept the fact now that my blogging is inevitably going to be inconsistently spread out even though i like to continually tell myself otherwise haha. my apologies now for not being on top of it...

well midterms are already coming up! this week and next week are our midterms (early i know) and then spring break starts march 4!! so so crazy... for the break i am going to London with a group of friends and mighttt go to Edinburgh, Scotland for half of it! i am excited to have a week free, not that there is anything to complain about in terms of our normal school schedule, but it will still be nice to not have class for a bit and explore some other parts of europe with midterms behind. 

last  last weekend we went to Rome and i had my official first hostel experience! wasn't too sure what to expect, but it ended up being along the lines of staying in a really old, crappy dorm room so it wasn't so bad. we had an art history lesson all day friday, walking around the city and going into a lot of churches, and we got to see Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Theresa! it is still so strange to me every time we see images that are in every single western art history book... and seeing the Pantheon was so much different than i expected... we just turned a corner and our teacher casually pointed it out, when otherwise i probably would have walked right by it without ever knowing the Pantheon was right there. i guess i always imagined approaching it from a distance, being able to see the entire building at once and take it in. the next day i went to all of the major attractions so it was really busy but extremely successful–conquered the Vatican (including the Sistine Chapel ahhhh), Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Spanish Steps. and i apologize to all of the seemingly "less significant" aspects of Rome–don't worry, you were all awesome, i am just incapable of addressing you all... 

St. Peter's Basilica in the background

Colosseum at night

last Sunday i went to Viareggio, a really cute city along the coast, for Carnevale which was awesomeeee. a bunch of ridiculous costumes and so many cute children in costumes... i took my fair share of creeper children photos, here is a personal favorite haha

there were massive floats along the streets with paper mache sculptures that were ridiculous... i'm not too sure what was going on in some of them, but they were awesome/quite amusing... and they would play music/have dancers in costumes so we just danced around for the entire day, essentially. steph, collette, and i wandered together and even though it was raining the entire time, it was definitely a great success :)

in terms of class, this week and next week are really busy due to midterm projects/ tests and such, but everything is coming together and i am excited to see how the studio projects all turn out. i will be sure to document some of my work along with some of my classmates so you can see some of the things we are up to! it has been really different working in the environment here because the class structure is extremely different than at Wash U but it has been nice to expand my thinking process/creative process in ways that i definitely would not have thought of otherwise. 

also, I went to the Boboli Gardens a few weeks ago just for part of the day and it has made it to my top 5 favorite places in Florence so far...

also on the favorite list is this ramp that extends across the Arno where you can walk along... i read here for a while and then proceeded to take a nap just like this guy.

and i learned how to do another bookbinding technique in a workshop this past friday! i am definitely going to do more bookbinding when i get home, so if anyone wants to make some with me, i am up for it