goodnight

well, it's time for me to say goodbye to London. I've just about finished packing

This is what it looks like when London is going to bed... or waking up, depending on how you see it. :)

the eye

me and the eye :)

across the river

don't worry i have one of these without me in it ;)

it was late

piccadilly circus

violet and i in piccadilly after we saw Phantom of the Opera!

dome of st. paul's cathedral

st pauls from across the millennium bridge

the six of us stopped to take a picture on our way to dinner tonight (OUR LAST NIGHT!) and the fabulousness of this city rubbed off a little in this picture
mary, brian, maddie, st pauls, violet, brent, travis

Say goodnight to London everyone!
it's my last night here (for a while anyways) and it was awesome. Thanks for reading, I'll probably post something when I get home a little re-cap (for you and me) but thanks for checking this, keeping me diligent with my posting and being excited with me the whole time. Hope you enjoyed it (cause i secretly had a lot of fun doing this
<3

CALIFORNIA HERE I COME!! (are you ready for me?!?)

a little overboard

sooo i took a lot of pictures in Roma. Over 150.. heh. And as I was clicking on the pictures to put on the blog... weeding them out, picking the best or my favorite.. pictures of all the important things I would up only narrowing it down to 49. sooo yea, I might go through and take some of them out, but I'll be hard pressed to do so. So fasten your seat belts and be prepared for a long load for this blog :)
appreciate it!


sooo the first place I walk into after being in Rome for only a few minutes is.. go figure, Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri (St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs)
AND GO FIGURE mass started when I walked in! my timing wowie

after mass

Then I walked to the Colosseum and it looked like this

The Arch of Constantine from the Colosseum

and then from the ground.. with the colosseum back there :)

and then the main attraction

in the Imperial Fora - a series of monumental fora (public squares), constructed in Rome over a period of one and half centuries, between 46 BC and 113 AD.

i liked how there were bits of the marble tiles still on the ground, reminded you that it wasn't just grass and dirt back when.

inside Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
AND GUESS WHAT STARTED WHEN I WALKED IN?! that makes two in one day.

this is the outside of st maria maggiore (at night)i like the mosaics you can see through the arches

and you can guess what this is.. and what time of day

this is the forum - was the central area around which ancient Rome developed

me! in front of Trevi fountain

heeeey Vatican City (can I count this as another country i've been to?)

inside

this place is massive

Michelangelo's Pieta

Raphael's Transfiguration

The Dome and the Baldacchino -take note of the writing along the top

angles

then i decided to climb all of the stairs to the top of the dome.. this is on top of the basilica that's the domey dome

Then i got into the dome.. and looked down at all the people. teeny tiny down there

ok so those letters i made you notice - they're 6ft tall!! woah. you can see the guy standing there (i put him in for height reference)

and those paintings over there.. they're actually mosaics!

then i started climbing again and made it to the top of the dome.

a view - if you'd like more see the panorama in the last post

then i went to the Vatican museum to see the Sistine chapel and i found Medusa's head!

a courtyard in the museum

the beginning of painted ceilings

woo

it looked like she flew up to the painting

i loved the colors

pretty ceilings

then into the Sistine chapel - i didn't take pictures (cause you're not supposed to) but the guy i was with did and hopefully he'll send me some ;) BUT IT WAS AMAZING. amazing amazing amazing.

i found this place on accident AND IT'S WHERE CAESAR WAS KILLED!!

then i walked to the Pantheon.. but there was a raging party

and then i almost got ran over by a car - a car with dark tinted windows. and then i got pushed around by these guys.

apparently the guy who almost ran me over, and also walked past me, and who the political rally was for was Berlusconi -Italy's Prime Minister

well since i didn't dare make my way through the crowd to get into the pantheon

i re-fueled
these are my essentials. a map, walnuts and a cappuccino

yeaaah

then the sun started to go down - so we ran to the Colosseum

woo

hellloO!

me in the park -again, see one of the panoramas below

goodbye rome!