Rome (finally!). Sorry it took me so long to get these pictures up. I've just moved to my new home in Germany- Mannheim. That was an adventure in itself!

I went to Rome the weekend of July 15th with the same people that I went to Venice with. It was by far the most amazing trip of the summer. (Totally worth the 15 hour train ride!) We tried to see as much as we could, and actually fit in a lot of the major sights.

This is the Trevi Fountain. It was (of course) crowded with tourists, but I managed to get a couple good shots. We did this on our last day- it was about 900 degrees out, and I actually contemplated jumping in. It's probably good that I didn't...

The pictures don't do it justice- it's really beautiful.

We went to Vatican City on our second day there (Saturday). We were warned by everyone about the horrible lines, but had no trouble at all getting in. Well, that is, after we bought tee-shirts to cover our tank tops. Oops, should have known better.

This is St. Peter's Basilica

And the Vatican, of course. We were really hoping to meet the pope- I guess he must have been busy that day. Maybe next time...

After this we went to the Sistine Chapel, which was incredible. I couldn't take any pictures inside, and the ones I took of the museum, etc. leading in aren't terribly exciting.

These next three pictures are from the Roman Forum. Again, the pictures can't do it justice. It's a huge area of ruins that was once at the center of Roman life.

The Pantheon! This was one of the first big sights we visited. We had just arrived in the city- we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and started walking. We were really lucky, our hostel was in a excellent location- nothing we wanted to see was more than a 20-25 minute walk away. I tried to take pictures inside the Pantheon, but they're a little dark.

This is Constantine's Arch, which I took from inside the Colosseum. The Arch symbolized the end of the Colosseum because it was Constantine who christianized Rome, thus making the gore-filled games unacceptable. Bummer, huh? Yep, still a history dweeb!

And finally, the Colosseum. I saved this for last because it was absolutely my favorite part of the trip. I still can't believe that's me standing in front of it. I think I had a grin from ear to ear that whole day. This was one piece of history that I have always dreamed of seeing, and to actually be there and touch it can't be described. Simply unbelievable!

This is a view of the "back" of the Colosseum. This is where the gladiators would enter, and it therefore symbolized life.

This is a shot of the front. This side sybolized death, as this was where most of the gladiators exited-for good. This was also the side where the tour exited, which was interesting. Seriously, though- walking through here was such a powerful experience. I'll never forget it.

Well, that does it for Rome. I have about 100 pictures, but they're probably only interesting to me! If anyone wants to see them, I guess they'll just have to wait till December...

Thanks for taking a look!

VENICE!! This was the view from our Hostel. You can only imagine how beautiful the rest of the city was. We arrived around 11 am on 30 June after taking the night train. It took awhile to find our Hostel- Venice is a little hard to get around. It was hilarious, whenever we asked for directions we were told "go over the bridge, take a right then a left." No joke- every time. There are only about 3,000 bridges in Venice!

"We" means Rene (left), Deanna, and Kat. This is them in front of the cathedral on Piazzo San Marco. The square is gigantic. Unfortunately, I didn't get many good pictures of it that show how big it actually is. I like this one with the cathedral behind them. We had a great day- even though it was quite hot. We kept cool with gelato- lots of gelato.

This is the Grand Canal- gondolas and all. We took a gondola ride Saturday night (accompanied by some extremely cheap local wine in plastic cups- you know I'm classy!) It was an unbelievably good time!

This is the famous Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal. I took this from a "water bus."



Another picture of the Grand Canal...

I love this one. This is actually a picture of us shortly after buying the extremely cheap local wine. The sign outside the store said "Young local wine, 1.5 liter for €3. Free plastic bottle." We, being starving college students, couldn't pass up the offer. They made me take the first sip in this random alley. I had to get a picture...
It was worth every penny!

This is the Piazzo at night (after the wine). There were pianists and violinists playing at outdoor restaurants. We had a fabulous time dancing our way through the square!

This is a famous church- unfortunately I can't recall the name right now. I'll have to check and get back to you, sorry! It was beautiful, though. Deanna and I stuck around the city on Sunday while Kat and Rene went on to Florence. We peeked in the church while a mass was going on. It was possible the most ornate church I've seen yet. Not my style, but very interesting.




One last picture of the Grand Canal...

...Gorgeous!