Sicily Trip...Part 1

The life planning hasn't happened yet, so instead I got four pages done from the Sicily trip. There's a gap of a few weeks that I'm coming back to in which I went to Gabii, Praeneste, Navi di Neme, Castel San Angelo, Musei Capitolini, Palazzo Altemps, Palazzo Massimo, an all day art history field trip, the Forum of Augustus, Theater of Marcellus, Porticus Octaviae (my site report!), and the Ara Pacis. So, two weeks between Maria del Popolo and Sicily. And Spring Break also had many places - Florence, Rome, and Pompeii.  And Ostia tomorrow. This is starting to feel like it's going to turn into my summer project. I've already got 43/77 planned pages done, and the journaling for an additional 16 (which is the hard part for me).

Anywho, day 1 of Sicily trip (although not actually in Sicily yet). The final version of this page has a quote from our hand out packet: "Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, the Greeks decided to build temples, many, many, temples..." The journaling basically reads:

We got up at an intolerably early hour to make our bus, on a rather dreary day. So dreary, in fact, that we were unable to go to our first site, Velia.  After some finagling, we ended up at the Paestum Archaeological Museum. And: they had Livia busts! The afternoon was spent mostly on the beach – just goofing off and enjoying the cool, near freezing water. I also discovered that there is a hole in my rainboots, which made parts of the afternoon rather unpleasant. We had an amazing dinner in the hotel, one which failed to be topped by any other restaurant. Franco had one more Franco-Surprise for us – a late night Doric Temple tour. They were (for the most part) gorgeously lit up, although one looked like it is actually a disco at night.

Credits: Scrapmatters Design Team: Coastal; Jaclyn Bernando Designs - Staycation Template

Credits: Scrapmatters Design Team: Coastal

Here's day 2, in which we go to Paestum and Velia.  

Another dreary, although not rainy day. We spent the morning at Paestum looking at several Doric temples and wandering through the town. I found the Bona Dea inscription! And not the one that was removed to the museum, but another one! I was pleased, as was Scott. For lunch, we went just to a restaurant that had a lovely view of the temples where we were served the most amazing buffalo mozzarella cheese in existence. It was so fresh that we could smell the cows from the parking lot. Franco also gave us some wine to go with our lunch; naturally, we had to finish what we were offered. Thus, everyone really enjoyed the nap we had on the bus right after. The afternoon was much less pleasant, as I ended up slipping while climbing down from the forbidden (but mandatory) fence. My poor jeans – it means skirts for the rest of the trip. This was also our first night on the ferry. I didn’t get sick, but neither did I sleep. And it wasn’t because of the Dexter party we had with Dora in our cabin.

Credits: Scrapmuss Designs - P365 Template 11; Britt-ish Designs - Gloomy

Day 3.  We started our first day in Sicily itself, oddly enough, not with a temple. In Cefalu, we saw a lovely cathedral and some beach views. Then to Taormina for a lunch (I was admittedly rather grouchy by this point, as I just wanted to sit down and eat pizza but nothing was immediately presenting itself). We visited the theater on top of the hill and had an amazing view of Mt. Etna. I got myself a handpainted fan and Diana a bust of Diana.

Credits: Scrapmuss Designs - P365 Template 6; Britt-ish Designs - Gloomy

Yikes - a whole months and nothing. Well, there was our week-long Sicily trip and Spring Break squashed in there, so some of that time was legitimately occupied.  I have gotten some scrapping done, although not terribly much. More Disney than anything else. But, this weekend (as in less than five days) - I'm going to Disneyland Paris! I'm so excited, since this is my first international park. And I can just pop up for a weekend trip. Very cool.

Actually, it turns out that my most recent scrapping has been all Disney - two of the pages were from the Disney Stores in Rome and Florence. They actually do an amazing job of theming each store with the city. Rome's is full of characters in togas, and Florence is filled with Renaissance imagery.

Credits at Mousescrappers here

Here's my page on the Florence Disney store:

Credits

And here are the non-Italy pages, made for various Mousescrapper challenges. This one I will finish as soon as I get home in May and get a chance to scan in my little monorail front seat rider car.

Credits

This next one matches the Adventureland layout I did ages ago, I think from the first Speed Scrap.  It was for the template challenge.

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And one last one, the cover page for my 2008 album, which I have decided I want to be done and ready to print by June 1. We'll see how that goes, since I've been working on it on and off since spring '09. This is, however, by far my favorite photo I've taken at Disney, and possibly ever. I just love the angles and covers, and will probably accidentally scrap it half a dozen times in various ways.

Credits

Time to go pick a final paper topic, a thesis topic, and a life/grad school plan. And I should probably figure out shuttles for Friday from the airport to Disney as well as get some Latin homework done.