Happy Easter!

Another afternoon of procrastinating, but this time in the name of celebrating Easter. And recovering from Campania. We had another awesome week away from the Centro, with stops including a full ELEVEN HOURS in Pompeii and a half day in Herculaneum (much cooler - Pompeii may have quantity, but Herculaneum has quality). Also in the name of "celebrating" Easter, I've been doing some scrapbooking. And munching on an Easter egg that goes up to my hip, but that is darling Pina's doing, not mine.

I brought my computer, but not EHD, to Campania, so was left with a random assortment of pictures to work with at the beginning of the week when I still had energy and wasn't collapsing into bed after dinner. At least I got day 1 of the trip done?

Journaling: First day of the Campania trip! We started out early, with our first stop at the Temple to Jupiter Anxor in Terracina. The site had both gorgeous ocean views and a large quantity of Roman concrete barrel vaults holding up terracing. We weandered throught he town and the old Forum, and ended up down by the sea. From there we drove to Sperlonga to see the statue groups (both Scylla and the blinding of Prometheus) found in Tiberius’s Grotto. The last site of the day was John’s presentation, which required a rather strenous uphill 26 minute journey to visit a mausoleum, and another half hour downhill before we could go to the Villa Vergiliana, Franco’s home, for an amazing dinner with fresh baked bread, still warm from the oven! They also have the remains of an amphitheater out back.

Credits: Scrapmuss - Template; Britt-ish Designs and Sahlin Studios - A Taste of the World Bundle

I also got a few DLRP pages done for various challenges at Mousescrappers. Here is our epic journey through Paris, and the reason that I continue to not be fond of the country as a whole. The photo was pre-"someone is under the train" time.

Credits here at MS

More evidence that I am going completely insane in a foreign country.

"Melissa only had one food request in Paris - a Croque-Monsieur. It’s essentially a ham and cheese sandwich, only French and better. Somehow, while telling everyone that this was what she wanted, someone misheard her and thought she wanted a “croc monster.” The name stuck, so naturally we had to keep our eyes open. We had orignally been planning on either fake French barbecue or eating in the other park, but on our way into the park in the morning we noticed one sandwich shop, the Market House Deli, sold the magical sandwiches. Naturally, we had to come back for lunch and take our croc monster pictures. The croc monster also ended up being the best meal I had all weekend."

Credits here at MS

And if that wasn't enough, here is public proof that the Centro is completely messing with our world view (not in a negative way, just a crazy way).

Credits here at MS

I also got done one of the 2009 princess pages that has been sitting on my hard drive, waiting to get done.

Credits here at MS

That's enough for today, and now I need to go find something productive to do. As in, the laundry that has been sitting in the dryer for an hour, oops.

A Weekend in Paris

Last weekend a friend and I (well, a group of seven, actually) went to Paris of the weekend. My friend and I decided to do one day in Disney, and the next day for the Louvre. It worked out well, since I got to go to mass at Notre Dame and get in to the Louvre for free.  I scrapped the pages that will go in my Italy scrapbook, although I took enough pictures on Saturday to make a good 40 page book just from the park. This also fulfills the March/April Scavenger Hunt on Mousescrappers.

Credits here

Credits here

Sunday was actually spent within the city. We only had one full day in the city, so we budgeted our time. I went to Sunday mass in Notre Dame, then met up with Melissa and her friend Catherine at L’Orangerie to see Monet’s Waterlilies. Then we went over to Lource and raced through to see as much as we could, especially in the antiquities (they had full body statues of Livia and Otho!) On our way to catch our shuttle, we couldn’t leave without trying crepes (and a macaroon in the airport as well).

Credits: Britt-ish Designs and Sahlin Studios - Taste of the World Bundle; Mandagirl - Template 55

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.

Credits

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. 

Italy Pages, Once Again

Here are some pages dating back to early February. Almost March now, and prep for Sicily/midterms is in full swing. And by full swing, I mean I'm doing this and running around being social rather than studying.

I went to the Vatican

Britt-ish Designs: Let Down Your Hair; Log Your Memory: Vacation Template

The next week we had an excellent Tuesday trip to Alba Fucens. It's a little bitty (relatively speaking) Roman colony out in the mountains. They're currently excavating the Forum, and they have a chunk of the city done as well as the amphitheater. 

Scrapmatter Design Team: Connect; Mandagirl: Template 52; Suzy Q Scraps: {Stash Builders} Simple Paper Alphas 2

Everyone was psyched about the amphitheater, and the spirit of past gladiatorial games overcame us.

Anna's F-A-L-L into Fall Template; Scrapmatters Design Team: Connect; Suzy Q Scraps: Simple Paper Alphas 2

We also had one of our first autopsies, which required going to different bits of the ruins and identifying them as best as we could.

Suzy Q Scraps: Simple Paper Alpha 2; Simple Scrapper: January 10 Template; Stolen Moments and Jenn CK: Aviator

At the end of the day, there were also a couple of student site presentations in the city around (and of) the Porta Maggiore.

Suzy Q Scraps: Simple Paper Alpha 2; Britt-ish Designs - Fireside Chat Templates; Stolen Moments and Jenn CK: Aviator

Our Thursday visit was much more low key - we only needed to take the 44 to the Forum Boarium for some temples, the Arch of the Argentari, and Tiber Island.

Britt-ish Designs - Never Grow Up; Mandagirl - Template 57

Here's where my descriptions/pages start getting out of order. For art history, we went to Santa Maria del Popolo, which is absolutely gorgeous and randomly has two Caravaggio's in a side chapel.  There is another Tuesday trip where we went to Gabii, Praeneste, and saw the Navi di Neme, which are the remains of the remains of Caligula's pleasure boats (best Adam quote of the day, said to himself while boarding the bus to depart: "And now to my pleasure bus").  Thursday was relatively low-key; we went to the Baths of Diocletian, and both toured the museum and worked on an epigraphy assignment.  

Britt-ish Designs: Riverbend

For art history, we went to the Castel Sant'Angelo, followed by the Capitoline Museums. They have a rather nice short exhibit on Da Vinci (as in, one painting).  Unfortunately, we had to cut our time there short as we simply had to go home for a demonstration in Limoncello making. Our ticket was still valid for a few more hours, so a few of us went back to the museum for fun and games with the busts.

Our ticket the Baths of Diocletian got us in to a few more museums (Palazzo Altemps and Palzzo Massimo, both of which I highly recommend), so we ended up checking those out on Saturday. Combined with our trip back to the Capitoline on Tuesday for the City course, it ended up turning into: LiviaQuest 2011 (she and Augustan dynastically-influenced building projects are my favorite bits of Roman history).

Kits from Scrapmatters Design Star Competition Round 1

A bit more shopping is on the agenda this afternoon - there's a hosiery shop that supposedly has amazing tights down by Largo Argentina. Tomorrow will be spent prepping for a Latin midterm and site report of the Porticus Octaviae (Augustan dynastic building! My favorite!).