laaa dee daaaah art!

a lot of people have been asking if i've been learning anything over here, especially because all i blog about is london friendsdays and these fun little adventure weekends. although a lot of my classes were kind of useless, my drawing and illustration class was really great and i learned a ton! especially because six months ago i wanted to give up drawing forever.

there are a lot of things i just couldn't get the hang of last semester, like HANDS. and i didn't even try faces. i literally only drew trees. but now i'm not too shabby at hands and faces!

i also got really into watercolors this semester, which was fun. i really like the concept of painting something and being able to control it only up to a certain point until you kind of just have to give up and let the water do its job. but i also have really enjoyed using black ink to create graphic patterns and shapes, and having total control over those shapes, so for my last few drawings i combined the two.

a recap

several fun things happened last week, so i am going to recap them quickly:

sabrina and i had our 5th london friendsday, consisting of the tate britain, playing in the leaves outside of parliament, somerset house's rené gruau exhibit, and the tower bridge. we ended up walking about 6 miles!

[little mini boats at the tate]

harry potter came out on friday morning. i was at the first showing (9:30 am) and then saw it again on saturday night. amazing amazing amazing.

it's finals week, so i had to do a couple of photo projects over the weekend. here's a picture from one of them:

ERIN WILL BE HERE SO SOON! so excited for our jam-packed 5 days.

that's it! you probably wont hear from me until next week, so i hope everyone has an awesome thanksgiving and time at home! i know i'll be missing my mom's stuffing and mashed potatoes...

rome rome many tears have fallen here...

but not mine. i had an awesome time.

i traveled to rome with my friend rebecca two weekends ago and i was surprised how much i loved it! i didn't think anything could beat florence, but rome sure did give florence a run for its money.

it wouldn't have been a trip with ali labelle if some medical situation didn't come with. this time, my voice was on vacation as well. i couldn't say a word! poor rebecca had to deal with my whispers and sign language the entire first day...such a trooper. past that though, everything went smoothly!

we got into the city mid-afternoon on friday, so we dropped off our stuff at our extremely clean, very impressive hostel near the stazione termini (which, looking back, we could have stayed somewhere much closer to the cool stuff) and headed for the colosseum. it was closed so we couldn't go inside, but the sun was just going down and it was so pretty!

[rebecca]

then we walked past the monument to vittorio emanuele ii, which is essentially a huge white building with a lot of statues, but at night it was SO pretty! even though i had no idea what i was looking at.

[some beezys got in my picture]

i could list off every single thing we saw, but to look up all the names that i can't remember...nah. you'll just have to trust me that the city is beautiful, and that i saw a ton between the monument and the trevi fountain.

when we got to the trevi fountain, we did the typical tourist pictures, made some lizzie mcguire jokes, and watched some awkward and not awkward couples take pictures of themselves kissing and being romantic in a crowd of hundreds. i think the area around the fountain was my favorite part of rome that we saw...so many little restaurants and wine bars and leather shops! all tourist traps, i'm sure, but we WERE tourists, so i didn't feel too bad.

[had to do it]

we had wine at a place called chianti (i think?) before dinner. my parents kept talking about prosecco and how delicious it was, so i tried it and loved it. like parents like daughter. we had dinner at piccolo buco not too far from the fountain...3 courses! it was delicious and wonderful and the service was great, despite my trouble communicating. so fun!

after some gelato we called it an early night because we had both experienced the harry potter craziness the day before and had woken up super early. we fell asleep almost instantly and arose (a little behind schedule) to a jam packed day.

we headed towards the vatican city for our museum and sistine chapel tour. i am SO glad we opted for a tour because we would a) have had to wait in a huge line and b) never would have learned everything that we did! we walked right in and followed our little tourguide around to learn about the pope's house.

i'm not catholic, but i sure was in awe of the vatican. first off, there is SO MUCH ART. so much. it's unbelievable to me that michelangelo and raphael walked those halls and looked at the same sculptures and paintings that i did. second, i had a hundred and one questions about the logistics of the vatican. it isn't technically a part of italy, but it's own republic. can airplanes fly in its airspace? if there is an emergency, do they have their own police, fire, and medical facilities? can the people who live there leave whenever they want? unfortunately, i didn't get the answers to any of these questions because i would say them out loud to rebecca, and she had no idea, and i was too busy learning and looking to ask. i'll have to do some research later.

we went through a lot of the museum...a room of maps, some courtyards, the raphael rooms...and then into the sistine chapel. no pictures and no talking allowed, right? apparently this rule did not apply to the asian tourists. oh my gosh. some of them were just yakking away, snapping pictures (some with flash!) like there's no tomorrow. i was getting real heated about this...some people were having significant religious moments and these people were ruining it! so i have no pictures from the sistine chapel because i follow the rules, but let me tell you, it was beautiful. and i did see the painting of god and man reaching for each other. and it was awesome.

we meant to turn right into st. peter's basilica but we turned left, which was a one way exit from the vatican city. AHHH! there was no turning back, and we were so mad that we missed the way to st. peter's, but we would just go around the other side, right? no big deal. we left the city, grabbed some pizza, and headed towards st. peter's. and then we saw the line to get in.

ridiculous. we couldn't do it. we would be there all day! so we stood in the piazza for a little, took some pictures, gawked at the THOUSANDS of people waiting to get in, and headed out. it was time to see the pantheon.

we walked for a while, passed a lot of other really cool stuff that i don't know the name of, and ended up at the pantheon! just our luck, it was undergoing some refurbishment, so we didn't get any pictures sans scaffolding. oh well. it was still really cool to see it, especially after having talked about it in our art & architecture class.

we got some gelato and weaved in and out of shops for a while near that area, but it came to a point where our feet were screaming. after a quick nap break at the hostel, we headed back towards the pantheon for dinner. a clown kept bugging us and this reeeeally southern hick family was sitting next to us. the mom listened to our entire conversation and kept butting in, which was fairly uncomfortable. more gelato and a cab ride later, we were back home. it had been a long day. ten hours of traveling and some interesting little speed bumps were the only things standing between us and london.

i wish i could have spent more time in rome, especially because i wasn't feeling well and it would have been fun to experience more of the culture. but that just gives me a good reason to go back! shea? ;)

on the threshold

in one month and two days i am walking out of london's door.

i keep having conversations with people about going home, and each is a little different.
some people cannot wait to go home, hoping the next month would fly by. they are more than ready to go back to school, their families, their friends, the familiar...
other people are dreading the day they get on the plane. they never want to leave london, their escape from reality. in their minds, who would want to end a four month vacation?

for me, this month is bittersweet. i will miss certain things about london...hanging out at the eagle, shopping in oxford circus, my classes being a piece of cake, the friends i've made, certain restaurants, topshop, british accents, the general need to dress up, the convenience of the underground...but i am absolutely so excited for certain things about home, too! i know that upon my return, i've got my family, my house, my friends from both school and home, my car, mexican food, the dollar, and countless other things i can say i've grown to appreciate since i've been gone, all waiting for me. but i know that just as i miss home when i talk to my home friends, i will miss london when i talk to my london friends. and i feel like i can now call london my home, too. my third home! how lucky is that?

they say when one door closes, another one opens...

harry potter and the best 32 hours of my life

wow. so i went to the harry potter and the deathly hallows, part 1 world premiere. i really did. i keep having to convince myself of that.

sabrina and i got there at about 2 on wednesday afternoon after we panicked and saw that people were already lined up. we made friends with four girls that were in line ahead of us: beckie, amanda, blaire and natalie, and set up camp potter (a circle of folding chairs and three tents). we were ready.

lots of people joined our camp along the way: ian (who goes to chapman with us), sarah (from my drawing class), christeen, 2 german girls named bianca and susanne, and a guy from japan who did not speak any english. we spent several freezing hours chatting, going on food and potty errands, and doing nothing until the wee hours of the morning.

[the team]

[late night chinese food]

sabrina, ian, christeen and i slept in a small pop-up tent that we turned on its side so we could all fit. INTERESTING. it was raining and cold outside but somehow we survived in our little taco shell of a house. at about 3:30 in the morning i was about to give up because i was so uncomfortable and cold, but we all persevered.

[there were signs like this in front of every tent]

[our survival bags kept us warm...ish]

[us in our taco tent]

several trips to mcdonald's and cups of hot chocolate later, at about 7am, we were told to pack up our stuff so we could move into the premiere area. we had been in line around the perimeter of leicester square up until this point. when we finally entered the square, we were FRONT ROW right in front of the press! it was still freezing, but i think at this point i cared so little about my body temperature and so much about the fact that i was living one of my dreams that it didn't matter.

[waiting...and waiting...]

[me attempting to sleep while standing by hanging over the barrier]

[team USA]

[the press, right across the carpet from us]

we stood there for about 8 hours, unable to sit down, while we were interviewed and photographed by newspapers, fansites, blogs, and television stations. you can read my quote in usa today here, spot me at the beginning of this video, try and find me in picture 16 in the la times, and if you happen to get your hands on some british newspapers, you'll see my mug shot in them, too. baby girl is famous. the best of these? ben lyons of e! took a picture of us on his phone and tweeted it. ben lyons has a picture of me on his phone. love.

[ben <3]

[the tweet]

[the picture taken with ben's phone...

p.s. beckie's sign...]

the actors began to arrive at 5:30ish. rupert grint, emma watson, dan radcliff, tom felton, and the rest of the gang signed autographs, chatted with fans, and stood within 3 feet of me. i was in shock. please don't hate me that i didn't get any good pictures because i was too busy being in awe. you can look up pictures of the event though...emma looked beautiful and the rest of the cast followed suit.

my favorite part of the evening had to do with emma watson in two ways: although i did not get to meet her (just wave and scream her name), but i DID manage to piss off her boyfriend and befriend her brother.

her boyfriend (whose music video i've seen and led me to know who he was) walked by and i impulsively yelled "emma watson's boyfriend!". he turned around, stared me down, and said, "what's my name?" of course, i didn't know. so he yelled some curse words at me, scoffed, and walked away. oops, that's what you get for dating a famous actress.

however, i recognized her brother because he is a burberry model, and he was just awkwardly standing off to the side, so i yelled his name. he did a "who, me?" and ian and i beckoned him over. he talked to us about what he was wearing (paul smith, in case you were interested) and took pictures with us, chatted a bit, and then moved along when everyone started realizing who he was and attacking for autographs. all i can say is that i loved him first.

[alex watson...not my most attractive moment, but we'd be a cute couple, right?]

i ended up with autographs in my british copy of the deathly hallows from neville, luna, dobby, and lucius. i was bummed i didn't get the main trio's signatures, but i did decide that i will be at the july premiere for part 2, camping out and all, and i will complete the collection. it was an amazing 2 days, full of ups and downs, new friends, and a lot of craziness, and i would repeat it in a heartbeat. just let me nap first.

ciao firenze e milano!

how to even start?

florence is the most beautiful place i've ever seen. ever. i am in love. i arrived last friday to stay with bea and her roommates for the weekend in their apartment right in the middle of the city and i instantly knew i never wanted to leave. if i could marry a city, it would be florence.

we started off my crash-course in italy by walking all over...ALL OVER. i really can only tell friday's story in pictures.

[the duomo! walked around it]

[that's david! look how tall he is!!!!]

[bea and i!]

[focaccia pizza...my first taste of real italian food!]

[on top of a giant hill overlooking all of florence...so beautiful]

[gelato on top of the hill!]

we finished our day with a real italian dinner at ciro & sons near the apartment with two of bea's roommates, lauren and jessica. it was so delicious, but the one bite i had of bea's was the BEST. homemade ravioli with pear and cheese...MMM. then we got gelato and walked down by the uffizi, along the river, and watched a musician play cat stevens and james taylor covers on the street.

on saturday lauren, bea and i woke up early to head to milan! we were so excited to shop and eat the day away. the three hour train ride was super easy until i turned my head suddenly and then couldn't turn it back! my whole neck had cramped up really quickly and soon i could feel my shoulder tensing. throughout the day it was getting worse, but i kept hoping it would loosen up soon.

we exited the metro station and were instantly in awe of milano! milan's duomo is so different than florence's but just as beautiful! definitely more gothic than what i was expecting.

we walked through the galleria vittorio emanuele ii, the most BEAUTIFUL mall i've ever seen. absolutely stunning and so beyond expensive to shop in. prada, louis vuitton, and other designer shops were SCREAMING my name, but i resisted.

[that is a MALL!]

past the mall was a square dedicated to leonardo divinci. the last supper hangs in one of milan's museums, but you have to book tickets to see it ahead of time and it was a bit of a distance away, so next time i make it to milan i will have to stop by.

[leo and i]

after popping in and out of some high-street shops (zara, mango, the usuals), i was starting to feel worse. my shoulder muscle was tensing and my head was starting to tilt involuntarily. so uncomfortable! we sought refuge in a little italian family restaurant. DELICIOUS.

the pain was becoming unbearable so i split from the girls for an hour to find a spa to get my shoulders massaged. i found one pretty quickly and somehow managed to explain to two people who don't speak a word of english that this was an emergency and i couldn't move my head! thirty minutes and seventy euro later, i wasn't feeling any better. eesh. i met back up with bea and lauren for a while and we walked around the rectangle of gold, a district bordered by four streets containing every designer shop you could imagine. unbelievable.

it was time to catch our train back to firenze. by this time, my jaw, arm, and ribs were starting to hurt. i couldn't stand up straight. i felt so bad that i was holding everyone up! i wanted to enjoy milan so much but all i could think about was the fact that i couldn't move. thank GOD bea's mom is a masseuse and that my parents are pretty smart as well, because with the combined effort i was able to feel a bit better after some pain meds, an incredible homemade dinner cooked by mom bea, some wine, hot chocolate, a hot towel and the notebook. and i woke up feeling much better!

sunday we slept in but still had a few hours to kill until i needed to catch the bus to the airport in pisa, so bea and i decided to get lost in the city! we got biscotti and cappuccinos and walked past santa croce to a little pizza place bea knew of. BEST PIZZA EVER. so good. at this point i was ready to settle down and never leave. after pizza we walked some more and took some pictures around the city.

[PIZZA]

[my last cappuccino of the trip :( ]

that is, until it started to pour! we ran into shop after shop to dry off, sipped on more cappuccinos, and then ended up back at the apartment completely drenched! i lucked out to sunny skies on friday so i couldn't complain.

a bus ride, a plane, a train, and another bus ride later, i was home! i loved italia so so so much. i am currently trying to devise a plan to go back to florence at some point because i already miss the amazing food, buildings, river, and good company! it sure made me excited for rome the next weekend...

grazie to bea for such a great three days! loved every second of it.