Day 2: Roma

We had a truly exhausting day today walking around. We left the hotel around 10:30 this morning and returned home around 8:30 this evening. We walked everywhere... First we ventured to the Vatican which is located about a mile or so from our hotel across the river (Tibere) and we spent most of the day there until around 3ish. We ended up taking a tour from this terrific south african who took us to the Sistine Chapel, Basilica de San Pietro and etc around the Vatican. We sent a few postcards as the Vatican has its own postal service, which is very neat. Afterwards, we headed sort of towards home, but got a bit lost and went to the Pantheon, Piazza Navons, Palazzo Madama, Palazzo Venezia, Montumento a Vittoria Emanuele II, Piazza Barberini and the Spanish Steps. So quite a filling day of tourist things... it will be nice when we don't do as many touristy things and can just walk around and explore- that will probably happen when we leave Rome! We are hear for one more full day and then we leave Rome for the eastern coast- well hopefully, if we can somehow find a way to drive out of Rome!! (We've heard it's quite difficult, so wish us luck!) Here are a few images of our tour guide and a little from today, completely unedited as will be the case with all the images.

Roma: Day 1

Well, we have safely arrived in Rome… after a nice and almost too short flight because neither mom nor I could sleep very much. We did watch Ocean’s Thirteen and I listened to the In flight Italian twice, but not sure I have retained anything yet. So we were picked up by this guy holding mom’s name and whisked away into the city- mom and I were holding hands because we thought we might die in this one car ride. Apparently we have arrived in Rome in the middle of a Taxi strike, so there is a tremendous amount of traffic and apparently tomorrow (Friday) there is an all public transportation strike, which means we will be walking everywhere- which we were planning on doing anyways, except that the Vatican is somewhat far from where we are staying near the Spanish Steps. We made it to our hotel and decided to take a quick nap before we went out to explore, except we were so exhausted that we ended up sleeping for 4 hours! We still made it out though for a few hours in the afternoon to explore, see a few sights (like the Fontana de Trevi) and a few Piazza’s that we stumbled upon; mom lost her sense of direction, we recharged the cell phone and found a nice place to eat that was a bit pricey. Mom ordered a Coke Light (diet coke) for 5 Euro’s and I had tea for 6 Euro’s- holy crap… no more drinks for us! That was more expensive than a bottle of wine, so from now on, we will just be drinking alcohol! Our hotel is very cozy on a one way street that is quiet and nice. Here are some images from our travels so far:

Today's the Day...

My mom and I are about to leave the house to fly from jfk to rome this afternoon. Nothing like an 8 hour flight to kick off the trip. Because we are using miles to fly there, we have the luxury of flying business class- so we are both super excited about that... in fact probably equally as excited to fly business as we are to go to Italy! We are supposed to arrive at 7:30 in the morning Rome time and then will freshen up and explore Rome. Mom, of course, as everyone should know by now, has brought too much stuff and has a suitcase, a duffel, a rolly poley (sp?), a backpack and her purse, which is huge itself. I am traveling much lighter- with one suitcase and a rolly poley with all my camera gear in it. Go figure?!?! We have a "Learn Italian on the Plane" podcast that both mom and I will have to master by the time we get there. Wish us luck. And so the trip begins.

Italia here we come!!

For those of you who are interested, my mom and I are going on a trip to Italy starting on November 28th. When we have internet access, I will be updating this blog to the events and happenings of our trip. For a brief overview of our itinerary, here goes:

Arrive in Rome and stay for 3 nights.

Drive East to the adriatic coast line and drive down the coast for 3 nights.

Stay a bit inland on the heel of the boot for 5 nights.

Drive back West towards Amalfi and stay on the Amalfi coast for 4 nights.

Our last night will be in Naples.

I will try and update as much as possible, so feel free to follow along!

Defoor Centre Opening!

Kyle and I couldn't make it to this opening, so others went in our place and Steve made a great Rebecca and Lee made a great Kyle! Enjoy.

Art House Opening!

Final Project Shots

Here is a selection of images from my studio shoot for my final project. Most of the images taken were shot with the Canon 5D with an iso of 100, f-stop of 11 (bracketed from 9 to 13), and a shutter speed of 100-125th of a second. I used 2 strobe pro-photo lights: a small softbox and a grid light with 5 degrees. The last shot is of the studio setup.