Last weekend, we attempted to go to Tivoli, but we missed the train because we were at the wrong station! Luckily, the tickets are good until April, so we were able to save them for another time. Instead, we ended up walking around Rome, and I got to see the Spanish Steps finally! Rome also had Carnevale going on, which is when there are a bunch of shows on the streets and little kids dress up (like on Halloween) and throw confetti everywhere. It was really fun to see! We also stopped at the BEST gelato place ever. For only 2.20 euros, you get three big scoops of gelato and you get to pick from probably 50 different flavors! It was amazing.


cute little girl with confetti at Carnevale


The Spanish Steps!


Some street performers at Carnevale


Then, on Sunday (Valentines Day) I went back to the gelato place for a Valentines day treat :) I picked only pink and white flavors to make sure that it was festive and it was delicious (the white chocolate flavor was by far my favorite)! Then in the afternoon Meagan and I made some baked ziti to bring to our professor’s apartment that night to celebrate the Chinese New Year. A bunch of my classmates have a hidden cooking talent and we had amazing food like hand tossed pizza, tiramisu, mulled wine, egg rolls, cake, and much much more. Afterwards, our teacher taught us how to salsa dance and tango. It was a very fun night.


My Valentine's Day gelato!

*Side note: I just realized that most of what I write in my blog is about food. But don’t worry. All of this food I’m eating is mixed in with thousands of miles of walking, so I’m not getting huge… yet.

This week, we worked on a drawing to show the element of earth on our site. We had to re-design our palazzo to be a pedestrian space instead of a parking area. It was pretty fun, but definitely a lot of work… and my teacher didn’t even look at my drawing the day it was due! So frustrating. We also had a history walk on Friday and we went around and learned about all of the wealthy families and their homes. We stopped at the Capitoline museum where we saw a lot of famous / cool statues. There was also a church next to the Capitoline that had a ton of chandeliers inside. It was beautiful!


Famous statue


Famous statue


The church with all of the chandeliers

Today (Sunday) we were finally able to make it to Tivoli. We took the train there and stopped at Hadrian’s Villa first. It was an enormous complex and I don’t think we even saw half of it. Most of it was in ruins, but if you used your imagination you could see how amazing this place must have been in its time. There was a huge pool of water that was once an enclosed bath complex and there were domes and walls everywhere that were leftover from this huge villa.


Hadrian's Villa.


Famous/beautiful pool that used to be a bath

We also stopped at Villa D’Este, which was another enormous villa. This one was in much better shape and you could actually walk through the intricately painted walls of the villa and out into a beautiful courtyard with a bunch of fountains. It was so pretty and really fun to take pictures there.


Fountains at Villa D'Este


Villa D'Este


Villa D'Este