“what you are now, we used to be. what we are now, you will be.”

Interesting spaces and proportions. Horrible paint job.

Our first night we had a tour of the Seine and a three course dinner on a barge across from the Notre Dame… Ending with a super cheesy magic show consisting of every standard magic trick: scarves, cards, metal rings, coins behind the ear, rope tying, and levitation. Can’t say I didn’t like it.

A site tour of “the cloud” building under construction. Interesting use of a fabric skin…

It was so nice to revisit Vatican City including the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s. There’s just too much to see in one visit anyway. Rooms and rooms of sculptures, tapestries, paintings, Michelangelo, bla bla bla. What a place. The power of religion.

Stumbled on the last show at fashion week while it was at the Louvre. Anna Wintour (Vogue editor), Uma Thurman, Nicole Richie, Rachel Zoe, Alexa Chung, models, models, models. Felt like a bad paparazzi, but it was so exciting.

The remains of 4000 dead friars in the crypt of a Roman church. Beautiful or disturbing? Regardless, I’m not buying a pelvis chair anytime soon.

Ancient city of Pompeii. Mmmm volcanic ash as preservative.

Around Rome: Patheon, the Vatican, Colosseum…

Modern art museum designed by Zaha Hadid.

Probably my favorite museum…ever.

Some long exposure night shots I took. Teeny tiny little Tuscan town where the night is best spent roaming alone.

Not much “to do” here, but we had a good time hanging out at the piazza Il Campo and eating amazing pasta at every place we visited. I also had some amazing shopping finds: a leather bag for 2 euro and a thick fur collar also for 2 euro. Yes they are both real, and yes they both smell because I dug through some nasty vintage stuff to find them.

We went to a total of five Tuscan hill towns. Three of which we visited for only a couple hours, but we got the pleasure of staying (and gorging) in Siena and Pitigliano.

Beautiful Tuscan landscape out the bus window on a cloudy morning.

As you can probably guess I spent some time in Florence museums. The most memorable being Galileo’s museum, complete with anatomical models. The rest of my time there was spent eating gelato.

Mmmm so pretty and colorful with all its stonework. We climbed the 400 and something stairs to the top for our panoramic view of Florence. The best part though was getting so close to the dome mural which consisted of devil dragons eating babies and men being sodomized by burning spears. The Renaissance was rough.

There is quite a story attached to this bus visit. We arrive at the cemetery gates at 1:30pm… Problem was, daily it is closed from 12-3pm. Professors were debating leaving without seeing it. This to me was out of the question. In front of them, Britney and I scaled the 16 foot gate and ran inside for a peek. Others decided to follow but they were caught in the act by Italian police who by questioning figured out two of us students were missing. The chase was on.

Through dramatic gesturing, we figured out from our peers that we were wanted criminals. Decided to try and make a break for it instead of hiding and waiting till three when the cemetery opened. We found a ladder and used it to climb out an 8 foot window, hopped down, ran for a smaller back fence, jumped over and escaped around the back unseen. The police saw us walk around the perimeter to the front where we pretended we had just gone to pee around the back. Phew.

Each country at the Biennale designs a small building to house works of art from their country. The sheer amount of stuff was really overwhelming. Especially since a lot of it…. Sucked.

The US pavilion housed airline seats, an organ that was actually an ATM, and an upside down army tank powered by an Olympic athlete on a treadmill. God bless consumerism.