Road trip: Vancouver, BC

in short, it's needless to say that our vancouver trip was exhausting, amazing, and danc-ely great.

here's what happened in a brief, disjointed description of our trip:

• British Colombia: Super, Natural... Supernatural???
• we made it to canada, then got caught in weird traffic in Canada. our phones stopped working = no more GPS/googlemaps usage... uh oh...
• pit stop at starbuck's for wi-fi (as seattlites we felt entitled to free wi-fi)
• pit stop at mcdonald's (with mapleleaf decor to make canadian)-- "it's gonna be $9.20. Oh... for you guys (USD carrying Americans) it's $9.90...." Cool.
• Fortune had it that we found our hotel anyway! We rested from the drive with some Wheel of Fortune, then Jeopardy which turned into the best drinking game. everyone drinks when alex trebeck gets super sassy with the contestants! 
• time to get primped and pretty for M83 at the vogue theater a couple blocks down from our hotel (:
• there was dancing, jumping, and more drinking, and the avoiding of some creepers. all in all great show!
• pizza to cure our drunken-ness, dipped in garlic ranch dressing. then we treated ourselves to shitty service at the darkest crepe cafe i've ever seen in my life. decent crepes, mean people.
• woke up in our hotel room then off to Slickity Jim's Chat n Chew restaurant for the best breakfast! I ate eggs benedict with caramelized onions, gruyere cheese, and spinach with a side of roasted potatoes (photo above, bottom-right).
• shopping at ZARA. afforded a skirt. happy girl.
• made off to get to the border. stopped off at our last chance to get some poutine (fries with gravy and cheese curds) at wendy's no less. tried to get back onto 99-S. No such luck.
• we're very lost without a starbuck's to steal wi-fi from...
• we ask various people at our nearest location, a walmart parking lot. they knew nothing. "just go that way (vague pointing), drive until you get to a garage, and ask somebody there..." WTF? thanks....
• across the street at the home depot parking lot is where it's at. dad with kids gave even better directions to the US border than the way we were going. yessss.
• duty-free buys!
• 30 min wait -_-
• funny border person that never smiled = weird combination. your words say your joking, your face says your pissed! 
• mellow, rainy drive home.... the end.

burano, venezia

a part of our field trip to venice included a ferry ride to nearby venetian island, burano. famous for its colorful houses and lace, burano was a breath of fresh air. it was small enough for us to navigate a entirely new place, and the small town feel made it feel more  like a warm lazy day of exploration than an agenda-packed day of tourism. it's such a picturesque place, i remember taking a lot of pictures of and with everyone with the various colorful houses as backdrops. 

and for some reason i took quite a few feet pictures that day, haha. well, the top one i love because out of all the beautiful and bright houses there, i was reminded of the beauty in the ugly things concept and this shot expressed that perfectly to me. as for the bottom picture, my shadow was being particular cool so i had to snap a shot of that. 

if you ever go to venice, i strongly suggest you make to visit the surrounding islands (there are 117 of them!). murano is obviously a popular one for its beautiful glass art/wares. but if you want to take a step back from all the tourist atrractions that venice offers, take a day trip to the surround areas; it will be completely worth it (or as in italian: vale la pena).

tomatoes and bikinis

just another blog post about italy... not quite. i just love this shot of tomatoes, so roasted, so olive oiled and delicious. but then suddenly i realized that since my 'travel blog' miei viaggi failed i decided i post some pics, and if you're lucky they'll be accompanied by some anecdotal moments.

lido beach, rome.
the water was freezing and it wasn't a particularly hot day, even by a washingtonian's standards. but we wanted to get this shot regardless, ha ha. modeling in water on beaches isn't so nice it turns out. in the end, the triple train/metro 45 min chaotic ride to get there was worth being near open water again!

picture: oncewed.com

reminiscing: italia

when you spend a quarter of the year in italy, you can't help but look back and reminisce. it's a bittersweet pang of nostalgia. those vintage-y cars you see every where, honking along the streets of roma. the way the people, city scene, and zara stores make you want to be an italian supermodel. at a girls dinner this past week we all started talking about italy, as we often do, and we came to (obvious) conclusion that a city like Seattle is just so meh compared to those of italy. in firenze or roma or wherever, the city is yours for the taking and every turn brings something new. maybe you're thinking, rosin, you fool, that's only because you didn't know where the f you were going. true. but, i still feel like no moment was had twice even though i often wished there were. three months wasn't enough. i don't know what it is, but it would be a dream to find out...

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