La mia città preferita è Roma.

Rome has officially beat out Berlin as my favorite city in the world. The past few days were absolutely amazing-and I am so glad that I get to go back in just a couple of weeks. I fell in love with Bernini's sculptures, the Trevi Fountain, and especially how the ancient ruins blend into a modern city. I saw an Italian opera with the ruins as the backdrop, and talked to my mom on the phone while sitting in the Roman Forum one afternoon ("Hold on a second, Mom...yeah I can see the Colosseum right now"). The Vatican was lovely, and I especially liked the view from the top of St. Peter's Basilica (and the semi sideways climb up!!). What I would have never realized without the climb was that the dome is actually a mosaic, which makes it all the more impressive to think about the time that must have went into completing it.



As for the art, I learned that I definitely appreciate sculpture more than paintings. The Sistine Chapel didn't impress me as much as I was expecting, and I felt kind of bad about that, but I really liked the sculpture collections at the Vatican Museum. My absolute favorite art was when we visited Galleria Borghese. Bernini's "Apollo and Daphne" just amazed me-as did "The Rape of Proserpina" and his version of David. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed to be taken there, so I don't have anything to explain with. I think that I could go on forever about the things that I loved about Rome-because I'm officially obsessed with the city. Hands down, it is my favorite city that I've ever been to.

It also made me realize what it is about Florence that I don't really like-it's almost completely void of current culture. I mean, the city is beautiful but with Rome, the old and the new blend together and the effect is amazing.

And, just because this is crazy to me: the 10 forecast for Florence doesn't drop below 93 degrees, sunny with a 0% chance of precipitation. EVERY SINGLE DAY. I have only seen it rain once here, and that was just a light shower the second day of being here. Crazy...