Cleansing Fire

Defending Truth and Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church

Last Hurrah of Summer Break

September 3rd, 2010, Promulgated by Ink

Wow, I’ve had a chaotic summer.  And I’ve been sitting on a very awesome post for something like two months now–finally, I get a chance to put it out there.  Consider this my last hurrah, a denial of the end of the glorious gift to students known as “summer vacation.”

Right after school let out, my mom and sister and I went to ITALY~!  Where I took a bajillion pictures (mostly of places and quite a few “arty” shots).  I have gleaned some of the best of these pictures to post here with commentary.  We spent not-quite-three full days in Rome (so two nights), then about two days in Florence, almost two days in Venice, and then an overnight in Milan.  Eight crazy whirlwind days of AWESOME.

Thus we embarked on our crazy journey to meet up with some friends there (they’re basically family).  So, armed with my fancy new camera (my birthday is riiiight towards the end of the school year–end of June), I set out to document absolutely everything about this trip.  Below are some dozen or so, selected from over 150–and those are just mine.  My mom took over a thousand.  (Don’t ask my sister if she took pictures.  She takes pride in her measly fifty-five.  Over eight days.)

Trevi Fountain in the daytime.

You know, they say that if you throw a coin into Trevi Fountain, it means you’ll be coming back to Rome.  ‘Course, that doesn’t excuse the zoo of tourists.

Trevi Fountain at night~ (I threw in a coin.)

The Vatican--we went to a general audience with the Pope.

It was so, so hot… and I’d forgotten a hat… I got sunburnt.  Blast that sun.  Blast my pasty-white-nerd-skin.  They don’t mix well.  But it was totally more than worth it!  (By the way, never let anyone say that Americans are the loudest.  Poles win, hands-down.)

At the General Audience. Check out Il Papa, rockin' the red straw sunhat. You rock that hat, Papa Ben. ^_^

Maybe if I’d asked, he’d have let me borrow it. >_>  A chapel veil has too many holes in it to keep the sun off my head.  (Yes, I tried.)

Recognize this? =P (Basilica San Pietro.)

The Duomo in Florence. So beautiful... <3

Florence is an architect’s dream, if you just look around…

View from the bridge in Florence... I love the mirror-effect the water has.

Venezia~

Okay, I joke about buying a boat and moving to Venice so I don’t have to deal with road traffic… it’s not so much a joke now.  I love Venice.

More Venice, my new favourite city (though Rochester comes in at a close second).

The above and below pictures are taken from Venice’s famous Rialto Bridge.  These are overlooking the Grand Canal on each side of the bridge.

Even more Venice! I really love it as a city. It's so beautiful...

Milan's Duomo, the church of San Carlos Borromeo. With its white marble facade, it is exceptionally striking at night--which is when this picture was taken.

And last but not least, check out what I found in a bookstore while waiting for the parents to get train tickets! (For you, Ben. =P)

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8 Responses to “Last Hurrah of Summer Break”

  1. Mike says:

    Great photos, especially the panoramas!

  2. Ink\'s Mum says:

    Great pics, kid! I want to go back to Italy!

  3. Ink says:

    Mike: that was my favourite feature of my shiny new camera. ^^ I LOVE panorama shots now.

    Mum: No kidding. I miss the coffee!!

  4. Mike says:

    Speaking of panoramas, are you aware of AutoStitch? It’s a free program from the University of British Columbia that I have been using for about 3 years now.

    You just stand in one spot, take a series of pictures overlapping each other by about 1/3, feed the whole group into the program and let it do its magic.

    The UBC website has several examples you can examine and I have some of my own available here, here, here, here and here.

  5. Ink says:

    Mmm… I think I heard about it a while ago while some friends and I were working on a virtual world. We tried to figure out how to create and upload a virtual Aquinas… it didn’t work as well as it should’ve, but we found that site. Thanks though, it should come in handy~ ^_^

  6. Mike says:

    Ink,

    I forgot to include this one. I was actually following the seaplane and just kept shooting. When I got home I realized I could put together a panorama with the same seaplane showing up in 3 different locations.

  7. Ink says:

    That’s awesome! I especially love the sunset one. So pretty~ <3

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