sunglasses - H&M / necklace - vintage, Secondskinstyle via etsy / tank - Anthropologie / purse - Athens tourist shop / wide leg jeans - Banana Republic / shoes - Toms
Saturday marked the start of Culture Week here in Italy, in which many museums and cultural institutions offer extended hours and free entry to the public (and into which we stumbled unawares, entirely by blind luck). We decided to make the most of it by visiting arguably* the most popular tourist destinations in the city - the Colosseum and the Forum. Despite my awful musical theater reference of a title (thanks, high school Emily!), nothing particularly funny happened on our way there, although we did develop a theory to explain the behavior of tourists at busy landmarks. It seems that as soon as you leave your home country, those around you cease to be 'people' and become 'physical obstacles,' to be shoved liberally as needed. A screaming red sunburn also seems to be the preferred style for American and British visitors; while the occasions upon which I've been mistaken for an Italian have been quite few, I've still been assiduously applying and reapplying my SPF+50 in hopes of at least being taken for a Swede.
Neither this outfit nor these high-contrast mid-day photos are particularly my favorite, but I'm still trying to get the hang of dressing for such suddenly warm weather. I picked up these new shades on a surprise trip to H&M last week - while they're probably not the most flattering to my face (nor anywhere near as beautiful as the RetroSuperFuture Ilarias of my dreams), it's nice to be able to switch things up a bit from my decrepit Wayfarer knockoffs.
In blog news, the wicked talented Katie of I Go by Katie wrote a sweet little feature about my blog on Friday, so be sure to check that out here (and get addicted to her pretty, pretty blog. I did.). I took a little time last night to copy my posts from Turkey over from my Tumblr to my archives here on Blogger, so now you can read them all here. I also went through over a month's worth of posts and updated my 'in the bag' page, where you can see just what's crammed into my suitcase right now and how I've worn it on the blog.
And to all my subscribers (including a lot of new readers - welcome!), I just wanted to say a little thank you; I have so been enjoying blogging as a creative and social outlet while traveling, and I am so ridiculously flattered by your sweet comments, tweets, emails, and support. I have been a fairly sucky correspondent in the few weeks, but rest assured - I want to internet hug you all.
*I say 'arguably,' because based on my entirely unscientific research, the most popular destination in Rome is the Vatican - but as the Vatican isn't technically 'in Rome,' one could argue that it doesn't count. Semantic footnotes are just fascinating, no?
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