Huntin' some treasure in Rome!

Friday was probably one of the most exciting days of this summer. It all began a few days ago when I was contacted by one my mother's client who needed help in organizing a surprise for her husband. She invited me for an apéritif at Hotel Eden, a five-star hotel just next to Villa Borghese and five minutes from Via Veneto and Piazza di Spagna. The restaurant and the bar is on the roof, with a breath-taking view on Rome.

Now this is a Royal entrance!

This is only a 1/6 of the whole view!!!

This is how the aperitif looks like. Delicious! For some more click on Le Meridien Hotels's flickr photostreaming here. So, back to the business. Here's what it was all about. Every year she has prepared something special for his birthday and this year wasn't an exception. She had a clever yet a risky idea to make a treasure-hunt in Rome. Everything was already planned , the only problem (due to the language) was to convince the people to play along to the game. That's where I came in. Additionally she asked me to be one of the treasures! So this is how I found myself at four o'clock in the afternoon at the Bar Brasile in piazza Venezia, swiping some champagne and waiting for the birthday-boy to show up with his friends.

L'Altare della Patria - a monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of unified Italy, on piazza Venezia. This was the view from the bar (below) where I had to wait. Not bad, huh?



This picture is taken from Google maps, thank God for Google!



Right after it I ran in Fontana di Trevi to leave a map in one of the oldest pharmacies in Rome called "Antica Farmacia Pesci"(click to see a picture of the interior). (This is the only public pharmacy which has conserved its original characteristics since Ancient Rome. The interiors are basically the same since 1552, the year in which it was established. The walls are probably covered by serpentinite, a type of green marble, and furniture in mahogany, I guess).



Anyways the phramacists were so excited to participate and couldn't wait to hear the four russian men pronounce a non-sense phrase - "I cavalli non sono animali pericolosi" (horses are unharmful animals) their joke of the year! Soon after my boyfriend walked me to my final spot - on Via Delle Quattro Fontane - to keep an eye on the "clue", which was sticked on the pale and to take care the boys head on in the right direction. I hid myself in the bar and Luca took care of everything. Their next stop was at Babington's Tea Room, just next to the Spanish Steps.



My final assignment was to make sure the chauffeur picked up the guys on time for a ride on a vintage car just before the dinner.




It' was fun, especially because I got to share it with my boyfriend. Soon it will be his birthday, I was thinking of doing something similar to him too (he won't read it because it's in english, no worries!). What has been the best surprise someone has ever organized for you on your birthday or for some other special occasion?!

My Friday is Saturday!

As most of you are preparing for Friday night out, I'm... preparing myself to go to sleep - I've got school tomorrow, not that cool at all. Ah, but no worries, tomorrow night will compense everything as I'll be going with my friends to the vernissage of "VELENO", an exhibition of two italian artists, DIAMOND and JB Rock, who mainly do stencils. It's held in the MondoPOP Gallery, in Via dei Greci 30. I'll be definitely taking some pictures, so be ready! In the meanwhile here is a track I've been listening a lot lately, from the Hed Kandi 88 Nu Disco album.

And now go and have a crazy night out !

Buongiorno

Hello everyone! Justed wanted to say good morning and share with you this wonderful picture my friend Kadri-Ann made of me about a week or more ago. I've got some more of me and more of her, I'll definitely share the rest of it with you soon enough. I decided to not blog as my mother and sister went to Estonia for a week and I had the house all for me! This happens so rarely! I was actually a little worried, I thought that I might be temptated by friends to go out and take the last of summer but then (un)fortunately I fell on the stairs and hurt my toe so bad I still can't walk normally. So.. that's why I took the whole week off to do some important things: as I'm hoping to get in the university in London (architecture) I needed to work on my drawings and stuff for the portfolio. I already "passed" the IELTS test, which I told you about, and for my surprise I got 7.5 as a result. I was really worried about it because I did find it difficult when I was preparing for it with the "Preparation Book for IELTS" and thank god I bought that book, wouldn't have done it without it. Recommending it warmly if you are about to take that test too. Now it's up to writing a good personal statement and then we'll see what life brings. Any tips from you guys? I'd be happy to get some advice from you. Running now, my mom is returning today and I need to tidy up a little. Really excited about it actually as she promised to bring some goodies from Estonia (black bread and chocolate!) plus a book and some other stuff.. In the meanwhile I wish you a pleasant day!

xxx

PS! I almost forgot, here's a nice track- push play and get the energy to start the day;)

Toned, tan, fit and ready, turn it up cause its gettin’ heavy

Yesterday my best friend Kadri-Ann arrived in Rome! Yesterday I was also supposed to find out my IELTS test results, I was anxious about it for days, but no news as the office is moving and "strangely" the online service doesn't work. Typical italian stuff.. Now I have to wait until I'm back from my second vacation. We are leaving already tomorrow, again with the ship. Although 16 hours of sailing is not a piece of cake (we refused to pay trillions for a miserable cabin), we thought we couldn't miss the legendary "Ghost Ship" experience. I can't wait to arrive in Sardegna, it's the second year we're going there and last year it was a blast! Check out what I'm talking about here! Anyways today we took it really easy, we had to catch up on so many things and so we went up on the roof to take some sun & chit chat. I wanted to share some stupid pictures we took, it's not so often that we get to do that! Tonight we're going to a beach party, in Ladispoli (again, click here to see pictures of the last one I organised), only this one is much bigger and more crowdy.. we'll see. Anyways sending you lots of sun and enjoy your summer!

Kadri-Ann

This is our vacation diary, we started it last year and god how funny it was to read it all over again. All the jokes and sensations suddenly came alive again.. Fantastic, we are gonna keep it this time too;)

I know a place where the grass is really greener

Warm, wet and wild,
there must be something in the water ..



Sipping gin and juice,
laying underneath the palm trees
The boys break their necks
trying to creep a little sneak peek at us ...


XXXX

Here's to Summer!

Ciao dolci miei! (my sweeties) I know it's been a while for now that I haven't been blogging seriously but school is finally over (officially tomorrow) and now I'll have all the time to post!!! I'm really excited about this summer, it promises to be one of the best ever, I wouldn't have expected though.. Summer starts for me already tonight- a friend of mine has a concert and then tomorrow night another friend of mine is playing with his band, tomorrow during the day time I'll be going at the beach to get some colour on my pale skin and then on Monday evening... we organized (me & my classmates) a beach party! I'm so happy because it's the second year we've been all together and we have never ever before managed to do something all together. It was quite hard in the beginning to get all of us together but we did it! So here's a little flayer I did, just to put some more excitement in the event and I hope I'll manage to take some cool pictures to post of the party here too.

(the boys went crazy for it, the girls didn't get it. I just imporvised by surfing amongst my fashion shoot "bank", this one is featuring Sasha Pivovarova for Vogue, I belive photographed by Inez Van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, and I love it!)

Besides all the vacations (which still are only theorically planned) and stuff I'll be dedicating all my time on painting, drawing, sketching, photographing and on all other things which imply creativity. Ohh.. I really can't wait, so we'll see, I hope to treat you with some real eye-candy on this blog!

How does your Summer promise to be?
xxxx

Chillin' and paparazzin' in the backstage

My friend Concetta asked me to come and help her on a photoshoot she was styling for. She and Kristina (the photographer) have been collaborating for a while now. Have a peek;)

The shoot was held at the Romeur Academy Studios. This where we actually met in the first place - a few years ago when the academy started a fashion & media oriented website I started writing articles for it and they both made part of the editing (Kristina is the editor in chief).

Concetta is showing the editorial which inspired her to the model.








Concetta posing for the light check.








The wardrobe. THE WARDROBE! Concetta was so lucky to get to borrow some pieces from our friend Emanuele's private collection. I'm telling you, I think I haven't seen someone more obsessed with fashion than he is. So we have here some pieces of Hussein Chalayan, Stella McCartney, Margiela and last but not least Prada (the fur jacket you see below). Plus the bags- LV,Fendi, YSL, ..








This is the model- Danilo. Though he's not a professional model, he's natural charm and charisma filled the whole room the minute he walked in. He didn't notice I was taking a photo of him - I love his profile! And that hair...




Kristina is a great photographer, she knew exactly which buttons to push to get the right attitude out of the model. Would like to be photographed by her one fine day myself too, maybe:)




As soon as Danilo noticed me, he took one of his zoolanderish poses and Kristina stopped him right away, telling him not to do THAT on the shoot..
























Everybody, this is Concetta presenting Fendi.












Everybody, this is Danilo presenting The Muse (YSL).




















I ADORED THESE PANTS.







With Kristina not seeing him, Danilo does not lose the chance to pull off some other of his zoolanderish poses...







;)

Thanks to Kristina and Concetta, it was a blast.

.. and suddenly everything feels right

no big talking today:
Today was/is one of those days when nothing seems to go right. I guess the sun isn't illuminating my sixth house rightly or Mars is positioned badly- I always blame it on the stars. It's kinda easier to have an excuse when things aren't going well, don't you think? But an excuse won't do alone. You need a thing, a trick which makes the blue cloud vanish away. For me it's music. Amazing how it works sometimes: listening to the right song is like taking a pill and pufff! the stress is gone. This one saved me today:

What's your "anti-stress pill" (and if it's music then which is your song) ?

PS! If you're looking for a good horoscope online check out elle.com, they've got daily, weekly and monthly predictions and trust me, very often they get it right!

A casual night out in Rome (and few tips for choosing a good restaurant)

Yesterday me and my family went to eat in a restaurant which my mom just discovered, thanks to her job. She organizes personalized vacations in Rome and always wants to test the restaurants she's suggested, before sending her clients there.

This restaurant is called Trattoria Pizzeria Fiammetta and it's just a few steps from Piazza Navona, one of the most famous squares in the Rome city-center. I think at the moment it enters in my personal top 3 list (the other two I definitely recommend are Il Chianti, near Fontana di Trevi (the most famous fountain in Rome) and Taverna Trilussa, in Trastevere.) Italian cuisine is already good and it's kinda hard to find a place where you eat badly, anyway it's always better to know where are you going to eat (either you've been suggested by a friend or have done a research on Trip Advisor, one of the best sites for this kind of information). In Rome it's very easy to fall in a typical tourist-trap. Because usually after a long day of walking you're willing to sit down at the first table which gets on your way, and belive me, if you were having some doubts about the place in the beginning, after 2 minutes you'll be already ordering, all thanks to the smooth-talking waiter who well knows his job, read: has the perfect eye for catching the tired and hungry tourists like you! That said, keep in mind the better the service seems and the better looking is the place, the more probably the food isn't so good at all. The restaurant thing is totally upside-down here: the best places in town can very often have a really bad service and they seem not to care about the interiors or atmosphere at all (which in my opinion is so important!). Why? The reason is quite simple: they just can aloud it. People keep on coming back for the food and there is no need for change. Oh, and another tip for choosing a restaurant: try to see if there're any italians in the place, in the absence don't even bother. Usually the best ones are always full of locals, through the week.

So, Fiammetta was good. It served the typical italian food, done very easily and deliciously! Everything just seemed to melt in mouth! Only thing I could complain about a little was the interiors, but let's just leave it aside. I always have something to say about the interiors!:) Compared to other restaurants, it was quite sophisticated and clean. The prices weren't so high too and the desserts were breathtakingly goood! Enough of talking, here are the pictures, also from the Piazza Navona.

On our way back home... oh Rome I'm gonna miss you a lot, even though I'll be away only for a month! It's crazy how you've become part of me! (what happens if I need to go to uni in another city? let's not hink about it!)