...Do As The Roman's Do, Duh!

Alright, so i left off with us collapsing onto the couch! After much relaxing Rachel and I started making dinner. It was her night to make dinner, and so we started dicing! She was making this kind of thai noodles! A curry type thing! It was delicious and lots of fun cutting up all the veggies. I know that sounds silly, but as you know i'm not really a veggie person, but i hate everything and it was super super yummy! :D

Then after dinner we raced off to the Roma International Film Festival! Now, it was FREEZING! Seriously, it was so cold. We were both shocked because it had been a nice day, but waiting for that bus was torture ;) But eventually we got on the bus and got to the Festival! There were so many people there and lots crowed around that Red Carpet! We obviously assumed we'd see lots of Italian Movie stars...and there were rumours that we'd see Meryl Streep (but alas we did not). So we were waiting and we saw this HUGE crowd of people enter and this woman with sort blonde hair (see picture below). She's in the LONG black dress. Now at the time we didn't really notice her.

We didn't recognize anyone so we decided to head over to the bookstore and then walked around a bit. Finally we made our way to the theatre. There were long glass windows that looked out into the main part of the red carpet and this woman in black was standing in the center getting her photo taken by a group of photographers. We stopped and watched for a while. Rachel turned to me and said,"Tierney...i think that's Helen Mirren..." And i just laughed and said "Rache, that's not Helen Mirren...she must be an Italian Actress we just don't know and looks a little like Helen Mirren!"

Fake Helen Mirren

Then she headed inside the doors (right by us) with her entourage! I thought it might be fun to go see and take some pictures of this "Fake Helen Mirren" and as we reached the crowd, she came in and everyone around us called out " 'Elen! 'Elen! Over here!"  I turned, shocked to Rachel and said " OMG Rachel, She's NOT fake! I think you're right, it's the real Helen Mirren!"

You can kind of tell, but this is the best shot i got.

So funny! So after our quick little shot of Helen, we headed off to the theatre! (Also, solidified our Helen Mirren hypothesis because her film was showing at the festival at that time!)

The theatre was HUGE and really comfy! Then we got to see Terry Gilliam and Lily Cole (the lead female in the film) walk RIGHT past us! How neat! And after a round of applause for Terry, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Lily Cole

...can't really tell but thats Terry Gilliam!

Terry Gillam again!

So the movie was crazy, but what else would you expect from Terry? But did like it! I really loved Heath, of course but i was most impressed with this young man named Andrew Garfield:

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He plays Anton and i really loved him. Not only is he adorable, but he's a great actor. I couldn't place HOW i knew him for the first 20 minutes of the film (it drove me INSANE) but then i got it. He was in the movie i saw at Cinestudio (Trinity's Movie theatre) called Boy A. I loved this film, i've very moving and he is brilliant. I remember seeing and thinking, i cannot wait to see what else this kid turns out. As we walked home all i could think of his how encouraging it is to see a young actor, doing so well! After doing a little research i found out he went to the Central School of Speech and Drama! (This is one of the most prostigous drama schools in London, and also the same school my beloved Sarah is studing at right now!) So that's pretty awesome!

It was a pretty exciting experience being at an International Film Festival! Lots of fun! And then, we took the long journey home. We were FREEZING! It was rather comic looking back on it, but at the time it was agony! We had to wait for two buses, and they took forever! We almost took a cab like 30 times...and when we got off the last time we ran to this little coffee shop that was still open and i snagged a warm hot coco, which was delicous. Then we finally trudged home, complaining about the bitter cold, wondering where the warmth had disappeared off too :(

The next morning Rachel and i headed back to Campo for some yummy breakfast. She had class from 11-1 so i decided to walk around myself. We had croissants and hot chocolate and then i began my walk about. First i went back to the Trevi fountain. There is a street full of vendors before you get to it, and as i walked along i bought some postcards, this beautiful glass beaded bracelet and some presents for people ;) Then i finally got to the fountain, It's just so beautiful! :)

Then i decided to walk over to the Pantheon again, and i went back in then got some Gelato and sat in the square. It such a warm and lovely day. I got the same caramel/Baileys combo from before. yum yum ;)

And last i went back to this big italian bookshop we walked past getting to Rachel's studio! It was huge, and really fun to look at all the italian books. I attempted to read some back covers but didn't get too far. Then i met rachel back at the studio and we got some panini's to go. (Actually panini is the the plural, you would say i got a panino. Oh us silly americans).

Then i hopped on the train, got a little lost finding my next train station and walked up a scary street, but i eventually found it and got on the train that took me to the airport. And after that it was smooth sailing! :D I flew home, customs was a breeze and then i finally got to relax.

I loved every minute of my Rome trip, and it was just so lovely to get to spend so much time with Rachel! She gave me the best tour, i got to see so much and we had a blast! But now I'm back into the full swing of things. This weekend we're heading up north to see...well i'm not sure what we're seeing but i'm sure it's going to be great. Although it's going to be FREEZING this weekend. We'll see how that goes. And i'll be sure to chat about my little trip to the National Portrait Gallery. It was so fun, i found it very inspiring!

Cheers, T