Pretzels, Science, and Dachau

Coffee and pastry break

Part of Marienplatz Square from the top of St. Peter's

Surprisingly, Prague wasn't nearly as scary at 4:30 in the morning. We easily found out train headed for Munich, Germany and while I had planned to get more sleep on the train that didn't happen. Paige on the other quickly passed out. I discovered on this trip that that girl can sleep wherever, whenever, in whatever position. But I enjoyed watching the sunrise and watching the houses fly by. We arrived in Munich around 11 and found the train station there to be HUGE (like mall status) and so we ate lunch there. After of course buying a map (number one activity when getting into a new city), we headed to our hostel. Yes, I said hostel... not hotel. A hostel is an establishment that provides cheap (well.. usually. We found in Prague that the hotel was actually cheaper) food and lodging for a specific group of people. This was a youth hostel and therefore housed mostly traveling students. You can choose to sleep in a dorm like setting with people you don't know or spend a bit more for a private room. In Munich we chose a private room but later in Interlaken we went dorm room style. Our room wasn't ready so we left our bags in the luggage room (another nice option in hostels) and headed towards Marienplatz Square to look around.

Paige and I on top of St. Peter's

There was SO much shopping in Munich. Many stores that I felt under dressed just walking into. We climbed St. Peter's tower which was really fun and nice break from looking in store windows and feeling a bit lost. In my travels as of late, I've decided that getting up high to view the city is almost a must. For one it's almost always beautiful. Secondly, it helps you orientate yourself and have a better idea of how to get around the city. We explored inside Frauenkirche cathedral and fought the urge to sing and try out the acoustics. It was a very relaxed afternoon of just wondering around the city. We weren't in too much of a rush since we new we'd have the whole day tomorrow to go to the specific places we'd planned out. We found a cool outdoor market with various booths which included a pastry tent where we bought chocolate covered banana's.

Deutsches Museum

We ate dinner at Hofbrauhous, which is a traditional inn and restaurant (and is said to be the oldest restaurant still in business). It wasn't what we expected but it was really fun. Although, I think the setting would have been better in a larger group. It was huge, loud, very busy and only had big booths of which small groups had to share with other small groups. The beers were HUGE and it was comical to see so many different types of people holding such a large mug. After dinner we walked back towards the main part of town to explore some more (we walk A LOT but the bus tickets in town were expensive and 24 hrs at a time so we'd decided to wait to get one til the next morning).

The next morning we had breakfast at our hostel and met an interesting and experienced traveler named Pierry. After picking up some tips from him and experiencing the usual "You're crazy for traveling so many places in a week" reaction we said goodbye, checked out of our hostel, left our packs in the baggage room and headed to Deutsches Museum. We had some good expectations but we didn't expect to spend 3 hours there and still not get to see everything we wanted to! It is one of the oldest science and technology museums in the owrld and had loads of galleries on a wide range of subjects. Just to name a few we looked at: shipping/marine navigation, photography/film, pharmaceutics, power machinery, solar and alternative power, and astronomy. Luckily, many of the exhibits had English translations but for the few that didn't we had fun making up what the machine was.... we encountered a lot of time machines. ;)

After lunch in the train station and German pretzel (they were sold everywhere and were extremely good) we headed to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. We made it just in time for the English showing of the Dachau documentary and then we walked around the concentration camp reading various plaques. I wish we'd had more time there. we walked around were the barracks used to be and multiple memorials. We sang in the empty Christian church also built as a memorial and only got part way through the museum when they kicked us for closing time. The main building at the camp (where the museum is located now) is still standing and was built by the first prisoners of the camp. The whole experience was heart wrenching. I'd learned so much about the holocaust growing up that actually standing in what used to be a concentration camp was mind blowing for me.

On our way back into the main part of town we went grocery shopping for the next day because we'd be in Switzerland which is the most expensive country we'd be in (a double cheeseburger at McDonald's will cost you about $8.50). After that we went to the English Gardens to find a place to eat (which by the way is a garden where nudity is legal... it was at night and cold though so we didn't see or participate) but the restaurants were a bit fancy for what we wanted so we ate at another traditional restaurant in town. We walked around town some more and enjoyed the night life and also spent some time talking to people in the bar at our hostel. Around 11:30 pm we boarded our train to Interlaken, Switzerland.

Street Musicians

These are the musicians from Charles Bridge that I talked about in my last blog.

"I'm impressin him with my Praha hat"

Inside the Prague Castle

Prague (Praha), Czech Republic 
Paige and I arrived in Prague, Czech Republic around 8:30 p.m. There shouldn't be many creepers or drunks out at 8:30, right?... it's early... not even bedtime for the middle schoolers. Wrong. We walked out of the train station after getting a map, a bus ticket, and directions to our hotel and that was just about the only kind of people out. We started in the wrong direction but quickly caught it when we stepped inside a hotel to ask if we were headed in the right direction. The people got fewer as we got closer to our hotel which was good because there were less creepers but bad in the sense that it was scarier when you came across one. The woman who had sold us our map had highlighted two different streets on that map and my google map... soooo not knowing which to follow, we again headed in the wrong direction. We fixed it though and made it to our hotel around 9:30ish. Which is early in the world of a college student but we were completely content locking ourselves in our room for the rest of the night.

View of the city from the castle

Prague the next morning looked a whole lot better! Thank goodness. We knew some things we wanted to see but hadn't done a whole lot of research on where to go in Prague so it was awesome when we found one of Rick Steve's books for Prague in the lobby and were able to check it out for the day. First we went to visit the Prague Castle... and took the scenic route to get there. The castle was impressive. It had multiple time periods wrapped up in it and had everything from a Cathedral to Royal Quarters to dungeons to a museum just about castle life through the ages. It was also high on a hill so it gave us a stunning view of the city. We spent all morning there and ate lunch at one of it's multiple restaurants. The castle also had a toy museum that we wanted to see but after discovering it cost more and remembering all the other things in Prague we wanted to see we left for the Jewish Courter.

Jewish Cemetery

I was a bit skeptical of buying our tickets in the Jewish Courter. They were kinda expensive and I wasn't sure how interesting a bunch of synagogues would be. It turned out to be pretty cool. The cemetery was overflowing with tombstones and small building on the side had the names of Jews killed in the holocaust covering it's walls. Staggering. The synagogues were filled with artifacts of the Jewish culture which are rare due to the holocaust. We actually read in one synagogue that the reason these are still standing is because Hitler was planing on using them as a museum for the extinct race!

Astronomical clock

Next we walked to the Old Town Square where we got some yummy apple pastries and saw the astronomical clock. From there we walked to Charles Bridge where there were street musicians and artists. Paige and I both have decided that one of our favorite parts of Europe is the street musicians and we always try to through a euro in there can. They just bring so much ambiance to our traveling experience. The sun was also setting while we there... unintentionally good timing yet not unappreciated. We took a short bus ride down to the Dancing House (a modern funny shaped building by the river). We then stumbled across a cute little coffee shop run by the most adorable old couple. They spoke little English but were so welcoming and kind. It was early in the evening but we were exhausted and decided to eat a cheap dinner by doing a bit of grocery shopping near our hotel and then going to bed early since we had a 5 am train the next day. Paige and I had a fun night joking around and had already created multiple inside jokes before falling asleep. One of which including how awesome her Prague hat was that she'd bought that day and how it would impress multiple men in the future.

While Prague started out a bit rough it was really good overall. It's a unique city that was simply fun to walk through.

Sunset from Charles Bridge

Venice and Salzburg

Paige and I outside the Villa right before we left

Again, I apologize for long gaps between posts. It's so hard to explain how busy we are and what it's like. It will be weird when I'm back in the states and not constantly going or doing something new. Free travel was a great experience. All 34 people here at HUF split up in groups and chose where they wanted to go. My friend Paige Spiller and I were the smallest group. That in itself taught us so much. I told her I think around day 4 or 5 that it hit me that I'd never spent that long with just one person. 24 hours a day, everyday for 6 days. AND under the stress of being in completely different cultures and places that we don't understand. So, considering all that... you'd think it'd be tough to get along but in all honesty we did awesome. Sure we got annoyed and grumpy at points but as a whole we grew closer and learned a lot.

A reacquiring theme we encountered when talking to locals and fellow travelers was that they thought we were crazy for trying to go so many places in such a short amount of time. In general, I agree. There is no way you can truly experience any of the cities we went to in a day. We have Eurail passes though... which is what justified it all in my mind. We were required to buy them for the semester and cost us 7 or 8 hundred dollars. They make it so we can jump on most trains and not need to get any other ticket. We might as well take that opportunity to get a taste of several places.

Venice, Italy

We left for Venice, Italy from Florence at 2:25. We're used to this train station so it was easy to find where we needed to go. The stressful part was when I went to use the ATM right before getting on the train my debt card wouldn't work. I got on the train with a little over 100 euro (not nearly enough to get me through the week) and freakin out a tad. But after making some phone calls to my parents and getting a number for a Regions customer service worker and after losing her once when going through a tunnel we finally got it worked out. Sigh of relief.

We got into Venice around 5:00 (a little later than planned because there was an extra train we had to take that we didn't know about it). We were bubbling with excitement as we walked out of the train station. We'd decided to keep our packs with us the whole time since we'd only be there about 5 hours. When we had bought our map the information worker had point out to us the main attraction which was Piazza de San Marco. I think we enjoyed the walk there, I think, more than the actually Piazza. The streets were much as I had imagined them. Twisted and turned and where tight and crowded at times and then would open up to a square of sorts or a water street/canal. Shops with tons of character were sprinkled everywhere. We saw so many pastry, jewelry, glass, and mask shops. If you veer of the main streets it's pretty easy to get lost, which we did but were pretty quick to fix our mistake.  I was so amused by the doors that just sat above the waters edge.
Once in San Marco Piazza we looked around a bit and then sat to eat the sack dinner the lovely Italian ladies at our villa had made us. It was fun to people watch and look out into the water. Piazza de San Marco has one edge of it that is open to a body of water that I think is called Laguna Veneta. We ran into another group from HUF and chatted with them for a bit and then slowly began to work our way back towards the train station. We stopped to buy postcards and souvenirs. We also took some time to buy some pastries. Paige had a cannoli which is a fried tub shaped pastry filled with flavored cream. When she said she was getting a cannoli I thought she was getting pasta... haha that's the only kind of cannoli I'd heard of. I had some kind of hard meringue pastry that I'd never seen before (which in the picture is the white whip cream looking thing on the second to bottom shelf). After sitting by a canal for a bit and chatting we went to catch our 9:18 train to Salzburg, Austria. On night trains you have the option of getting a bed in a compartment that holds I think 6. That costs extra though so we thought we'd try it without. It worked out pretty nicely. The trains sometimes have compartments of 6 chairs (being from a country that doesn't use trains that much my first thought at this setup was Harry Potter haha). We found an empty one and were able to spread out across 3 seats.

Salzburg, Austria

Paige in part of the Marabell Gardens

So our night train worked out... for the most part. Our mistake was choosing one that arrived in Salzburg at 4 am. While lots of big city train stations are nice and have heating, chairs, shops, and even beds you can rent... this small town train station had non of the above. It was freezing cold, nothing was open and there weren't even chairs in the main part (aka the safe part) of the train station to sit. After wondering around contemplating what to do (we even checked hotel lobbies to see if we could possibility sit in the lobby for a while but they were all closed) we ended up huddled up on the floor in a corner of the train station for about about 3 hours. Once a nearby dinner opened at 7 we went in to have breakfast and get some coffee. We went to check in the information booth and discovered in didn't open until 9. Well, we didn't want to wait around for 2 more hours so we found a free map in one of the hotels and went off to try to find the sites on our own.

Stiegl-Brauwelt Brewery

To make a long story short, we should have gone back at 9 to get more information. We didn't find the best part of town until finally did go back around 11 and were told how to get there. On our own we found Marabell gardens were part of the Sound of Music was filmed but a lot of the stuff (such as the steps where they sang Do, Re, Mi) we wanted to see was gated off for some reason. We went into the birth place of Mozart. We walked around town a bit but many of the shops were closed due to it being a Sunday. When we went back to the info booth we were told about the Stiegl-Brauwelt Brewery. It was kind of the saving grace of the day! It was HUGE and we had the best hamburgers we'd ever had in our lives. The waitress and waiters were dressed in old fashion outfits and were fun. We wish we would have time to take the tour but we had to make it back to the station to catch our 2:10 train to Prague, Czech Republic.

Of our 6 days of travel, I'd say Salzburg was probably our roughest (in rival with only one other day). It wasn't a bad day... we still had fun and got to see some cool things. It probably didn't help that it was a pretty gloomy day with not much sunshine. I think I also had some high expectations for Salzburg. I'd heard LOTS of good things about it from friends that have come to HUF in the past. Most of them went on the Sound of Music tour though... maybe that was our mistake. We'd decided not to do it because while we both like Sound of Music neither of us are huge fans and it was pretty expensive. But we heard from some others in our group that the tour showed a lot of the pretty parts of the area that didn't necessarily have to do with the musical. The train ride from Salzburg to Prague was interesting! Something as simple as their houses were fun to look at because they're so different from ours.


Alright, that's the overview of Venice and Salzburg. More to come. :)

Marabell Gardens

Rome Reflection

Wow. I'm back in the Villa after a week of backpacking around Europe. It was absolutely amazing. I'm still not caught up on all this blogging stuff! Sooo, I thought I'd throw up a reflection on our Rome trip that I did for my bible class. We went as a group for a couple days and it was so terrific. Then I won't completely skip that since I'd love to dive into my week in five different countries.

Rome Reflection

            Well, if I wasn’t in love with Italy before, Rome did it. The feel of Rome was quite romantic and charming yet held so much power and history. I loved it. Walking through the streets you could find just about every range on the spectrum when it came to people. The amount of things to see and learn about was overwhelming. We saw so many great works of art and architecture in such a short amount of time, everything from the Sistine Chapel to the Pantheon to the cool side alleys full of character. While standing in the Pantheon I had a thought, “Here I am, some small town girl from Missouri, standing in the Pantheon. How many things have gone down in this one building? How much history created and how much of it affected who I am and where I am today?” The thought continued to occur as I stood in the Colosseum, the Vatican City, and the Roman forum ancient ruins, and the list goes on.

            Some things in Rome I was expecting and others I didn’t see coming at all and it blew me away. For example, already knowing quite a bit about the Colosseum and what went on there I expected to feel something crazy as I stood on the lowest level they allow and looked up into what would have been seating for the crowds. What would it have felt like for all those seats to be filled with people who hated me because of my faith in the Almighty? What would have felt like to look into the eyes of lion right before it tore me to pieces for the entertainment of people? If I had lived in that time period, would I be one of those strong, faithful, and courageous Christians? I sure hope so. An experience I wasn’t expecting was the emotions that ran through me when we stood in a small dark room deep in the ground that used to be a house church and could have been the room the church read Paul’s Roman letter. It was a whole other world down there. It was mind blowing to discover it below another time period and a church that was built on top of it. As we sang to the Lord and our voices echoed throughout I couldn’t help but smile and thank the Lord for those Christians and their desire to search after Him. It was stirring to listen as Robbie read some of Romans to us and I contemplated those Christians and what life would have been like as they received this word from Paul.

            Seeing and learning about the culture in which Paul helped begin the spread of Christianity was influential without a doubt. While sometimes it was hard to look at the ruins and imagine the city it used to be, it still brought so much of what I’ve learned about to life. It was interesting to compare the idea that Paul dealt with paganism as we contend with the “alternative” lifestyle. He faced strict religion of the Pharisees (and once was one!) that was void of relationship with the Lord just as we wrestle with idea of relationship over religion today. It was weighty to think about the lives of that time as we walked through some of the catacombs of Rome and the tour guided pointed out Christians symbols showing that Christians were buried there. People like us, Christians like us, in a different a time and place.

            Overall, the trip was awe-inspiring and I feel like I learned and experienced a great deal. It was one of those moments where you’re reminded that you know so little compared to what there is to learn. It was unreal at times and obviously something I will always remember. I thought it would be nice to sum this all up with the one main thing I took away from the trip, but I’m not sure I can do that. The categories of which I learned in were so wide spread: spiritual, historical, cultural, and personal. So I’ll just end by saying that I’m so grateful for not only our trip to Rome but also this experience in Italy all together. I’m sure it will be impacting me for years to come.

Not Enough Hours in a Day

We're so busy. Every time I sit down to blog I don't even know where to start, what to talk about and what to leave out. There's just so much to talk about: my experience, the group dynamic, and what I'm learning (academically, culturally, and spiritually).

Valentine's Day: We had classes all morning but then for lunch Mona and Kyle put some things together. They completely decked out the dinning room, complete with candles, confetti, valentines, neat little bread sticks, banners, and themed napkins. Once all the ladies were sitting down the gentlemen of the group all came in holding roses. They sang "My Girl" to us except replaced "my girl" with "HUF girls." I don't think there was a girl in the room not smiling. After we each received a rose we ate spaghetti and enjoyed each others company. We had the afternoon and night free. There were quite a few couples going out for dinner and some groups of all girls. I decided to take the time to head out in the nice weather with my hammock and have some alone time. Which I know sounds lame for Valentine's Day but alone time here is few and far between! Living in a villa with 30 some peers (more than half being female) and a family of 4... let's just say things are pretty chaotic. The villa dinner group was small but fun and afterwords we all watched a movie together. To top of my wonderful day, I had an interview with Climb Nashville for a job this summer over skype. I found out yesterday that I got the job!!! I'm so thrilled, this falls under the dream summer job category.

Since that night I haven't even had time to write in my journal. On the 15th we went to Sante Croce, a Gothic style church here in Florence. It's known as the Italian Westminster Abbey. It holds many important works of art and has over 300 tombs, two of which being Michelangelo and Galileo! Michelangelo's tomb is to the left. It was sooooo cold. I was excited and interested in what we were learning but the cold made it so hard to take notes and pay attention. The day before had been so pretty so I hadn't dressed as warmly as I should've.

We also went to the Bargello that day which is now a museum but was the first public place in Florence. We saw works by Michelangelo, Donatello, and Brunelleschi. I would love to go back and spend more time there. I saw art students sketching statues by Michelangelo and wanted so badly to join them. For dinner we went to this little place were it said that an artist lived who was friends with Michelangelo and they probably had a few meals in the very room we ate in. The food was amazing (pasta of course).

Well, I'm out of time for now. Hopefully tomorrow I can set aside some time to catch up some more!

Abetone, Language Lessons, and Gelato

The past week has been jam packed with either classes and studying or our ski trip to Abetone in the Apennines. The bus ride to and from Abetone was gorgeous. Both times I listened to worship music on my iPod and was left in awe at the grandeur of the mountains and ultimately the Lord of all who created them.

Skiing for the first time was lots of fun, of course not at first because I was falling more than skiing. Lynn and I spent the first two days on the bunny slopes and then on day three headed up the mountain to try and easy slope. It was nice to have a break from school and to get out of Scandicci/Florence and see a bit more of Italy. Although at the end of day three I think we were all ready to be back at the Villa.

Italian class hit us hard when we got back. I studied for a about 3 hours for our Italian "quiz" and still did horrible. Class has little structure to it and I'm finding it hard to make sense of things and keep up. I was in the villa all day Friday and got a bit restless studying all day so after classes on Saturday a group of us went shopping in Florence. Funny moments of the trip would include almost being knocked over by a man running/galloping across the street while screaming and twirling a hat. I also sprinted after a bus that all of us but Paige London failed to get on. Her face at the realization that she was on it alone was priceless!

Today for Italian class we went to the Scandicci high school to give/receive English/Italian lessons. I absolutely loved it. First off, it was interesting to see the culture differences and what things will probably always be the same about high school despite the culture. Secondly, I probably learned more with my new friend Silvia today than I have in any of our Italian classes here at the villa.

I've heard this is the coldest winter Florence has experienced in 50 some years! Today, though, it was much better so Lynn, Jordan, and I decided to take advantage of it and go walk around Florence. We found a cool toy shop and got some gelato (ice cream... except better!).

The high school students we worked with earlier today came to the villa for dinner! It was wonderful! We were able to talk more with them and learn language and culture. The girl table that I was at had conversation that went everywhere from boys to shopping to hobbies to Lady Gaga to pronouncing "gli" (it's so hard for English speakers and they get a kick out of listening to us try). 

I feel like we've been here so much longer than just 2 weeks. I think it's because we've learned and experienced so much in that short time period. It will be interesting to see how much we've grown and how different we are in two months!

The streets of Florence speak

If I thought Scandicci was cool... Florence is beyond words. Scandicci is nice because it's not touristy and more of a nice family town. Florence is so much bigger than imagined it and absolutely FILLED with history, culture, and art that is so foreign to me. I feel a million miles away from my last entry a week ago. We've been going, going, going so much. Between classes, onsite classes, tours, studying, and trying to take advantage of any large chuck of free time we have by going into town... by the time I get back to the villa I'm exhausted.

Our first trip into Florence mostly involved just walking around while Robbie gave us an overview of the things we were seeing and the city itself. One particular place we went was the San Miniato al Monte church. It was a pretty place on the hillside overlooking Florence. We went inside and sang a couple of hymns together. The acoustics gave me the chills. I closed my eyes and let our voices wash over me as I thanked the Lord for this amazing adventure he's given me. Later we saw the Ponte Vecchio for the first time. I think that's always been my first thought when it came to Italy because of the ridiculous amount of paintings of it. So it was marvelous to actually see it and then walk across it looking into all the shop windows.

The wind is insanely cold. It rolls across the hills and whips between the architectural wonders in the city. Especially around the Duomo... on the day we toured the Duomo I couldn't even hear the person next to me talk unless they're yelling. While it makes navigating through the city a bit miserable at times I'm still as happy as a clam.

Our first onsite class was the Duomo. It was worked on my a couple architects but the one who gets the most credit is Brunelleschi because of his feat of the largest free standing dome in the world (and still is to this day!). The whole religious center left us in awe. The inside of Duoma was painted by Giorgio Vasari and his company. It's huge and leaves your neck cramping from starring upward for so long. Painting of biblical figures are scattered on the walls of the cathedral. The Baptistry, an interesting octagonal shape, has a mosaic on it's dome of colored glass and gold foil. So much talent, history, and culture. I was completely overwhelmed.

I wish I could go into more detail about each day and it's events. We visited the Piggy Market which is an outdoor market that is really popular among tourists. Yesterday we had a scavenger hunt in smaller groups around the city of Florence. It really helped us get an idea of where things are and how to get around the city. The map is essential! Last Sunday we probably had some of the best pasta I've ever tasted.

Yesterday we had some Italian guest speakers, Costanza and Debora, come talk to us about an organization called OMA. To try and summarize it, they are working at preserving the culture and talents of artisans of the Florentine guilds. One of the guest speakers while talking about how the guild shields are still to this day around the city, hanging on street corners and imprinted in building. After a class on the history of guilds and how they fit into modern day now... especially how they struggle, we met up in Florence to visit some of the artisans. We passed by a shoe maker, paper maker, jewelers (which was actually an old convent where all the artisan jewelers try to stay together to survive). I thought of my Papa a lot during our class and tour. The organization sound like something he would be in support of it. You see, this organization wants to bring awareness to the significance of being able to buy quality items that are handmade in a traditional way. You can own something that is one of kind and made my someone who has artistic ability rather than by a machine in a factory. On our trip through town we got to meet with a mask and wig maker. He was amusing. His looks were unique, a mix of an actor face and pure Italian. He had a big nose, large wrinkles under is eyes, long hair that curled on the end, and wore a tight black turtleneck. He explained that his business had been in his family for 300 yrs! And is son is the 9th generation. We were shown how the wigs are made and what kind of masks he makes. The history of the business goes from making the white wigs like our American forefathers to the masks and wigs of modern day film industry. I haven't uploaded those pictures yet, but I'd like to put a picture of him up for you to see.

 Debora said, "The streets of Florence speak." We just have to pay attention. There is so much culture, history, and beauty... we have to take the time to learn so that we don't just end up passing through like the majority of tourists. The learning we're doing gives us the appreciation of what we have been blessed to see and experience.

Vorrei un cappuccino

I'm not sure where to start. Italy is much as I pictured it and had seen from art and photographs... warm color painted architecture, tall skinny pines, rolling hills, lots of orchards, cobble stone streets, and plenty of pasta and pizza joints. My flights were good. I went from Little Rock to Atlanta. From there to Paris. And then actually rode a plane from Paris to Florence by myself! (<<I'm pretty proud of myself). Finding your way through an airport filled with people who mostly don't speak your language isn't hard... but very weird feeling and a bit scary. Anywaaaay, because my flight left 2 hours before the rest of the group I was welcomed at the Airport by Kyle and taken to the Villa before everyone else. I was completely overwhelmed.
Today the reality that we are actually in Italy sunk in a bit more because of the trip we made to town. After orientation type of business for most of the morning we had lunch, took some pictures, and then walked to town. The ladies that cook for us make wonderful pasta and meal times have such a family type atmosphere... I like it all a lot. Mona gave us our first Italian lesson and we learned how to say "I would like a cappuccino". Later in the afternoon we were able to practice our skills by asking for one at Caffe Mario on the Scandicci square. Robbie gave us a tour of Scandicci and after that we walked around shops and an open market that is around on Saturday's only. We had dinner at La Bottega Del Panino. We all had these delicious grilled wraps! While there we encountered a group of young Italians. They were interesting and fun... I'm not sure how else to describe them. They thought they were the bees knees and like the rest of Italy were dressed in mostly black or dark colors and had unique hair cuts. Robbie told me the Italians take much pride in their style of dress and hairstyles. One plugged his ipod into the stereo system and was playing classic rock music for us... and then even introduced us to some screamo Lady Gaga. Once we returned to the Villa we had a little party where we played games and got to know each other better. I look forward to deepening those relationships more as we experience this beautiful country together! God is so wonderful and I know he'll be using these people and this country to teach me much in the next 2 1/2 months.

Off to the land of spaghetti, art, and talking with your hands

Is this real life? I leave to study abroad in Florence, Italy with Harding University in one week. I can hardly wrap my mind around it. I feel completely unprepared, but that's alright... adventures and planning don't particularly go hand in hand.

People ask me if I'm excited? ... what kind of question is that? (if you haven't caught on yet that answer is obviously, I'm up at 2:30 a.m. to write about it). I may not have been as giddy as is expected, but it's a lot to take in and believe for a young woman who's barely left the Midwest. Anyway, I thought I'd jump in with the masses to blog about my experience and let friends and family back home know what I'm learning and experiencing. I don't exactly have a way with words, so bear with me.

I don't want to pretend that my findings are exactly unique or new from any other student who has written about their adventure, but it will be new to me and to the rest of the students I'll be with. We'll be learning so many new things and making memories we'll carry with us throughout our lives. I don't know what to expect. I look forward to building new relationships, learning abundantly, and being humbled as my eyes are opened to a whole different culture than the one I've known. I can tell you above all I want to learn more about the Lord and making His glory known. His story is the only one truly worth telling.

So here goes nothin.