Venezia

I'm sorry - I'm sure no one reads this anymore because I've been so irregular :-) But I'm now coming down on the last few weeks before I return to the states! I can't believe it's already almost over! I'm having a wonderful time seeing Joel - he's currently in Poland but he will be coming back Wednesday (don't ask me why he went to Poland :-) - crazy) Meanwhile, we have been hitting the Christmas Play pretty hard, trying to finish everything up. We're currently making costumes and discussing the decorations, and the kids know all their lines (well, almost, haha) I'm really excited about everything coming up, but trying to take one day at a time, because they are most definitely limited! This week a girl from North Carolina is here, Kaitlyn, and I took her to Florence on Saturday and we went to Venice with the Pastor's wife on Sunday and Monday - WOW Venice is absolutely incredible, and honestly indescribable. Not only is it a unique and fascinating city, but it also surprises you with beauty around every turn (in between tourists and tourist shops... and McDonalds). Sometimes the streets and bottom of the stores and hotels flood - it gets as deep as 3 feet! When we were there, we only saw a few inches of flooding - but it was definitely cool! I wasn't that excited to see the city when I first planned on going, but now that I've seen it, I will FOR SURE go back. I LOVED it. :-) I'll try to write a little more as more exciting things happen!

Mi Dispiace

Means I'm sorry - I'm sorry I haven't written much! I get a little busy. This week wasn't that eventful, aside from the fact that I went to Florence yesterday, and this past weekend I went to a small town festival with Sammy's mom, and then hung out with a bunch of Italians at the chocolate festival in Grosseto. That's when I bought the cutest little chocolate mice for the Childers kids - only to discover that they were filled with burning alcohol.. oops! They had all these weird chocolate shapes, including those nasty teeth... hahaha. Anyway, Joel's getting here tomorrow, and I'm having trouble thinking about anything else!! :-) Oh ya, and it was Elizabeth's  birthday...  she's so CUTE! I totally love her :-) <3

Perugia e Terni

So, I'm finally going to Blog about my weekend! First we went to Perugia which had beautiful sights and is known for it's chocolate. Also, that American girl who got falsely accused for murder lived there, and Paul said that he saw the guy originally charged for the crime getting filmed - he had seen the guy a lot before that even. Super sad and scary, though. Then we went to Deruta, famous for it's ceramics, and hung out at the missionary's house. Then the Childers left and the missionary's wife took me into town to look around. It had some fall color, so that was wonderful, and we went down this alley into a little ceramics shop. The owner had found an ancient furnace underneath his shop, so I got to crawl down in there and look around. There was tons of old pottery and ceramics, some of the stuff was really beautiful, so that was really fun. I had a really good weekend with those missionaries, the people at that church were SO friendly, and a Spanish woman spoke a lot with me in Spanish, so I got to practice some. I'm aweful... haha. I also taught a boy English during the Sunday night service, and that was hard without knowing Italian. On Monday morning I took the train to Terni, but no one knew what it was famous for. Turns out, it's famous for Europe's biggest waterfall, as well as the fact that La Bella Vita was filmed there!!! (Beautiful Life - incredible Italian film, but make sure you watch it with subtitles, not voice-over). That was incredible to see, and we saw a bridge made in 100 BC! It was a fun trip, and I rode back with the Maiettas Monday night in a torrential downpour - a little scary. Today I've just been doing homework and not feeling too great, I think I'm going to go to Pisa another day instead of tomorrow. Just not up to it.

One thing that I have been really unhappy about is what I'm learning about being a missionary and their support. For instance, one of the families I visited doesn't have enough support, so they have to do some work to make enough money, but the churches in the states are MAD that all their time isn't spent in the ministry! They think that the missionaries should come back and get more support. The system is RIDICULOUS. I would NEVER go through a mission board. I mean, it's not the missionary's fault, and that's the system set up, but it couldn't be more WRONG!!! The missionaries have to come home every few years for MONTHS at a time, keeping up with churches so they don't lose support! This is SO bad for the Italian churches, and they often lose a lot of people who just weren't dedicated enough to be left yet. I mean this is a HARD mission field, and the churches in the states don't realize that! Of course people aren't getting saved every week, or every month even. It takes a lot of investment and time to really get to a serious conversation about it! I mean, there has to be a better way, it's just sad that so many missionaries have such a hard time. I am just realizing that to minister to Italians, you really should "forsake" your American-ness and become an Italian - embracing everything about them. Once you're one of them, you can have the best impact! Often people here brush off the difference the gospel makes in us assuming it's just a cultural difference. But if you are embracing the culture completely, it won't be like that. But you really can't do that if you are going back to America every 2 or 4 years. This is just a few words on the massive confusion that is a missionary's support system... urg.

Anyway, I'm hoping to go south, maybe to Naples this weekend, but we'll see. Miss you all! <3 :-)

Roma!

Yes, I know you all know what that means... Yesterday I spent a wonderful day in the beautiful city of Rome! I got up early (yuk) and rode a bike to the train station, to get on the train at 7:30! I then rode for 2 and 1/2 hours to my stop - Termini. I walked to the McDonalds and met Sammy and her sister Melissa. After walking around a little and looking at some cool old church, Melissa had to go to class, so Sammy (now an official  Roman resident) and I took the bus! We went to a Piazza (square) first where the lion fountains are, and everybody has to take a picture on the lion... Then we ate breakfast. The Italians eat these cute little pastries and stand at a counter and drink espresso or Cappuccino for breakfast. It was good :-) We then proceeded to the "Via dei Condotti", the famous street where all the Gucci, Prada, Burberry, etc. stores are. We went in a few, just to look around. When you walk in some model doorman with an expensive suit will open the door and breath some rehearsed Italian welcome. There are about 10 items in each room, the average price usually in the thousands. Snooty women are walking around and occasionally there were some men wearing tight pants carrying purses... interesting. It was fun, though, and all these shops were in beautiful old buildings. Then Sammy and I walked up the Spanish steps (keep in mind, I wore boots... with heels... stupid, stupid, 
stupid.) and back down. We stopped at some other cool places on the way  to Trevi fountain - I didn't throw a coin in, because I know I'll be back :-) I also saw the newspaper building which was huge and cool, and then Sammy and I ate at Hard Rock Cafe, haha. I got cherry pepsi which was incredible, because it literally does not exist in Italy. Then we decided to go to the mall! :-) It was fun, the first Italian mall I've seen, and there was even a store like a walmart, haha. So I got to see the tourist Rome and the real Rome - it was an awesome day. Then I traveled back to Grosseto by train and made it back to the Childers'. It was a fun day, and I can't wait to go back soon!

Siena - Autobus

Autobus... Bus, obviously... So FINALLY I'm going to write about Siena - I'm lazy I'll admit it but here goes :-) So Wednesday morning Kelly dropped me off at the bus station. I bought my own ticket and got on the bus. After 1 hour and 15 minutes we got to Siena, after driving through mountains looking down on quaint little villages and grazing cattle. I couldn't figure out which bus stop to get off at in Siena, but thankfully picked the right one and stood at the bus station, all alone, with no idea where to go. Since the weekly market only lasts until early afternoon I started to look for that first. Some sweet old lady handed me a tract as I wandered the streets, totally random but really cool. I finally found the market, which was actually right across the street from the bus stop. Wow. After looking at all the stands for a while (you have to be careful... all the stands with Chinese people working them aren't selling Italian stuff - so I only go to the Italian booths) I heard some girls speaking English. I got SO excited, because I hadn't heard English in forever! I found out that they were studying abroad there... although it didn't take me long to realize that Siena is a MAJOR tourist town... Then I decided to look for a place to eat, and for their city center. After following the tower I saw high above the buildings around me and admiring the ancient architecture on every building, I saw some stairs going through an archway down into what looked like a wide open space. (The Piazzo del Campo) So I went down the stairs and WOW there was a huge empty area with restaurants surrounding it. And this amazing building with an old bell tower. So I sat at a quaint little restaurant and ate and read for a while. It was interesting to listen to the Americans there - I was thankful I blended in with the Italians fairly well. The waitresses spoke English pretty well, but the obnoxious, pushy Americans would speak loud and slow, like they were talking to idiots. No wonder people don't like us. Then I saw another tower and decided to try to find it. After wandering around admiring the dusty ancient beauty of the crumbling brick and stone buildings, a magnificent duomo (cathedral) appeared before me, shining in white, glorious splendor. It was very similar to the famous duomo in Florence - the Siena cathedral was built during the 1300s, the early years of the Renaissance. I stood gazing at the intricate carvings and brilliance of the facade for quite a while. To be honest, it is difficult to experience all these things alone, with no one to talk to about it... all I can do is shrink in the greatness of it all. But each day I am reminded of the steadfast love of God as He stands beside me, revealing His power and beauty in each incredible aspect of Tuscany! After admiring the Duomo for a while, I found my way to the bus stop (surprisingly- it was quite a maze), and went back to Grosseto.
Today I was pretty busy with the Christmas play - it's coming together and we got a lot of practice in tonight. I also sat on the roof for an hour or two today, while reading and soaking up the beautiful, sunny day :-) It was a nice break from the freezing hours of the morning - apparently tile floors and cement walls make your house a giant ice box. No wonder the Italians don't use ice. Anyway, it's now 1:30 am because I had to retype this - it got deleted. awesome. haha - miss you all, keep in touch!

Amica

Amica = Friend. Tonight I went to the city center and hung out with Samantha and her two friends Carmen and Rita. They didn't speak English but could understand me most of the time and I could understand them most of the time. Sammy did a lot of translating :-) It was SO fun, though. We went shopping, and the girls would make fun of people's outfits and talk about hot guys, hahaha... I guess that doesn't change between cultures! I also discovered that I am an Italian "redneck"... I guess Italians in the south speak a dialect, not the "formal" Italian that the Tuscans speak, and they are poorer (All the fashion comes from Rome and North of Rome), and I guess my name is an Italian redneck name! haha. But it was ok, because all 3 girls were also from the south. Haha. It was awesome to hang out with friends for a night - and I'm really excited about really getting involved in some things and traveling pretty soon here, so YAY! Well, it's past midnight so I'm gonna go to bed, but I still miss you all! :-)

Chiesa

Chiesa = Church. Today Sammy came back from Rome and she brought me to her youth group - it was interesting and fun to meet some Italian teenagers. They sang worship songs, which was cool to sing in Italian. Tomorrow Sammy and her friends are going to bring me shopping  - her friends don't speak English, so it's interesting! Fun to hang out with some people my age, though. Other than that I've just been trying to make travel plans and get the Christmas play going - it's looking good so far... oh ya, and homework... fun stuff. But URG I can't wait for Joel to get here... hahaha... can't help it... Miss you all!