Stateside: Life after Europe

I have been home for a few weeks and life back in the states is much different. I grew quite fond of gelato and nutella, but there is very limited access to these lovely things in little Ohio. Yesterday I made some mixed berry gelato, but it wasn't quite as good as the real stuff. My love for facebook has grown especially since I became friends with some of the youth that I met in Florence. It is nice to stay in touch with them and continue to talk about our lives. Stories of all my adventures have been told multiple times and every time I miss Europe just a little more. I would love to be able to go back to see more of Rome and to revisit some of my favorite places in Germany and Austria. I guess this is goodbye for now, hopefully there will be another blog for my return trip. :)

Roma

We spent our last day in Rome and what an amazing place to be last!!! Europe has so many historical sights that we couldn't see them all in the half day that we were there. However we did get to go to my favorite place, The Vatican. We started off with a guided tour seeing many things, like the: Colosseum, Arch of Constantine, Roman Forum, and much more. We were able to go into St. Peter's Basilica and actually got to spend a long time exploring it. Another amazing thing was the fact that we got to go down underneath the Basilica and see the tombs of some of the former Popes. I definitely want to go back to Rome to check out some of the things that we missed (like the Pantheon). I think the best part of Rome was when a group of around 13 of us went out at night and saw the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. We left our hotel and caught a bus (at the last minute) to take into downtown Rome. We then hopped on the subway and rode it closer to the Trevi Fountain. Our ride on the subway was a few stops long so we passed the time by singing some songs. It was fun to see some different reactions. We even met a group of girls from Pennsylvania who talked to us after we sang "Praise the Lord". We made it to the Trevi Fountain and tossed in a coin. :) We then walked a few short blocks to the Spanish Steps. While we were admiring the steps we all realized that we had no idea why the Spanish Steps were famous. So when we got home I did a little research and discovered that it is the longest and widest staircase in Europe and was built with funds from the French diplomat. After a little more gelato we headed back to the hotel where we stayed up a little to late hanging out.

Last day in Venice.

June 6:

Let me start with this: We could not have had a better last service! We sang at the Nazarene Church in Florence that Daniel Fink pastors. It was a very emotional service. The congregation was so excited for us to be there and they were so appreciative. The most moving part for me was when their praise team came up and led us all in Prince of Peace and Shout to the Lord. Even though we were all singing in our native language it is was amazing to worship with them and know that we were all praising God with the same words. This service was by far the best. Afterwards we had lunch with the teens. It was good to be able to sit down and talk to some of them (most knew some broken English). After lunch about ten of us stayed and played football with the teens before we went to the Spanish service. I only took 3 years of Spanish in high school so I was able to understand the songs that we were singing (because we had the words in front of us) but during the sermon I found it hard to keep up with what was being said. For dinner we all went to a local pizzeria and Daniel Fink’s sons (two of the teens that I had gotten to know) came along. It was really fun to eat dinner with them and just talk about our lives and differences between Italy and the U.S. I would say, for me that today was one of the best days of the trip. Our service went really well and I feel like I started to build a relationship with some of the teens. I should probably get to bed soon, we have an early wakeup call tomorrow so we can have as much time in Rome as possible.

This is Dorian (one of the teens that I really got to know today).

Why does the tower lean?

June 5:

A few days ago we convinced Lanna, Giuseppe and Dr. Bob to take us to Pisa so we could see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Today during our free time in the morning we took an hour long bus ride to Pisa to see the famous sight. It wasn’t exactly what I had imagined, in most pictures that you see the tower is surrounded by a lot of green grass; this is not so much the truth in reality. There are several surrounding buildings and many street vendors! It was still an amazing sight to see and I thoroughly enjoyed the great opportunity! We drove back to Florence in the afternoon to rehearse for our tent concert then had some dinner at a nearby restaurant. I really love the pizza here in Italy with the super thin crust and sweet sauce. Our concert tonight went extremely well! It took place in a spot in town where there is no church and where missionaries have spent 30 years of their life. The leaders said that they were really looking forward to our concert and that it was a great blessing to have us here! The concert could not have gone better. We were told to only expect like 15 people to be in attendance, but the tent was almost full. The audience was very attentive and appreciative of what we were doing and it could be seen in their standing ovations and conversations that we had afterwards. It was a very good way to end the day!

Ciao

Sorry again about the lack of updates, our hotel in Venice was supposed to have wifi, but it wasn’t working while we were there. Luckily I do have wifi for the last for days of the trip. But for now you will have to read a super long post to recap on everything that has happened.

May 31:

We got up early today and started our 8 hour journey to Venice, Italy. The drive through the Alps was absolutely beautiful! It usually doesn’t snow after March, but it had snowed the night before so the tops of the mountains were lightly covered with snow. With mountains comes tunnels and I don’t think I have been through more tunnels in my life! We went through the longest tunnel in Switzerland (around 10 miles, I think). It was so long that I feel asleep after we entered and woke up from a 20 minute nap still in the tunnel! After a quick stop for lunch we were on our way again. The first thing we saw when we entered Italy was a soccer dome in construction, soccer is a really big there here! Italy seems a lot more industrial/commercial than what we had previously seen, but it was still pretty. We arrived at our hotel in time for some dinner, than we spent the rest of the night doing laundry in the bath tub and hanging out with friends. A pretty relaxing day to catch up on much needed sleep. Below is the view from our hotel window.

June 1:

Today we took a boat to the main island of Venice; it is absolutely beautiful and full of tourists. We started off the day with a guided tour of San Marco (St. Mark’s Basilica) and the surrounding plaza and palace. The architecture is beautiful and again the history amazes me. After the guided tour we had a few hours of free time in the city so my friends and I went out exploring and sightseeing. We ended up getting lost and spent a good 1 ½ hours walking around in circles trying to figure out where San Marco was. We tried to follow the signs for San Marco, but they didn’t help much (especially when one sign pointed in two different directions). We eventually made it out of the maze and got ready for our Mass participation in San Marco. The Mass was an amazing experience to say the least! The reverb of our voices echoed majestically in the same 7^th century church that the Gabrielle brothers performed in. We had dinner in a local restaurant and headed back to our hotel for the night.

June 2:

We headed back to the main island of Venice for some more free time. This time we didn’t get last and had a good time seeing things we previously missed and buying some souvenirs for people back home. I think it was like the 4^th time in 6 days that we had gelato (that stuff is becoming an addiction)! At the very end of our free time when we were heading to the Scalzi Church for another Concert it started to rain. We realized then just how blessed we had been with weather in the past! We made it through the rain and had an amazing performance in the Scalzi Church! The audience was so responsive; some were moved to tears, some little girls were dancing, and others came up to me after the concert and told me how it had touched their hearts. It was an amazing experience that we could not have done without the strength of God. Back to the hotel for a much needed night of sleep.

June 3:

Another majority of the day was spent in the bus as we traveled from Venice to Florence. As we were on the bus I was struck with amazement of the places that I have been and the things that I have been able to do and I would just like to thank all of my friends and family for what they have done to make this trip possible for me! This trip is truly a life changing experience and I am having an amazing time. We had a guided tour of Florence planned for when we arrived, but because of the heavy rain we had to push it back a day. When we got to Florence we prepare for yet another performance. The performance went well and I have a nice conversation with a few people afterwards, God is good! The parts of Florence that I saw tonight remind me a lot of any big city in the U.S.; crowded, graffiti, pigeons, etc. I can’t wait to see more of the sights tomorrow.

June 4:

We started the day with a guided tour in Florence. Our tour guide was fun and I learned a lot of interesting things. We saw The Dome and many Medici castles and some towers. After our guided tour we had 5 hours of free time in the city. This time we were sure to grab a map so we wouldn’t get lost like we did in Venice. During free time we saw the Santa Maria Novella and hiked up a hill to some gardens that overlooked the city. It was nice to be able to sit down and relax with an impeccable view of the city below. After a little more sightseeing and shopping we had dinner and headed back to the hotel. Now all I want to do is lie in bed and drink water with my feet propped up. It was a long day in the sun, but we have been blessed with amazing weather and it is nice to have a concert free day to rest our voices. We convinced Giuseppe, Lanna and Dr. Bob to take us to Pisa to see the leaning tour and other sights so we will spend our day there and then come back to Florence in the afternoon for a concert.

P.S. Sorry there aren't more photos, I am having problems uploading them and I have a limited time onine.