"We'll always have Paris."

We left last Thursday afternoon and I, personally, was not mentally prepared for what was about to happen. Before I knew it, I was in a plane, then landing, then being dropped off by a bus in the middle of Paris. If there’s anything that’s being drilled into my brain here, it’s how incredibly blessed I am.

Sorry to do this in list form, again, but I don’t want to end up writing a book here. Paris trip highlights:

1. The Eiffel Tower – Climbed up to the second level (the very top was closed). Paris is a beautiful city and that tower did not disappoint.

2. The Louvre – Wonderful. I only wish that we’d had more time. Thoughts on seeing the Mona Lisa: not that exciting. It wasn’t surprising at all. I was more impressed with other things, like how huge Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa was!!

3. Musee d’Orsay – More exciting than the Louvre, to me. Monet, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, Serat, etc. My favorite piece: Degas’ “Little Dancer of Fourteen Years.” She was lovely.
4. Notre Dame – Impressive, beautiful, ruined by tourists.

5. Arc de Triomphe -- I loved it! Why does man try so hard, though, to impress? Nothing I saw in Paris was as beautiful as the sunset I saw on the plane home.

6. Food: Had a chocolate éclair. Yums! Also, spent fourty-five minutes searcing for crepes, finally found some, paid four euro for one, got back to the hostel and found out they had free crepes every afternoon. Typical.

Overall, Paris might be my favorite of the places I’ve traveled to so far. The city is so incredibly beautiful – the architecture, the people. I had heard so much from people about how rude French people can be and how I wasn’t going to like their attitude. I found this to be entirely false. The first French person we talked to, a girl we stopped to ask if she knew how to get to our hostel, immediately pulled out her iPhone and used her gps to help us get there. She was so sweet and welcoming. Then, when we got to the hostel around midnight and hadn’t had dinner, we walked to a restaurant down the street where we were incredibly surprised by the hospitality. Alex, Kim, Kristen and I were looking at the outside menu to see what they had (this was the only place we could find that was open) when a woman came out and told us the kitchen was closed. We asked her if there was anywhere we could find food at that hour and, after thinking for a minute, she told us to come in and she would make us something. She fixed us each a little salad and a huge piece of bread with egg, ham, and cheese. We were so surprised by how wonderfully sweet she was and could not thank her enough for helping out a few American tourists. Seriously, guys, French people are amazing. They are very different people, but aren’t we all?

Still, I don’t think anything will top Florence. No matter how amazing these big, crazy cities are, I think I will always be happy to come home to Firenze.

On another subject, I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately and it’s truly changing my heart. It has been really hard for me, in the past few years, to give myself time to sit down and be present inside of a book. Part of that reading includes scripture and things related to my faith. It’s incredible the way increasing your intake of the word increases your joy (Delight yourself in the Lord – Psalm 37:4). Even when I don’t find immediate joy, I almost always find peace.

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
And from north to east;
They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
But shall not find it.
Amos 8:11-12

John Piper says, “If the feast of worship is rare in the land, it is because there is a famine of the Word of God.” True.

Roma! Roma!

This weekend, I went to Rome with my roommates and stayed with our bud Shelby, who is studying there for the semester. It was such a blessing to have her as our personal city guide and to have a free place to stay…thank you so much Shelby! I love you!

Honestly, I could go on for a long time about what happened/what we saw/what we did in Rome. Lists are easier…here are my Rome highlights:

1. The train ride!! The ride from Firenze to Roma was beautiful and so relaxing. I would do it again just for the ride.
2. Supli. If you didn’t know, traditional Roman food includes a lot of fried goodies. Supli are little fried rice balls with tomato sauce and cheese that are dipped in raw eggs, covered in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried. Not exactly healthy, but delicious.
3. Pantheon, Four Rivers Fountain, the Roman Forum, Vittorio Emanuele, Colosseum, etc.
4. The Roman bus system. Not incredibly reliable, if you ask me, but definitely an adventure.
5. The Vatican. Alex and I went by ourselves to the Vatican Museum and saw the things you have to see: the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael rooms, the tapestries, etc. Everywhere we looked, it was beautiful. Unfortunately, the insane amount of people that were crammed in that place made it almost hard to enjoy those things.
6. Trevi Fountain. My favorite part! I’m not really sure why I liked it so much, but it was kind of magical at night. I threw in a couple coins, including an extra that I promised for a friend. I guess that means I’m going back to Rome!

7. Gelato. Oh. My. Goodness. The amount of gelato I got for 2 Euro at this place by the Vatican blew my mind. It was probably sinful to eat that much gelato at one time, but I did. Twice. Three flavors in fantastic cone. We walked over and finished devouring our gelato in St. Peter’s Square. Does it get any better?

8. [Speaking of that…] St. Peter’s. We never made it in to St. Peter’s Basilica because there was a lot going on there this weekend. On Saturday, the Basilica was closed because new Cardinals were being inaugurated. (we watched that happen while we ate our gelato). We did go back to St. Peter’s Square twice, though. On Sunday, Alex and I saw some of the morning service on the big screens in the Square. After the service was over, the Pope popped out of a window and blessed the crowd! I’m not Catholic, but it was still a great experience.

9. Missing our train. The bus system let us down and, after waiting for our bus to show up for over twenty minutes, we finally got on and made it to the train station. Thanks to the delay, however, we missed our train. This was after running—bags in hand—through the train station to the furthest possible track (no exaggeration) that the station has. We realized later, though, that it was kind of a blessing in disguise. In the rush, there’s no way we would have remembered to validate our tickets before getting on the train. If we had made it, we would have each had to pay 60 Euro fines! In the end, we made it home to Florence safely a few hours later.

After a weekend in Rome [which is incredibly beautiful, don’t get me wrong], coming back to Florence really was like coming home. I actually missed it while we were gone. Looking back on my first day here—the exhaustion, the overwhelming feeling of being lost, the confusion about where to buy food, the realization that I was pretty much alone in another country—it is strange to see how much things have changed. The city that I was once so afraid of is now a place that I think of as home. Even though I miss so many people back in the US, I do love it here. It took a long weekend away to realize that.



“And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” Genesis 28:15

Carnevale di Venezia

Saturday was crazy.

Carnevale is happening in Venice, right now, and that’s where I spent a very long, cold, wonderful Saturday with friends. We left at 9am Saturday morning on a bus with a bunch of other college students who were headed to the same place. After three hours of driving through more snow than I have ever seen in my life (no sarcasm there), we hopped off the bus and onto a waterbus to Venice! Kim, Kristen, Jeanne, Alex, Madison and I spent a good hour hopping from waterbus to water bus to get to Murano, one of the Venetian islands that’s famous for its beautiful glass. Of course, I bought some glass. Nothing too crazy…just a pair of earrings and a glass ring. The woman who I bought my ring from was so beautiful! She was telling us about her shop and how her family has lived in Murano, making glass pieces for over a hundred years [at least I think that’s what she said]. Their work was incredible.

We ate lunch while we were at Murano—it was honestly such a blessing to be able to just sit down inside and eat something warm. I don’t remember ever feeling as cold as I felt before we had that lunch. After Murano, we went back to the main island and found the Carnevale! The costumes we saw were amazing and I, of course, bought a mask so I could join the fun! We walked around the city for a few hours, just stopping in little shops to look at glass and masks and grabbing warm drinks. We found a place that had vino caldo [hot, mulled wine], which was so good! Everywhere we went, there were little bands playing on the corners [singing in Italian, just like you would imagine] and people dancing in their costumes.

In San Marco Square, there was actually a lot of American music playing. We’re talking Michael Jackson and The Beatles. Everyone, including the six of us, was dancing and singing and laughing with each other. Such a great time! Can I go back now?

One of my favorite parts of the day, though, was the waterbus ride back to our bus at the end of the night. Even though it was freezing, the six of us girls and a few other people sat out on the back of the boat and just took in the city. The lights on the water at night were beautiful and we could see inside all of the little buildings and apartments we passed. We actually went past a Carnivale Ball that was going on at one of the palaces. There were fire dancers out by the docks, where people were getting out of their boats in huge dresses, beautiful suits, and masks. I would love to go to one of those balls before I die.

After a good twenty minutes of sitting on the back of the boat, everyone got cold and went inside the boat. I sat out there by myself, though, and just enjoyed the silence. I thought about my buddy Nicholas, who I knew was in the middle of the second baseball game of his college career, and sent him all my good thoughts and prayers. Then I just told God how grateful I was for those quiet minutes and the beautiful canals and the amazing things he has equipped his people to build—in that city and everywhere. People are incredible. We may be sinful and dirty and make tons of mistakes, but if I’ve learned anything from this country, it’s that people can also do incredible things. We are capable of so much, both good and bad.

Thank you to my family for supporting me financially, emotionally, and spiritually. I’m so thankful to be here and to have been raised by such amazing people. Love you all. Mean it.

I’m off to an open drawing session! Happy Monday, everyone!

"The end of our search"

Reasons to be happy [since my last post]:

1. Taco Tuesday in my apartment. (It was epic…the food was wiped out in fifteen minutes)
2. Videos featuring Nigel Thornberry on YouTube.
3. New lipstick.
4. Hot tea.
5. Finally heard back from a contact about an internship…say a prayer for that one! I’m really hoping for it.
6. Maple and brown sugar oatmeal sent to me from home!!
7. Anna Johnson—a beautiful, loving friend who has been so good to me this week.
8. My spring break trip is officially booked. Corfu Island, Greece, here I come!
9. Almost finished with a jewelry piece that I’m actually proud of!
10. Got an email from my poetry professor asking if she could feature one of my audio pieces on the Apogee website (Apogee is HPU’s literary magazine).
11. Super Bowl party! It was such a late night, but worth it.
12. Received a letter from my Granny! She’s the best.
13. Cappuccinos (always)
14. CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL STARTS NEXT WEEK. It will be, conveniently, right around the corner from my apartment. This is real life.

I haven’t blogged in a few days, mostly because I haven’t had much to say. It’s strange how things have become normal here. I’m not sure if that is good or bad, but things that I used to be excited about are just everyday life now. On one hand, I feel extremely blessed. On the other hand, I think I might be beginning to take things for granted.

I’m reading a book by John Piper right now called, "Desiring God". Sometimes, it’s not an extraordinarily fun read, but I’m enjoying Piper’s ideas/reflections. Yesterday, I re-read a part that had kind of been sticking out in my head for the past few days. The quick and dirty version of what he says in this chapter is that God “is the end of our search, not the means to some further end.” Sometimes, I start to think of God as a instrument for getting what I want [Does everyone do that sometimes?]. After all, he does say “Delight thyself also in the LORD and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” The hard part of that, surprisingly, is the part about delighting in the Lord. I guess the point [not a new point, but one that's hard to remember] is that when we delight in the Lord, He becomes the desire of our hearts. He isn’t a means for receiving the joy and love [or whatever] we want, He is that joy and love that we want—complete fulfillment of our desires.

Why is that so difficult sometimes?

On a different note, I am falling madly in love with cooking. Here’s a taste of what’s been happening in my kitchen lately:

1. Eggplant Parmesan
2. Parmesan baked tomatoes
3. Stuffed bell peppers (most of the credit goes to Alex for that one)
4. Stuffed Zucchini (we had more stuffing than peppers, so of all our vegetables got stuffed)
5. Bruschetta
6. Quite a few variations of pasta with pesto or pomodoro
7. Stir fried veggies with pineapple and curry
8. Mushroom and mozzarella panini

Tonight, I fixed baked eggplant with pasta...

Something about cooking makes me so happy. I think it’s either that the kitchen gets warm and I don’t have to walk around in a blanket anymore or that I love being creative with what’s around the kitchen and making something good with my own hands. If there’s any American food that I’m craving, though, it’s wings. I could really go for a big plate of hot wings from Waldo’s in Winston-Salem…with some ranch on the side…mm mmm!

Who’s hungry?