The Final Weeks

So this is it: the last blog. My year has come to a close. It has been an amazing year, but I still have some stuff to fill you in on. The last two weeks were crammed full of fun. The week after London we played soccer, we had Men’s Bible Study, we had the final 9 o’clock praise, and we had our final visits to our favorite gelateria. The days were dwindling and we kept trying to get as much in as possible. Bailey’s sister there that week so Martin and I went out to eat with them. The next day we had our final banquet, where I straightened my hair. It looked absolutely ridiculous. I wore my new euro glasses and I looked pretty awesome. That night we had a four hour dinner, including songs by students and a 20 minute slideshow of all our photos from the year. The next day we had a surprise for Elizabeth. This year was her 10th year as Director, so the students put together a surprise party for her. Some of the students worked for months putting together a memory book, a video, organizing the location and food, and inviting all the Italian guests. It was such an amazing night. She cried the whole time. After that a bunch of us went to a club called 21 because one of the students met the owner and he offered to throw us a going away party. We all got a glass of champagne and we toasted the year. Then we all got our dance on and it was so fun. The weekend was full of taking a final exam and putting off studying for others. That weekend we got to have a picnic lunch in the Boboli Gardens and we visited the Bargello Museum, where we got to see Donatello’s “David.” On Saturday night Adam and I decided that we really wanted to go out to dinner and drop some money. We went to a place called “Il Teatro” (The Theatre), and it was absolutely amazing. We got all of the different course and I got Bisteca Fiorentina. It was delicious. We went with Rachel, Melissa, and Matt. We talked and ate for 3 and half hours. It was one of the most fun dinners of the year. Then finals week came. I had one final each day, so it wasn’t bad. I should have studied more, but instead I woke up early and visited the churches that I didn’t see before. I went to Santa Felicita, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, and the Brancacci Chapel. After that I watched the last Lord of the Rings, which had to be split into two parts because it is over 4 hours long. I think I did well on my exams, so I’m not worried about the fact that I wandered Florence and watched a movie when I should have been studying. We played our last soccer match on Monday and went to Gelato for the last time on Tuesday. Wednesday, after all the tests were over, we all hung out together. People talked and packed at the same time. That night we ate a panino dinner at Piazzale Michelangelo (which overlooks the whole city), and then we had a bonfire at Elizabeth’s house. It was raining, so we all got soaked and muddy, but we still made smores anyways. We drank hot chocolate and enjoyed each other’s company one last time. Then we got in a big circle, passed around candles, and said what we appreciated about the person next to us. After you talked about the person next to you, you would light the candle, and then they would speak and light the next person’s candle. It went on a while, but it was really amazing and emotionally. After we got back about midnight some people went out, but I was so tired I passed out watching a movie. I woke up the next morning, had my last breakfast in the house, and then there was the big goodbye. It was sad, but we all knew that the Villa couldn’t last forever. We are all now entering into a new stage of our lives and it may be sad to say goodbye to what we had, but we can smile knowing that God has taught us a lot this past year and that we are not saying goodbye for good, but only a few months. We got to the airport and my bags were overweight. It had to do with the fact that I didn’t want to throw out the toiletries that were half used and that I had collected about 10 reading books this semester. I threw out the shampoos and whatnots, and moved my books to my carry-on. That did the trick and I didn’t have to pay the 50 euro (your welcome Mom and Dad). ;) We got on the flight and everything went smoothly. My overseas program was finished, but I will never forget the friends, memories, places, and fun times that I had over there. God was so prevalent during my time and I’m still amazed about how much he has taught me about trusting Him and being true to Him at all times. Europe has really changed my life, wait… strike that. During my time in Europe God has really changed my life. I praise God for giving me the chance to go over there and see so much of God’s beautiful world. Anyways, thank you so much for reading my blogs. I hope you enjoyed them and I pray that God will bless your lives as much as He has mine. Ciao! :)

London, England

So this weekend (28^th-30^th) I got to go to London. My friend David, who I visited in Germany, has family in London, so he offered me a place to stay. I left Friday morning, by myself, and even though I have traveled a lot, I still don’t like traveling alone. I was a little worried that things would go wrong, but God made it all work out. Someone from the Villa actually was on the same flight as me, which I didn’t know beforehand, so I sat with her. She was a Godsend. Everything went smoothly and we arrived in London safely. David met me in London with his aunt and she took my backpack. David and I proceeded to got Westminster. We saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the Parliament Building. It was really cool. We took a stroll to Gibralter Square and on the way we saw some British Cavalry, which was cool. The Square was cool and we took some funny pictures and watched some Asian guys juggle soccer balls. Then his cousin Elizabeth met us and we went back to his aunt’s house. She made us chicken and potatoes, but they also ordered Indian food, so I had a lot of both. That night we talked, laughed, played Guitar Hero, watched Arrested Development (Hilarious!), and then went to bed. I got a private room to myself and the bed was quite comfy. The next day we got up and went straight to The Tower of London. This was probably my favorite part of the weekend. It was a really cool castle to begin with, but we had a guided tour. One of the Beefeaters (don’t ask me why they call them that because I don’t know and neither do they) gave us a tour and he was hilarious. He was cracking jokes left and right, but he was able to give us the history as well. It was also cool seeing the Crown Jewels and the biggest diamond in the world! :) After that we saw Buckingham Palace and then got some lunch. It was about three in the afternoon when we stopped to eat, so I wasn’t very hungry for dinner that night. That night we rested a few hours back at the house and then David and I went out to take night photos. We revisited all the places we went during the day and I got some awesome pictures. We also visited King’s Cross Train Station so I could visit Platform 9 ¾. It was so funny seeing a cart half way through the wall. We got back and went to bed. The next day we went to the Nike Store so David could get a soccer jersey. We had lunch, and just enjoyed each other’s company at the house. I left that afternoon for the plane, got home safely, and God made everything work out well. I even got to talk to my family on the ride home. It was one of my favorite weekends and it was nice having a free place to stay, a great family to enjoy meals with (and pay for a lot of touristy stuff), and being able to speak English was fabulous. :) There is still a lot I haven’t done, so I will definitely go back some day. This trip was the last of my weekend trips because there are only two more weeks left. Before I know it I will be heading home, taking my last big trip of the year: America. :)

Ceilings, Germans, and Fireworks

So let’s just say that this was an eventful weekend. Even before I left to go to Germany something crazy happened: I sliced my head open. Well, it wasn’t really sliced open; it was more blunt force trauma; which in turn split my head open. I was running down the stairs, well I was more prancing then running, but because of the slight hop in my step I, due to my abnormally tall physique, slammed my head into the ceiling. I had been currently unaware of the apparent “lowness” of the ceiling before this time, but I sure know now. I was literally thrown backwards onto the steps, bruising my butt in the process, and I just laid there on the ground holding my head. I didn’t realize that I had got anything other then a bump on the head, until Martin exclaimed, “Blood!” I touched my head and I felt it. Then the floodgates opened up and the blood began to really flow. It dripped all over the ground, and I felt the little rivers of blood snake across my face. It was intense, but amazingly it didn’t hurt that badly. I had a mild headache the rest of the day. Even when they cleaned it up a little, it didn’t even sting. They rushed me to the “Pronto Soccorso” (Urgent Care) and I had three sutures put in. It wasn’t bad, but they had to shave a large circle in the middle of my head. I looked, and still look, ridiculous. I had to wear a bandage for 11 days after that. Anyways, some good came from it. I got to take my history test, which I missed while getting sutures, later and I got more time to study. I definitely did better on it then I would have. That night, after getting the sutures, Adam, Sarah, and I left for Germany. We took a night train to Munich, watched the first half of the Extended Edition of the Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (So good!), and then we took another train to Heidelberg. We got in about 10:00 am and had some breakfast at the house. I was visiting my friend David and his Dad was visiting him, so I went off and spent the day with them. We visited the castle and walked around Heidelberg. Then we had a nice dinner at a restaurant that I don’t remember the name of. After that we chilled at the Germany house and watched the newest episode of Lost. There is a Pepperdine overseas program in Germany as well and so we got to stay there for free. It was sweet. The next day we walked around Heidelberg and got some delicious bratwurst. Yummy! We took this trail called the Philosopher’s Walk, which overlooked the whole city, and it was absolutely amazing. We went shopping in the markets, where I bought a sweet mug, and we climbed the church tower. The day was really nice and I had a great time visiting with David and his Dad. That night Adam, Sarah, and I had to leave at 5:00 pm to catch our train back to Florence to spend Easter with everyone. After getting home on Sunday, a bunch of us from the Villa went down to the Duomo. They had a huge wooden thing with wheels (I’m not sure what to call it), which they launched fireworks off of before mass. It was really cool and really crowded. I started to take pictures, but then my camera died right before the fireworks went off. They were so loud. They sounded like a machine gun was going off. Then everyone that went to the Duomo, came back to the house, and we cooked a huge breakfast. We made a huge bowl of scrambled eggs with bell peppers, cheese, and other goodies. We had bacon, sausage, croissants, and a fruit salad. It was one of the best meals ever and it was really fun making it. That night we all hung out and had a nice Easter praise at 9:00 pm. It was a great weekend, even if it did start off with a little bump. ;)

Lausanne, Switzerland

This weekend, the 14^th through the 16^th of March, I went to
the house for the Switzerland Program. Pepperdine has a few houses all over Europe and I decided that I wanted to see this one. I went with a couple friends, Jillian and Lauren. It was just the three of us, but it was really fun. We left Friday morning, ate at Café Liberta, and jumped on a train to Milan. From Milan we took another train to Switzerland. It was only about 7 hours on a train, so it wasn’t that bad. It gave me plenty of time to write and catch up on all my blogs. We arrived at the train station around 4:00 pm and it was an amazingly gorgeous day. We saw some fellow Pepperdine students walking in the road, so we talked to them, and they told us how to get to the house. The Lausanne house is a hotel and up until this last semester it still had guests coming and staying in it. We arrived, changed into some less warm clothes, and wandered around the city. It got cold pretty fast and I was in board shorts, flip flops, and a t-shirt, so I was a little bit chilly. We started walking back to house to get some warm clothes, but we ran into some more students that were heading to dinner. We didn’t know any place to get good food, so we just followed them to dinner, without getting warm clothes. We went to a place called Manora and I got a good filet. It was delicious. We were there talking and having a great time for about 3 hours. It was fun. This weekend was full of fun conversation and good memories. The train ride there even had intense, serious conversation about Christianity. It was really good. Then we went back to the house that night, I went out and got an ice-cream bar with a guy named A.J., and the girls went to bed. The next day we slept in a little bit, ate some breakfast at the house, and then jumped on a train to the Matterhorn. It took us about three hours to get there and it was worth it. The Matterhorn is located in the Alps, in a town called Zermatt. It was a cool skiing town and if Jillian skied or if we knew we could have gone skiing, we would have. :) We spent a few hours wandering around the snow and the countryside, got yummy bratwurst, and went shopping. The girls bought Swiss Army Knives, and we all drooled at the chocolate. Then we took the train back to the house, ate at Manora again, and then I met up with a friend that I knew from freshman year, while the girls checked the internet. I talked with my friend, Josh, and his friends in his room for about two hours. It was so fun and the conversations were full of laughter and ridiculousness. Then the girls came back and wanted to watch Beauty and the Beast. We went up to their room to watch it, but Lauren fell asleep almost instantly and Jillian was almost asleep when we stopped it. So we called it a night, even though we had only watched about 30 minutes of the movie. :) The next day we had breakfast with the people at the house, and jumped on a train back to Florence. It was a great weekend and it was fun visiting another program. I have never visited one before, so it was fun and it was cool that we got to stay in the house itself. Overall, it was another great weekend, full of fun, laughter, and friends.

Greece and Romania (Transylvania)

So it’s Spring Break and I’m off to Greece. My friend Martin and I decided that we wanted to not join the whole house in spending over $1,000 in going to Egypt and we would instead take a much cheaper trip to Greece. We left on a Friday the 29^th of February. We were one of the first to leave and we actually were the last ones to come home as well. Martin and I got up really early, ate at Café Liberta, and then jumped on our 6:30 train. It was a three and a half hour train to Milan. We were flying out of Malpensa, which is a town right outside of Milan. We arrived late to Milan and that was when we started to freak out. We had about an hour to get to Malpensa before our check-in closed and it was an hour by bus. We found the bus right away and so we weren’t too worried, but then the bus just sat there for half an hour. Other buses going to the airport left and ours just sat there waiting for more people to get on. We had already paid for our tickets and put our stuff under the bus, so there was nothing we could do. Also we didn’t want to pay the 100 euro cab ride, so we waited and prayed. It was the most nerve-racking bus ride ever. Martin doesn’t do well on buses anyways and the stress on top of that was making him sick. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, while I tried not to cry. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I even began to pray in Italian. I asked God for just five minutes. Guess what happened? He gave us five minutes. I ran out of the bus, Martin started throwing people’s luggage everywhere to get to ours, and I frantically searched for the check-in desk. I found it, checked in, but Martin had my bag. The lady told me that I had two minutes to find Martin and give her my bag. I ran around trying to find him, and when I did, I grabbed my bag and ran to the desk. We had made it. It was so relieving. I would have been so bummed if it we had missed our flight and had to buy a new ticket, and possibly wait another day. Anyways, we got on the flight, arrived in Athens, took the hour long bus ride to the center of the city, and then checked in the hotel. It was pretty nice place and they actually gave us a four person room all to ourselves for the same price. The guy was really nice, but whenever he talked to us he wouldn’t stop for at least a half hour. :) That night we ate peanut-butter sandwiches in the room, watched Star Wars Episode 1, and walked around the Acropolis. We took some fun night photos and then called it a night. The next day we got up and headed to see the Acropolis during the day. It was simply amazing. The temples and the history there was awesome. The view of the city was breathtaking. We met up with some people from the Pepperdine Germany program and we went to lunch. We found a place that gave us 10 different entrees, water, sodas, bread, and dessert for only 12 euro. It was sweet and really delicious. The Greek salad was so amazing. The cheese was fabulous and I even enjoyed the tomatoes. They were so sweet and delicious. After that we walked around the city, saw the Temple of Zeus and walked through the National Gardens. We met a cool dog at the parks and we saw some cool animals (including a peacock). That night we went to a little restaurant for dinner, and then tried to escape the little kids and their batons. There was a sort of Carnivale going on and all the little kids had batons. They would smack your butt as you walked by. Also there were random dance parties all over the streets and it was fun. We stayed out for a little while then we called it a night because we had to get up early to catch a ferry to the island of Paros. The ferry was huge. It was a cruise ship, with rooms, a bar, and tons of food. It was really cool. We arrived in Paros, after four and a half hours, at noon. It was picturesque Greece. It had the white buildings with the stripes of blue and the Grecian flag flying everywhere. We stayed in the giant cove and hung out that night. The German guys came too, but they stayed on the other side of the island, so we said goodbye to them then. We hung out at the beach, ate some gyros, waited until it was dark to take night photos, ate more gyros, and then started Star Wars Episode 2. We got up the next morning, took the ferry back to Athens, took another ferry to Aegina, and this was our home for the next few days. We stayed on a part of the island called Aegina Marina. We had the whole place to ourselves. We laid out that afternoon, got gyros for dinner, got some cake, and watched another Star Wars. The next day we slept in, and then chilled on the beach all day. I read on the sand, and met some more dogs. We ate gyros for lunch and then wandered around the coast. We got more gyros for dinner that night and then took more night photos. I love my night photos. :) The next day we got up, visited an ancient temple, and then ran to catch a ferry so that we could get on our flight back to Milan. We thought we would just catch the metro to the airport, but Athens decided it would be best to close the metro for the three hours that we needed to take it. That meant we had to find a bus to the airport and then we had to make sure we got there on time. There was major traffic in Athens and the bus was a half hour late, so we started to freak out again, but things worked out well, and we made our flight. We arrived in Milan around 6:00 pm on Wednesday night and we didn’t have our flight until the next day at 1:00 p.m. This meant that we was going to be sleeping in the airport. It was cool. I brushed my teeth in the bathroom, and I had a book, so I was good. I finished my book, while Martin slept. I read East of Eden by Steinbeck and it was simply amazing. It was really good, really good. I recommend it. :) Then I slept while Martin finished his book: Into the Wild. I wound up reading that next. Around 11:00 am the next day Sam showed up. She was going to come to Romania with us. We got on our flight to Bucharest and we arrived there with no problems. The ride to the hostel was horrible because it was really crowded in the bus, really hot, and there was a lot of traffic. They dropped us off in the middle of the city and I already knew that I didn’t like it. It was really dirty and it was really sketch. We found our hostel and we dropped our stuff off. The door wouldn’t lock, so we were hesitant to leave and get dinner, but we did anyways. We went to Pizza Hut and it was simply delicious. That night we barricaded our door with a bunk bed so we would feel safe as we slept. It was a good thing we did because some guy tried to get into our room as we slept. We only heard him because the bunk bed was creeping loudly. They couldn’t get it open because the bed was really heavy. That morning we took an early train to Sigisoara. We were so happy to get out of Bucharest. The Romanian countryside was so much better than the city. It had snow capped mountains, rolling hills, and tons of funny looking stray dogs. We arrived around 1:00 pm and then we walked around the city. It wasn’t as cool as it was at night. It was creepy and fun at night, but it was still fun to be in Transylvania. We made peanut-butter sandwiches and took a nap. That night we ran around and pretended to be vampires. The next day we took a train to Sibiu. We had to stop for a few hours in the most boring town ever: Medias. There was nothing to do. We got some hot chocolate and then waited in the train station for our train. Sibiu was absolutely gorgeous though. It was a really cool city. We got hot dogs, ate ice-cream, wandered the city, and played cards in a café. It was International Woman’s Day, so there were flowers everywhere and Sam got a flower given to her at the café. That night we took a night train back to Bucharest. We got in at 5 in the morning. We ate some McDonald’s and played cards for a few hours, and then we decided to go to the airport. That was a disaster. We tried to find our bus, but everyone kept telling us different answers about which bus to take to get to the airport. The cab drivers kept hassling us to take cabs to the airport and they wouldn’t leave us alone. We finally got on a bus and it took us to the middle of nowhere. There were a few dingy, gross buses and the people said they would take us to the airport, but we had no money and the mini buses were really sketchy. We had tickets left over, unused, from the ride to the center, so we tried to find that bus. We finally wound up going to a hotel to ask someone, because no one spoke English. We finally found it, waited an hour for it, and then got to the airport at 10:30 a.m. It took us about two and a half hours to get to the airport. We checked in at 11, and then took the flight home. It was late a half hour or so, so we couldn’t catch the first train back to Florence, but made the next one. We didn’t have seats because they were sold out, so we just sat on the ground. We got back to the house, starving, around 7ish that night. We were wiped and we hadn’t eaten all day. Jillian was nice enough to give us her pizza and it was delicious. That night we relaxed at 9:00 o’clock praise, I talked to my family, and then went to bed. It was a great Spring Break and I had a lot of fun. This is a trip I will never forget. :)