July has been the busiest, craziest, most exciting, eye opening, and unique month of my life! I had the opportunity to travel overseas visiting six countries for three amazing weeks. I spent a week with my aunt,who has an apartment in Tuscany, really enjoying the opportunity getting to know and understand the Italians. I found that I love the culture in Italy! I love visiting with the people when we see them in the neighborhood and not just saying the typical American greeting, "Hello, how are you?" My aunt would talk with her neighbors for a couple minutes and find out whose anniversary it was, what they were doing for the night, or whose leaving town. I couldn't believe that they would actually tell her personal things about their life as they passed each other going in and out of the houses. The Italians actually shared their lives with you. My aunt told me that there's just something about Florence and Tuscany that has always stayed in her heart, and I had the chance to experience a tenth of that special something.
I also had the opportunity to travel to Rome with the Harding University group that was studying in Florence for the summer. My dad's family spent ten years in Florence working with the churches there. The coordinator of the Harding University in Florence's family grew up with my dad's family in Florence as well, and our families still keep in touch. I was lucky enough to tag along with the students and get in on all their tours and sightseeing adventures. I had a great time and met some wonderful people! I remember seeing the Colosseum and thinking about how many times I saw pictures of friends by the Colosseum and longed to go myself.
I was so amazed at the buildings and the structure of the city. It is a major city, approximately 4 million people. The cars whiz by you along with scooters weaving in and out of traffic going well over our speed limit in the states! As you walk around the city, you will notice that on some of the buildings the bottom of the newest building is the top of a building that was built upon as the city was built up over time. Mamertinum prison, where they believe Peter and Paul were imprisoned, was this way. I was so thankful that I could experience Rome with the HUF (Harding University in Florence) group. We were present day Christians walking where the first century Christians were persecuted for believing. One of the many places we went were to the Catacombs, which are underground tombs that the Christians were buried in because they would not allow them to be buried in the city. There were also rooms that the Christians met in to secretly worship. While we went into the catacombs and explored them, we all gathered in one of the underground rooms. There was a natural spring in the room with water flowing, reflecting its sounds off of the walls and ceiling. Light shone through from a hole in the wall while we crowded in together. We had a devotional from the book of Paul (appropriate) and sang devotional songs. Our voices joined in harmony as we praised our God. The God that suffered an excruciating death for us. The God that the early Christians couldn't stop talking about and sharing with others. The God that people were sacrificed for because they believed in Him. And here we were, present day Christians, free from persecution, worshiping freely. It was such a spiritual experience and something I will always remember!
I also had the opportunity to climb the Sacred Steps. These steps were brought from Jerusalem and are believed to be the ones that Jesus was led up to Pilate on to be sacrificed. They are wooden steps that can only be ascended with on knees. For each step, there is a prayer. The prayers start with 'O my Jesus' and end with 'have mercy on me'. Of course, you can say your own prayers. I went up them saying the written prayers for each step and found it very touching. It really helped me visualize and put myself in His place. I have a scar that starts at my kneecap and follows down my shin a couple inches and is pretty tender. It’s pretty uncomfortable for me to kneel or do anything on my knees, but being on my knees saying those prayers as I climbed up one step at a time got me out of my usual comfortable prayer position and feel an ounce of pain that Jesus felt that day. So many times I pray to God and thank him for his sacrifice but do I really meditate on it and realize JUST what a horrible death he went through?
As I threw my coin into the Trevi fountain wishing to come back to Rome, I flashed back to the steps and hoped I would be able to do it again.
After the HUF group left to go back to Florence, I stayed in Rome and waited for my friend, Brian, who was flying in the same day that the Harding group left. It worked out perfectly! Brian and I enjoyed Rome a few more days before moving on to Interlaken, Switzerland.
When I stepped off the train and walked out of the train station at 6 in the morning to get my first look at the new city, I gasped and dug my camera out of my purse. The train station was beautiful, the mountains were in the background, and the city was just starting to wake up.
There was absolutely nothing going on at 6 a.m. so Brian and I walked around the town. We found out very quickly that Interlaken isn’t big at all. When we were getting into Interlaken we didn’t know which station to get off on, so we just picked one and got off at Interlaken OST. When we were walking, before we knew it we were looking at the other train station. I was disappointed because it was drizzling and foggy that morning, but God didn’t disappoint me. He soon rolled away the clouds and warmed up the temperature to make for a beautiful day. Everywhere we went was picture perfect because everywhere your eyes rested were the beautiful Swiss Alps surrounding the town.
That afternoon we went canyoning, which is climbing, jumping off rocks, repelling, and sliding in the canyons. It was a BLAST. Brian had a good time too! I definitely want to go back!!
We quickly moved on to Salzburg, Austria. It was breathtaking there as well! Sooo beautiful… God is an amazing artist!
We did the Sound of Music tour. Brian tagged along as I sang “Do, Re, Mi” and “My Favorite Things”.
After Salzburg came Paris! Paris was the first place that I really felt I had no idea what I was doing. In most places, the signs had English under their native language. Well… that was not the case in Paris. People are not quick to help you either.
I met up with Hugo at the train station, and the three of us walked around the town and stumbled upon the Eiffel tower. It was not very pretty during the day, however, at night… wow!
The city seemed very uniform to me. The buildings were all similar in appearance; very classy, but still no match for Tuscany. I missed the eye-catching geraniums decorating balconies everywhere you looked. I loved that no matter how small their apartments were, the Italians made their own gardens in their windowsills or balconies. We left Paris after two days and took the Chunnel to London.
Ahhh English… I could understand people again. I had the chance to meet up with a friend from Birmingham who was studying in England for a couple weeks and my old roommate from Disney.
England was loads of fun. We barely scratched the surface being there three days.
My trip came to an end all too soon. I have learned my favorite thing to do is it eat and try out as many foods as I can! I’m not big on museums…maybe later in life. I would rather just walk around the city and people watch. I love meeting other backpackers staying in the hostels. I made some incredible memories and could make this entry go on for days! But I’m not going to because I started another journey soon after I arrived back in Birmingham.
I was greeted at the airport with a great big hug that couldn’t be from anyone else but my mommy. I told her all my stories for the next couple hours laughing and reminiscing about the past 22 days. I was so exhausted! I took a shower and crawled in bed telling my mom, “I’m kinda tired.” She said she looked up from what she was doing a second later and I was sound asleep.
The next couple days we packed up my room to get ready to move to Mexico! I said goodbye to all my things and managed to squeeze enough clothes for the next 6 months to a year of my life into four suitcases!
I think I did pretty well!
I spent the rest of my week back in the states visiting my church family in Birmingham, my second family who I lived with for eight months, and then in Meridian with my family. I find that I’m always trying to squeeze as many things as possible into my schedule and often can’t do all of them. I constantly have to tell myself to limit my activities.
My parents decided they were going to come with Bethany and me to Mexico to make sure everything was legit. They took me down to New Orleans the night before we flew out to my new home. I met Bethany and her parents that morning at 3 a.m. in the airport! Our flight left at 6 and they said to be there 3 hours prior to departure for check-in. Being the rule-followers that we are, we showed up bright and early to the AeroMexico counter-1st in line and nobody to check us in. So what did I do at dark-thirty in the airport? Run around dancing and acting crazy! We checked in about an hour later and Bethany said her good-byes to her parents L. Then we were off to another country, a new home, and completely new experiences.
No comments:
Post a Comment