counting down the days...

Amidst my procrastinating...
I realized just how little time I have left in Italy.

As of right now I have approx. 14 days and 20 hours (give or take the time change on the flight), before I touch down at O'Hare airport on the 18th of this month. What that means is that I have been in Italy for more then 95 days now!! Wow, where did the time go?! (Is it possible for time to go straight to your gut? Because if so that’s exactly where mine has gone, if you know what I mean?!? Well okay, maybe it wasn’t the time itself but more the carbs I ate during that time!) 

Allora, back to my main point…

Lately I have noticed myself blurting out this report to anyone who cares to here it, “There’s (X) number of days until I get home!!” Do I love Italy? Do I love traveling? Do I love Italians and am I abundantly grateful for the opportunities I have been given this year? ABSOLUTELY I am! But am I also ready to come home and see my family and friends, and to be apart of the communities at ISU and Fuel again? You bet cha! I really miss those good ole 50-minute classes at ISU! 

I cannot believe that I am already almost a junior in college. Time is flying by SOOO quickly, why on earth would I want to count down the days till my next big move? Why is it that I can’t just bask in the moment and love every minute of who I am, where I am, and who I am with right in this very second? Does counting down the days make the next exciting chapter of my life any more exciting or make it come any quicker? No, but what it does do is distract me from all the great things happening in this current place and time. 

I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t overjoyed to come back to ISU and to join the Fuel House mission this spring.  I can’t wait for it to be January 1^st  but I still have 14 more days here in Italy. I need to take advantage of every last day here because who knows if I’ll ever come back, or “when” ill comeback I should say. Many people could never dream of having an opportunity like this and I feel ashamed to say that there have been moments when I have taken it for granted. So i am making it my goal to soak up as much European culture as I can in these last few weeks! This semester is something I will never forget and it has certainly made me appreciate many things in life. (look out for my "New Years" blog: coming soon!) I am thankful to God for protecting me along my journey and for opening up new doors in my life. I am thankful to my family for their support and encouragement and I am thankful to my friends for being excited for me and for looking forward to my return home. I am thankful for the people I have met throughout this semester along the way and for the teachers here who are so loving and compassionate.  I have SOOO many wonderful things to look forward to in the next few months, and the next few years even! As hard as it will be to leave this place, I am thankful to be going home. I can not wait to see what more the Lord has in store for my life and the lives of people i come into contact with this next semester!
Leaving this place will be the definition of “bitter sweet”.

I’ll leave you with this statement…
Time sure does fly when your having fun!

Christmas Markets in Munich - A Winter Wonderland

Frohe Weihnachten!! 
That means Merry Christmas in German! 

The count down continues and Christmas is now only 26 days away, which means that I have less then 19 days left here in Italy! I am trying to take in every last bit of Europe that I can without going completely broke! I have seen England, Ireland, France, and Italy and it only seemed appropriate that I visit Germany since that’s where my relatives are from! So that’s exactly what I did this past weekend to celebrate the Holidays!

 

Munich Germany was my last major trip of the semester. A friend in my religions class invited me to go earlier in the semester and so I spent 3days in Germany with 8 girls I didn't know at all before  that! I arrived by myself in the snow covered and very cold Germany and fell in love with the culture immediately! Here are a few Highlights pictures from the trip! I'll blog a little more about the weekend tomorrow!

 

I LOVED Munich, Germany. It was great experience, I got to know some amazing girls, I played and sang carols in the snow and i bought some GREAT Christmas stuff! I will definitely be going back to Munich during the Holiday season again someday!! It was a beautiful winter wonderland!

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Above & Beyond Florence

 Its seems to be a typical morning ritual to swing open our green shutters, take a breath of morning air and people watch for a few moments, before doing anything else. I looked up and down the streets like every other morning this week and noticed a large number of white tents set up in the Piazzo di Santissima Anauziata. My roommate and I had the entire day to ourselves, so we decide to go looking for the Statue of David since it meant walking through the Piazzo to get there. We didn’t quite find The David, but walking through the Artisan Fair we had our first interaction with Gypsies.We witnessed one gypsy with a mouth full of grapes running from a fruit vender. It felt like we were in the middle of the Hunchback of Notre Dome Disney Movie!  After wandering the streets near our apartment we came back for lunch. What we did next I wish everyone could experience at some point in their lives!

My roommate and I decided to tour the Duomo, which is only down the street from our apartment. We forked over another 8 euro and climbed the 465 steps to get to the top of Brunelleschi’s cupola overlooking all of Florence and Tuscany! Breathtaking, magnificent, vast and detailed are just a few words I would use to describe the view. The climb to the top was somewhat challenging at times. I wasn’t sure how narrow the walkways were going to get or how much higher the incline of the steps could possibly go.

Eventually we made it to the top, but that was the easy part apparently. Getting back down meant you had to leave the same way you came up! The more people that climbed up the ladder, the less people were able to leave the roof top.

The line seemed like it would NEVER stop and I personally was starting to questioning how much 70 or more tourists, stuffed full of Italian bread and pasta could weight? So me, being the outspoken American leader, politely asked the people at the bottom of the stairs to wait so a few people could climb down. At that point I wished I could speak 5 different languages but I just stuck to basic American lingo! “Stop please, wait one moment, uhh, thank you!” It was quite entertaining and it got the job done! 

When we finally made it down the 465 steps, we headed toward our apartment, but only after stopping for gelato on the way! Feeling rather adventurous I decided to try something a little different then my normal flavor of gelato. I had chocolate gelato on a croissant from a little cafe in the Duomo Plazza. And let me tell you what, it’s a must have! While the gelato here is extremely good, i would have to say that climbing to the top of the Duomo has been the best part of my study abroad experience so far!