All Roads Lead to Rome

While this may have been true at some point what it doesn't say is that not all roads lead to the convent in Rome.  Before starting my bus tour through Europe I got the chance to spend three days in beautiful Rome.  While there I met up with my good friend from Liberty University, Kristina.  Kristina is currently serving as a missionary in Romania for a year.  But finding her in the huge city proved to be difficult.

I arrived in the morning with no problems.  I had hired a car to take me from the airport to the convent where we were staying for a very good price and just like they said they were waiting for me.  I arrived to discover that Kristina and group had not yet check in.  This surprised me as their flight arrived before mine, but I didn't panic we had a plan, meet at the Vatican at 11 for our 11:30 tour.  So after checking in I took the bus to the Vatican City.  When I arrived I was astonished by how many people there were.  The place was huge and so busy so I did the logical thing, I looked around the monuments, the fountain, the steps.  Finally I found an information center where I learned that the museum entrance is different from where I was currently.  At this point I only had 15 min. to walk to the entrance, find the group and start the tour.  Well I did arrive at the museum but could not find them anywhere but it was not 11:35.  I assumed that they had started the tour so I bought a ticket and the lady dropped me off at the first point of the tour.

I ended up wondering around for hours looking for them.  Finally I decided that I would simply follow the day's itinerary on my own and hoped that I would find them some where along the way.  This of course never happened but I did see everything that had been planned.  At 7:30 I decided to call it a night and head back to the convent.  And this is where the real trouble began...

I am pretty sure that I took every bus that Rome has to offer.  I kept asking the bus drivers for help and they tried their best but no one seemed to know where this convent was.  What was worse was that I had lost my paper which had the address and phone number to the place on it.  At 10:30 I gave in and called Cristina, my host mother, and asked her to look it up for me and to call the convent to tell them I would miss the 11 pm curfew.  She of course was worried but was able to give me the address and phone number for the place.  At one point I have about 5 bus drivers helping me at the same time.  They seemed confident that if I took bus x to such and such and switched to bus y it would take me right there.    It was all I could do not to start crying right then and there.  I was so tired and my feet hurt and I could not bare the thought of taking any more buses so I simply asked them to help me get a taxi.

Rome is not like New York, where you can just hail a cab on the side of the street, you actually have to do to a taxi stop.  A very nice off duty bus driver drove me in the not in service bus to the taxi stop.  The taxi driver didn't know where the convent was either so he called the number Cristina had given me to get directions. Finally at about 12:15 I arrived "home" where I am pretty sure I fell asleep even before my head hit the pillow.

The next day I finally got to meet up with Kristina and her group and the next two days were wonderful.  We saw all the major sites and we could not have asked for more perfect weather...well almost, but that's another story!

Love from Liberty,
Peggy

Salad in Spanish

Well I promised more stories from my Europe tour trip so here is one that should make you laugh.  On the trip there were two girls from Columbia.  As such they spoke spanish which proved to be useful when we were in Italy as the two languages are very closely related.  In Florence a few of us went for a walk and to find something to eat.  Joanna kept saying how hungry she was and could we please find someplace to sit down and have dinner.  Well we finally found the local hang out place and we were getting ready to order. Joanna decided that she wanted a salad and she asked the waiter about an item on the menu.  She gathered that it was a pasta and lettuce salad that had cheese in it.

When we got our food I had a wonderful plate of ravioli, another girl a pizza, and the other a pasta dish.  When Joanna got her dish she was very surprised to see a plate of 5 pieces of cheese arranged on her plate with a few sprigs of lettuce in the middle.  It was possibly one of the funniest things that happened but to make it even better we had not even controlled our laughter when a man trying to get us to donate money to some cause or another walked in and put a card and a mouse keychain right next to her plate of cheese.  Of course we laughed even harder and then took pictures of the mouse next to the cheese.  Joanna was a good sport and ate the whole thing.  It just goes to show that although somethings may be close in language it is important to know the differences.

Love from Liberty,
Peggy

Home Sweet Home

I am ready to go home.  I know that is not something you are supposed to say when you are in a beautiful foreign country like Italy, but it's how I feel.  I have been here for 80 days and I am simply ready to spend time with my family and have a room that is really mine and be in my own bed with my new pillows that I got for Christmas, and cook in my own kitchen, and simply be home.  The thing about home is that it is were everything is familiar and you come to know what to expect, especially from those who you are closest to.  After nearly three months here I still don't know what to expect each day from Mike or Cristina, or Ale or the baby.  Their moods, reactions, assumptions, and feelings are still in many ways a mystery to me and it's tiring trying to read them all the time.

There are so many thing that are different here but one of the main ones is the hospitality.  Both of my parents, but especially my mom, have taught me a great lesson in this area.  They always have an open door to the house.  And what's even better is that they LOVE it when people stop by.  They love meeting my friends and putting names with faces.  My mom would take in anyone.  Once I called to ask if I could invite a girl home for Christmas who had no place to go.  Before I even asked my mom suggested that I bring her home with me.  She then went on to say that if needed she would personally call this girl to invite her, and that she would do some shopping to make sure that the girl had presents under the tree to celebrate.  This melted my heart and although it did not come as a surprise, amazed me how generous and open hearted my parents are.  Mike and Cristina are great people but they just do not have the same mindset.  They plan on having me take the bus from Bergamo to Milan to the airport, instead of taking me themselves.  This would be unheard of in my family.  It saddens me somewhat to think that they don't want to take me to the airport to see me off but I keep telling myself that this is a different culture and that not everyone sees things the same way but it is difficult.

My experience has been great but now I am ready to be home.  As Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz says, "there's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's not place like home."

Love from Liberty,
Peggy

My New Time Waster

Oh my gosh!  I have to tell you about me new time waster.  I have discovered Pinterest!  It's like reading a blog that gets updated every few seconds and instead of having to read through long paragraphs it is just pictures!  And one of the best parts about it is that it automatically gives credit to the original website so if I really want to read more I can just follow the link.  I have already found so many great ideas that I can't wait to try.  But maybe I am getting ahead of my self.  Let me explain.

Pinterest is a website that allows you to catalog ideas, kind of like a creative scrapbook.  Instead of ripping out the recipe in a magazine you can "pin it" to a "board" and come back to it later.  It's kind of like being able to look at all your bookmarks at the same time.  I also love that you can look through other people's boards and repin to your own.  Because people are constantly updating it is easy to spend a lot of time on the site just looking at pretty things.

The only downfall I have seen so far is that you have to be "invited" to join, and there is currently a waiting list.  And so while I have not been accepted yet I have been doing lots of looking at other's boards and can't wait to start working on my own!

Love from Liberty,
Peggy

Insert Creative Title Here

Before I begin this post can I just confess that I hate trying to think of clever post titles.  On the other hand I also hate boring and obvious blog titles so you see the problem.  Today I am just not able to think of a creative title so sorry about that.  I also apologize for my long absence.  I don't even have the excuse that nothing has happened because lots has happened.  Today I am really tired so this will be a short post but I hope it will make you smile.

Recently I went to a bus tour of Europe.  It was an amazing experience a you can look forward to more stories about this experience soon.  One of the funniest things that happened was on my way back from London to Milan.  In Holland I bought a pair of traditional Dutch clogs (you know the wooden shoes?).  They were so fun I couldn't resist.  The down side of this is that they are pretty heavy and take up a lot of space.  I flew on a very cheap airline and because of this they only allow one piece of hand luggage.  This means that your purse or laptop has to fit in the hand luggage, or in my case my wooden shoes.  Well I simply did not have room for anything else in my hand luggage and was at the maximum weight limit as well.  So to "cheat the system" so to speak, I wore my regular shoes all the way to the gate carrying my clogs.  Then at the gate I switched my shoes and wore my clogs onto the plane.  This was surely a site to see as I had never before walked in the wooden shoes and to make it even better you had to actually walk outside to the plane and climb the stairs onto the airplane.  And when I landed I had to carefully make my way down the stairs in these shoes and to the baggage claim before I could switch back to my regular shoes.  I got many stares and weird looks but I got the clogs back and did not have to pay and extra fee so in all I feel it was a successful plan.

On another note, in exactly two weeks from today I will be home!  The time has gone by so fast I can't believe that it is almost over.  I have so much more I want to share from the trip but it will have to wait until later because I desperately need a nap.

Love from Liberty,
Peggy

Bridges and Canals

This past weekend I set out on an adventure to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been... Venice! This magical city full of quaint bridges and flowing canals looks just like it does in the movies.  For the most part it is peaceful and astonishingly quiet due to the lack of cars.  While walking through a busy street I was reminded of walking up to a high school.  There were many people, some hurrying to class or an activity and some just standing around enjoying the company of others passing the time before the obligation of learning became necessary to fulfill.

Traveling to this remarkable city was a story in itself.  I booked my train ticket all by my self (like a big girl, mommy aren't you proud?).  When Mike got home he was helping me to print the ticket and was looking it over to give me instructions for the next day.  He noticed that they had only given me four min. between my connections.  Of course I did not notice this when I booked the ticket.  I assumed that they would provide an itinerary which would be acceptable.  As I would never make the connection Mike said that he would drive me to the second station and I would simply take the train from there.  The next morning I got to the station and found my way to the platform.  When the train arrived it was very crowded but I managed to push my way on before the doors closed.  

As the train pulled away from the station I became aware that this was going to be a very long three hour journey.  I never made it into the car of the train but instead was crammed into the space between two cars with about 25-30 other people.  For most of the trip my body was at a 15 degree angle from my legs.  I supported my self with my arms on a rail and tried very hard not to fall on top of the people around me.  Most of the way I was supporting not only my body weight but also those around me as we turned and swayed along.  At any given time I was touching at least three others. 

When we arrived in Venice I was sore and tired and felt very dirty, but these thoughts were taken away but the beauty of a city I had only seen in pictures and movies.  Walking around, being able to stretch and relax turned my mood around and I soon forget the over crowded train ride.

Venice was in the middle of its very famous carnival celebration this weekend which meant costumes, masks, and lots of extra people.  It was fun to see the bright colored costumes and street performers.  The very famous St. Mark's Square was what I imagine New York's Times Square to be like on New Year's Eve, very crowded and chaotic.  Those dressed in full authentic costume were instant tourist attractions, with people wanted to take pictures with them.  I of course also got my picture taken with several to mark the occasion.  

Although I am glad that I got to experience the carnival in all its glory, I am also grateful that I have the opportunity to go back, when it is hopefully not as busy, to see more of the sights and attractions. The train ride home was peaceful and quiet.  I was glad that I purchased a more expensive ticket which included an assigned seat.  It was well worth the money!  Overall I think I lost about 5 lbs. from walking that day.  I got some great photos, and I highly recommend making Venice apart of any trip to Italy.

Love from Liberty,

Peggy

Banana Bread

Today we made banana bread, by we I mean Alessandro and me.  Making food here is interesting for two reasons.  First, Cristina has to help me buy the ingredients because all the names are in Italian.  On top of this, packaging is much different.  For one thing they don't really sell things in bulk here so items that I am used to coming in large packages are small here and you just have to buy multiple.  And some things like cheddar cheese, and sour cream don't exist so I am having to improvise.  The second reason that making food here is interesting is the metric system.  Measuring in cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons is replaces by grams and oz.  This can be very frustrating and although I could translate every measurement I have given this up for estimating.  I have made enough cookies and cakes to know about how much a cup or half a cup is.  I use and actual tea spoon or tablespoon for measuring smaller ingredients.

So we made the banana bread estimating and improvising ingredients and you know what?  It turned out just fine.  It is a little spongy but other than that it is good.  I even put some nuetella on one of the muffins and that only increased it's deliciousness.  And the best part was that I think Ale really enjoyed making it.  He helped me pour and mix things together.  He even helped me wash the dishes! (I think he thought it was a game since I let him play with the water in a bowl afterwards.)  And we had a really good time, without the t.v., or the ipad, or iphone!  And that was my favorite part!

If you have any other creative ideas that I can do with a 4 year old boy I would love some suggestions!  As the weather has not been very nice lately I would welcome advice from those pros with young ones!

Love from Liberty,
Peggy