A super-eventful March closed with the first of many coming goodbyes. Sara, one of the girls who did the exchange program back in August and became one of my first friends in Rome, left to go to Spain for a 5 month work-study program. I'm glad for her she has this opportunity, but we are both sad we don't know when we will see each other again! One upside of Sara's departure is it inspired all the other girls to try to arrange many little events for us to spend time together during her last month, which was great after not being all together in a while due to winter finals (Jan-Feb) and a new semester. In one month we had dinner at Silvia's and a salsa night, several lunch gatherings, a museum exhibit, a fried chicken/Southern food dinner at Kyra's, a bar Sara wanted to visit called Latte Piu (and the Spirit made a way for a gospel conversation there!!), and to cheer ourselves up after Sara left, Silvia, Claudia, and Manuela came to my apartment to learn how to make American chocolate chip cookies! I'm telling you, that's a record number of hangouts for one month!
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| salsa night, Sara center |
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| All of us together for the last time :( |
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| quick shot in Capri before boarding the ferry back to Napoli |
April started with a bang, because my family minus one came to spend a week with me. Since they wanted to see as much of Italy as possible (understandably so, Italy is awesome), we flew through Naples, Capri, Rome, and Florence in 6 days. While we had a good time traveling together, my favorite part of them being here was simply having an opportunity to introduce them to team members and show them a tiny snapshot of my daily life.
After a great day in Florence I said bye to my parents and Anna Claire on Friday night, then went into a crazy Easter weekend. Our team has been waiting for months for our two Journeymen to arrive through the long training and preparation process, and they finally made it to Rome right before Easter! They lucked out, since we had a weekend of fun celebration already planned to graft them right in to both our team and friend groups.
Now I'm finally settling back to normal life...a little too normal, since I got hit with some brutal allergies in this week after Easter. They've told me Rome is one of the worst cities in the world for allergies, and I believe it. Since we have to keep our apartment windows open for air and walk everywhere, there's really no escaping the pollen. Another glamorous element to spring in the big city is the mosquitoes..they come into your apartment and attack you in your sleep. Oh well, it always opens up a conversation with Italians to complain about the bugs together! With all the lessons starting up, Taylor and I had a pleasant surprise from two of our students- they gave us Easter baskets! It's a huge custom in Italy to give Kinder eggs (this special kind of milk chocolate in Europe), and when Marta and Veronica heard we never had Kinder eggs on Easter, they took it upon themselves to remedy the situation. Marta and Veronica are also 2 of 4 of my students who signed up to go on the Athens exchange in August! Please be praying for them, Silvia (a different one, a new student of mine), and Marco...we saw last year the power of being exposed to a growing church and loving community centered around Christ!
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| with our new Journeyguys (Caleb-back, Jason-right) after the first Easter picnic |
Saturday evening Kyra set up something special for our team- we celebrated the first half of the traditional Passover meal together. Only the first half, since we believe Jesus is the Lamb that fulfilled the waiting but we also wanted to honor the Jewish tradition. Sunday morning our team went out for a picnic in a huge, beautiful park so the Karr and Cooper kids could have an Easter egg hunt and we could enjoy more time together. [Note- picnic to "enjoy more time together?" We are so assimilating to the Italian culture, they are all about picnics when the weather is nice to pass the hours with friends].
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| The primary chefs for the dinner, with Italian style gnocchi al forno (gnocchi bake) as the first course and the Irish traditional roast lamb for our second. |
Easter dinner was unlike any I've had before. One of my friends, Alyson, is an au pair here and hosted our crazy group for the night since her
family was out. It's always difficult finding space for large groups in apartments! We had 6 Americans (visitors and new boys included), 2 visitors from Milan, 2 Romans, 2 Irish, 1 German, and 1 French visitor in attendance...the accents were hilarious. We ate a lot (naturally), and enjoyed the chance to introduce the new guys to our little collection of international friends so quickly. The Monday after Easter is also a holiday in Rome, called Pasqueta. While Easter is the day you celebrate with family, Pasqueta is the day you celebrate with friends. So, true to cultural custom, we all went out for...what? A picnic in Appia Antica!
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| 2 of our students gave us Kinder egg baskets! |
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