A few tid bits

I need to get better at posting on this thing, but anyways this week has been really busy. Something you should know about Italy though is that you can only really accomplish one thing per day. So my days have been full, but with really only a couple of events per day. I have been in language school, which has been really good and I am definitely learning. My teacher's name is Milena and we always ask her random questions about where to find good meatballs, what the mafia actually does, and how to properly use italian hand gestures. As of right now I MIGHT be able to carry on a converstaion with a 2 year old, so that is progress.

OK here is some Salerno trivia. The patron saint of Salerno is San Matteo (aka the Matthew who wrote the book in the Bible) and when he died they cut his body into pieces and spread him out all over. The exciting part is that we have his arm...yes his actual arm. It is kept in a crypt in the Duomo ( the big church in the middle of the city). So last week was a festival celebrating San Matteo and there were concerts and fairs and markets and then a big parade. I'm pretty sure all of Salerno comes out for this parade where they carry large statues of various saints surrounded by flowers and such. When these statues pass, people throw confetti and flowers from their balcony and cross themselves. And when the San Matteo statues passed there was quite a bit of hollering and clapping, but apparently in the past women have fallen to the ground and wept. Just a quick note...Jesus was not involved in this parade.

So we're trying to have a get together for all the students that were involved last year and the new believers from this summer, which is quite exciting because this is the first time I have had any contact with students. Yesterday we split up calling all the students and we were all a little nervous because we are just assuming that they speak English and that they will have some kind of idea of what "Agape Italia" is. I actually spoke with 3 girls and they were precious! One girl said "it would be beautiful to meet you". That made my freakin day! I loved it! Talking to these girls really got me excited about starting to do actual ministry with students. I think it really helped to connect a voice and a name to "italian students" that I've been praying to have a heart for, but had no idea who they were.

That's all for now.

P.S. I like comments!

My first Italian Kiss...

So this weekend was a pretty big weekend for me here in Italy. My team leaders, Drew and Francine, went up to Florence for an Italy Leadership Meeting all weekend. So as all good children, we spent all day Friday cleaning up our kitchen and bathroom, which was just our first step into making 5 girls in an apartment feel like home. But while I was cleaning I found an excellent use for this mysterious European appliance in my bathroom, also known as a bedet...now if you don't know what it is I think that this would be an exciting Google search for you. So long story short, our floor needed to be mopped and we had no bucket, therefore the bedet became the bucket. And let me tell you it worked fabulously! And lucky for you the moment was captured...


Then later on that night we went out to eat, which was quite interesting because none of the Italian speakers were with us, so it was alot of pointing and smiling and nodding along, while other Italians were not so secretly mocking us. I ordered something that I didn't know what it was and it turned out to be delicious and the house wine was delicious so there were no complaints. Our server was this old man named Umberto and he was rather amused by us. We attempted to have a conversation with him at the end of the meal and as we were leaving I received my first Bacci! Now "bacci" is when two people greet eachother with the kiss on each cheek thing (but really you dont actually kiss you just make the kissy noise and press cheek to cheek). But here's the kicker...you always go left cheek then right cheek...well i went right cheek and almost hit Umberto right on the lips for our greeting. But thankfully I made a quick turn and just got the Bacci.

On Saturday, we ventured down to the Fourteen Points Hotel, which is the hotel that the Summer Project kids stay at every summer and we met Marco! Marco is basically the first christian that Crusade met here in Salerno, well actually a guy from Crusade led him to Christ and now he helps us out a ton. So he is like a legend in the Salerno Crusade world. There is an awesome video made featuring an interview of him that I will post a link of. So we met him even though he had no idea who we were and he is just adorable. He is the essence of "italian"...all cute and trendy with long hair and man capris. Then as we were leaving I experienced bacci #2...and from Marco! Oh, I love bacci!

So today we went to an actual church, which was exciting to see believers gathered together worshiping and serving the Lord in their culture. I was a little weirded out by the church, but that's OK...I'll get over it. Today was nice because it was mostly just working in these workbook things, looking up verses about loving our team, and reading "Let the Nations Be Glad" which I would highly recommend.

Here are some pics...

A view of the coast of Salerno


This is the street I live on


The beautiful waterfall in Amalfi that we hiked to...I know...I can't believe I went hiking either


My STINT family

Well here I am

For those of you who are hoping to receive tons of personal emails finding out about the very minute details of my day, I hate to break it to you, but it's just not going to happen, therefore I created this just for you! But remember that I do love you very much! So I'll just jump right into it then...

I have been here in Salerno almost a week now and I can't even believe it. On one hand it feels like I've been here forever and then on the other hand i can't believe I've only been here a week. It is so beautiful here. Everything looks like it's leftover from 100 years ago. It is also very strange here. There is absolutely no schedule here. Shops close down whenever they feel like it, but between 1-5 you definitely won't find anything open because that is siesta. And then I was walking along the water and there are people out everywhere in the middle of the day...children, men, women, and groups of old men. And my first thought is "does anyone work"? Which is very American of me, but seriously I really don't know what people do.

Some of our adventures thus far have been taking a boat to Amalfi (which is about 40 minutes by boat) and laying out on the beach, then hiking up about 1000 steps to a beautiful waterfall. By the way, while on the beach I witnessed 3 old woman change in/out of their bathingsuits...something else I don't understand about this culture. Then yesterday we took a bus to this town right next to us to go to Carefour, which a store similar to Wal-mart, and we got off too early. We ended up walking for over an hour....at least 3 miles and all for some shampoo, cereal, and a few kitchen items. It was so ridiculous, but you just couldn't help but laugh! Especially since we passed 8 bus stops on the way!

Right now 8 of us are living in 2 apartments that are right across from eachother. I love them...they are right in downtown and we are a very short walk from anything we need. The problem is that 5 girls are sharing one of the apartments and we are a bit cramped, so right now we are trying to figure out whether to buy some bunk beds or to find another apartment (which we've been trying to do), so if you could keep out living situation in your prayers that would be great.

Fantastic pics coming soon!