Bits & Pieces: 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...