TRA[life]VELS

Just more than a week ago, I didn't wake up to church bells, my facebook didn't ask me for my "passwort", and asking for tap water didn't warrant a puzzled expression. Yes, I am back in the good 'ol USA. Our narrow escape from Eyajfjallajokull took place April 15th at noon, only we didn't know we were escaping anything. Once we arrived at our connecting flight in Philadelphia, we heard that they started canceling flights right after ours.

This entire experience has been sandwiched between two planes. Just another season of my life that has come and gone, and yet I never really felt that I had come or gone anywhere. I don't mean I felt my experience was lacking in traveling or seeing fantastic places, because that is one area it definitely wasn't lacking. The entire time I was in Germany, I wasn't homesick. Not once. Sure I missed certain things, like watching youtube videos with my friends while we should be studying, fellowshipping with my brothers and sisters at Grace and Truth Study, and Mexican food...but that's a different thing entirely. When I arrived at LAX 9pm Thursday night, I got in the car with my family, drove the 2 hours home, and walked right back into my bedroom. Nothing had changed, and I only noticed because I had.

It's impossible to sum up the last three months of my life. Even as I dwell on it at times I can't wrap my mind around it. Was it the trip itself or the fact that I had never done anything like this before? Would I have grown in similar ways if I hadn't gone overseas? I don't know the answers to my own questions. I can only speculate and my guess is as good as yours. But for what its worth, let me tell you what I do know. This semester was not on accident. As haphazard as it seemed at times, each specific circumstance was there on purpose. God knows what He's doing. So simple. Why do I forget the simple things easiest? The factors that went into getting me to AMBEX alone prove that point, but then when I think that God did that for 9 other students as well, it sort of blows my mind. And that's just one thing, there are countless factors playing into my experience that I don't even acknowledge that were all specifically put in place so I could come out of AMBEX different than when I went in.

God is good. Period.

Although my circumstances aren't ideal in my eyes right now, my goal is to reflect on the past three months of my life as an encouragement. The same God that sent me to Germany is also keeping me in the high desert for four months.

None of us knew anything about our last stop on our Italy tour, and we didn't get there until close to midnight. We woke up in the Cinqua Terre hostel and look out the window...we are ON the coast, the sun in shining, around 60 degrees, and best of all, no planned activities! Cinqua Terre is the Malibu of Italy. Its not quite tourist season yet so it was quiet and quaint and just perfect. I don't actually think that place is too touristy anyway. Cinqua Terre means "5 Terraces" which we found out was because it is made up of 5 little cities on hills that sit directly on the coast line. The one we stayed in was Manarola. There was an awesome hiking trail to Corniglia (the next town) so we took that. It was probably about an hour of dirt trail and ocean. The trail was cut directly into the side of the cliffs...we even crossed a rickety old bridge. When we got to Corniglia it was almost lunch time, so we walked around for a bit before we stopped in this hole in the wall to get some foccacia sandwiches which were amazing AND cheap! Then we got some gelato and took it down to this spot on the cliff with a park bench and we just sat and stared at the ocean in the warm sun for a good 3 hours. Then we decided to take a train two towns over to Vernazza. This town was a bit more touristy, but just as beautiful. We walked around, saw an old church, explored an old castle/fortress, and got pizza before we left back on the train home arriving just in time to see the sunset. Good day. Overall good trip.

I left off en route to Florence. The forecast was snow...and lots of it. In order to get from Venice to Florence, we had to take the main route through the Appenine Mountains. We started off on the main highway, but soon realized that due to the snow, the highway would be closing. We stopped at a shopping center off the highway to get some food and figure out our next move. The plan was to take a back route. It was our only option, even though it was a windy mountain road. AmBex travels in two vans which are difficult to navigate through the snow, and the lack of chains made the next leg of our trip near impossible. We would drive for a ways, and then realize we should have turned down another road which meant we had to turn around. One person would get out and direct traffic on the one way road while the vans attempted to do a 23-point-turn. Regardless of all of that, seven hours later we were in Florence. We ate dinner at the hostel and went quickly off to bed. Our hostel was a converted private estate in the Tuscan countryside just outside the main city. The next day we had the chance to get out and go exploring. Horner took us to see some of the most important pieces of artwork in art history. Florence was at the very center of Renaissance art and culture. The first museum we visited was the Acadamea which is the museum that holds Michelangelo's 'David' among many other things. The next museum was the Oficia ("The Offices") which was one of the Medici's palaces that got turned into a museum. This is the one that holds 'La Primavera" and 'Birth of Venus' by Boticelli as well as numerous DaVinci, Cranach, etc. Boticelli's paintings were the most memorable to me. The next morning it was already time to leave Florence, but before we left we stopped at the Duomo [the Dome of the Florence Cathedral that Bruneleschi designed) and climbed our way to the top via very long, narrow staircase... 463 steps to be exact! It was well worth it because we got to look down on the entire city of Florence. Some of us even launched paper airplanes off the top. The inside of the dome was painted by Zuccari and depicts some pretty graphic images from Dante's "Inferno." When we were on the inside rim we were able to see just how big the figures were. This is a rough guess but I'd say I was only about a tenth of their size. We then went back down the same way we went up and headed for some pizza. An hour later we were off to Pisa! Who knew that Pisa was the Wichita of Italy? I certainly didn't. The only thing that keeps them afloat is the leaning tower. And I am proud to say that I got my very own "holding up the tower" picture. That's at least 10 tourist brownie points. I also didn't know that Pisa was so close to the coast... so we drove there to enjoy the beach and eat some dinner. It was dark by the time we left for our last hostel stop in Cinqua Terra. None of us knew anything about where we were going, and we didn't get there until close to midnight. We all trudged p this hill with our luggage dragging and went strait to bed. We were in for a surprise the next morning.