our first weekend

well, last time i said that some italian kids were coming for the weekend for a retreat. they weren't kids first of all, they were young adults around the same ages as us. they arrived friday evening, and after some choppy/terrible italian salutations from us (the new avanti workers) we all sat around the grill outside while david prepared a feast.

yes, those are mashed potatoes

the food was wonderful but we soon came to realize that the company was even better! all of these young professional/college student italians speak beautiful english. that was bad because we need so desperately to be immersed in italian only, but great because we were actually able to communicate and get to know them. they are all such motivated and hard working christian people, and being around them all weekend was so refreshing.

after that marvelous dinner, we sat around and sang together and had a little devo (all in italian of course). then we played girls against guys pictionary (also in italian), and we had a blast! i don't even know who won but we played for hours and it was so much fun. (oh also before our turn we had to tell our names, where we are from, and something we like to do - guess what language we had to do that in). then we went to bed.

pictionary fun

a great picture of all the guys (emily has a good one

of all the girls, but we didn't get one with our camera)

saturday morning we got up and reported to the kitchen to help david and debbie make pancakes and bacon for our guests. (they don't sell sliced bacon in italy, but don't worry, the bible school owns a meat slicer like the ones they use in lenny's and eric became proficient in the ways of bacon slicing) after breakfast we sat in the "living room" and had a little devo, and then it was on to FLORENCE, for my personal first trip back there since HUF in 2005. oh, was it ever just as grand and majestic as i remembered!!!

it's like when you are looking at houses with a real estate agent and you are supposed to act really stoic and if you love the house you can't let them know. i was trying to show florence that, "oh you're pretty cool, but i could live without you", and blend in as if to say "i walk around this city everyday and am not the least bit impressed." florence wasn't fooled, i was like a little kid as we walked towards the piazza duomo, and the giatto tower became bigger and taller and my neck strained further and further up until i was standing right under it again. oh what a beautiful feeling it was. (for all of you who are thinking "you crazy freak, what is the big deal, yea it's a big old dome, but who cares, millions of people see it daily and no one cares." well then don't read my blog, because i love florence, all of italy for that matter, and i'm enamored with it all.

also reading this blog entails looking at our

calendar-like picturesque photos of florence

and the surrounding areas that you have all seen

before, but that we love because they were taken by

us with our camera

sweet debbie (mom, ya'll would be good friends)

anyway, we strolled around florence (i, no doubt, in my own happy florence bubble with a ridiculous smile on my face) for a couple of hours, got our first gelato at "grom", and walked towards the piazza della michelangelo for the best view of the whole city and lunch. debbie and mona met us in the piazza with all the makings for sandwiches, panzanella, and fruit. after relaxing in the piazza we rode the van back to the bible school, and worked on a service project that emily planned for us.

we divided into 4 groups with both italian and "americani". each group was assigned a verse from the song "in christ alone", and we translated it so the italians can take it back and teach their home congregations in italian. obviously, the new avanti students weren't much help with the translation part, but we did hum the lines of the song over and over and over again to make sure the words fit. this took almost 2 hours, because the italian language is very elaborate, poetic, and basically the words are very long compared to english. for example "stop" in english equals about a 12 syllable word in italian. so, making the song correspond in italian with the same number of syllables was no easy task.

after this we had dinner...real lasagna. it was delicious and i won't tell you how much of it i really ate because some would consider it gluttony. after dinner, we sat around the table and practiced our newly translated song, played some more games, and went to bed. little did we know that we would have to sing our new song in church today in front of the congregation (unexpectedly having to sing in front of large groups is becoming a trend of ours).

after church we ate at "movida" (i think that is the name) ... we had ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta with a sage/butter sauce on top and spaghetti. of course this was accompanied with tuscan bread and salad (italians eat their bread and salad at the end of the meal, you clean your plate with your bread and then eat the salad after that). an espresso to top it all off and back to the bible school for a relaxing afternoon of blogging and studying italian.

ryan and i still need to go to the store for toothpaste, kleenex (we are both already sick), and a few other random things. tomorrow we start language school and have orientation with david and debbie for our english students. apparently, we are all going together to pick out a puppy on tuesday and i'm extremely excited about that! eventually i will be able to blog every few days without getting so specific, but right now everything is new and exciting and i don't really know how to summarize it. sorry for the length but it was such a fun and busy weekend!

ciao tutti!