festival of nations

yesterday we participated in the festival of nations at the university of florence. ermenita goes to school there and she said last year there wasn't a table for the united states (even though there are students from the united states in school there). so she asked us if we would represent. so...we made chocolate chip cookies, brownies and caramel corn and the HUF students made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we made a slideshow.

every country had a table and you just walked around and tried their food and talked to them about their country. it was really fun and we met a lot of fun people.

this is one of my students, olta, she was there representing albania, her homeland. these hats are what old people wear in albania.

this is ryan's student, florian, he is from albania too and he was there. also sporting the hats.
the caramel corn was amazing as usual. go emily!
robbie and ermenita enjoying the festivities (and the hats again).
everyone's favorite "american" couple. look at that USA table, doesn't that make you want to go there?
the americans and albanians (we are all friends), i don't know what we were doing in this picture but i just get tired of everyone smiling sometimes.
the festivities
the americans
setting out our decorations, whoa

it was a fun day and we met a lot of new people. in fact a guy we met from austria at the festival came to the bible study at the church that night and he is planning on coming to church on sunday! that was very exciting and hopefully some of the other friends we made yesterday will want to study with us eventually!