Pisa e Lucca!

If you guys make your way to my Facebook, you can see that I've posted some new photos! The photo uploader is a little bit of a bitch, so they might not all be there when you log in to see them, but soon enough! Promise!

Our trip was really fun, although it was SO rainy, and subsequently freezing, which wasn't great, but the churches and museums were so awesome.

Pisa was my favorite of the two--the Tower was awe-inspiring, and the Baptistry was so amazing! They did this acoustical demonstration, where one of the attendants sang up into the cone/dome structure, and it sounded like a choir of people singing softy with them. It was wonderful. I didn't climb the tower (it cost 15 euro!), but it was enough to just see how cool it is.

Lucca had it's charms too--it's churches housed two really interesting tombs--one was a well-preserved body of a 13th century saint, St. Zita (allegedly), and the other was a commemorative marble tomb built for a teenage wife who died in childbirth. It was so gorgeous. And there were some 900 year old manuscripts in the cathedral museum! Excellent calligraphy.

All in all, a very successful trip. I'm going to try to go to Rome with them in two weeks, too, if it doesn't cost too much. Wish me luck!

Melissa and I attended an American Episcopal Church a little ways down the Arno yesterday. They're choir was small but powerful (I want to join, and I'm attending a meeting on Wednesday), but the sermon and hymns were so weird. One hymn talked about how the fishermen were happy and content before Jesus called them, and how Peter and John suffered horrible endings as a result of their service to God, and how God's Peace isn't peace at all, but we should pray for it. It was so weird.

And the female rector gave the sermon, which started out talking about Jesus calling the fishermen to follow him, and then she had this theory that they'd all known each other for years, and that the following was the culmination of a decades-long argument about 'vocation' and misunderstanding Jesus. THEN it was about a Holocaust survivor who stayed alive in Auschwitz because he was a tailor and could sew German uniforms. He came to the US, remarried, and had a daughter and a son. He taught the daughter to sew (his 'vocation'), and somehow his transferring of his suffering to her via sewing caused her to become anorexic, or something? I have no idea. It was so random. Then it was like "There is no fate or destiny, we all have a choice in our vocation." And I'm like, "Yes, we have a choice, but there's GOD'S PLAN, remember?" I don't know. I can't judge the whole place by one sermon.

ANYWAY, I guess I'll go back one or two times and see if it's for me. Mel and I are going to visit a home church next Sunday night and see what that's like as well. :)

I made a mix back for Robin. I hope he likes it! :D I miss him a lot.

I miss all of you! Florence would be so much more amazing if you were all here with me. Muah!

I have to go grab a quick snack and head back to class. I love and miss you all dearly. Have a great day!

-A.