Beady Beady: Seeing new places!

Ciao tutti! Isn't this piazza awesome?! Well, that is the Piazza San Lorenzo. I couldn't remember if I had showed it to you or not... When I was staying at the Salvation Army, I saw it pretty much every day. And I miss it. It's pretty simple, and sometimes it smells kind of bad, and at night, it is a raging party, but I liked it. Anyhow, I said goodbye to my two favorite bars (coffee bars) near this piazza when our summer project group left Roma for Switzerland almost a week ago. I can't believe how much of this trip has gone by already! I feel sort of bittersweet right now, because as much as I want to be here in Italy, I also really want to be home. I'm going to soak up the rest of my time here, and try to be available in any way that I can be taught and used by God, but when the time comes to go home, I will be ready.

I just returned to Italy a few days ago from Switzerland! We went there for Project debrief. If anyone ever offers you the chance to go to the Swiss Alps, GO! It was one of the most beautiful and serene places I have ever seen. Make fun if you want, but I honestly cried because it was so beautiful. These pictures do not even begin to show how incredible it was....

This is a picture of Wengen, the town where we stayed. I took this photo after hiking up the mountain for about a mile. The town was so quaint! I couldn't help but think that if I were in America and saw a town like this, it would be kitschy, because of all the garden gnomes and little cottages, but since this was the real deal, it was a little surreal.

Aaaaand here are some mountains. I took about a million pictures of the mountains, a lot of which didn't turn out that great because we were basically in a cloud the whole time we were there. In case you're wondering what it's like to walk around in a cloud, it kind of feels like you're getting followed around by one of those spray mist portable fans all the time. It was neat.

After Switzerland, I took a train back to Italy and met up with the Whitemans and Bennetches in Florence! We were there for two days, which was nowhere near long enough to see the city. It was a really nice, clean, beautiful city, and it was nice to be able to walk pretty much anywhere you wanted to go, as opposed to Rome, where a lot of things are really spread out and the city is just massive.

This is a pretty poor quality picture of the Ponte Vecchio, but it's the only one I got :)

Here's a picture of the sunset on the river, taken from the Ponte Vecchio.

I believe, but don't hold me to this, that this is the San Lorenzo Cathedral...

And this is the Duomo in Flornece. It's one of the more unique cathedrals I've seen with the colorful tiles on the outside. I have more pictures that I will share later!