Italy... Again!

Two weeks ago I went to Italy for 6 days! It was a transition period from working in the lab to doing Hebrew Ulpan, and I had a few free days over the weekend. So I decided to go to Italy with Joseph and his sister Anna, and Josh, the 17-year old son of a religion professor at the BYU Jerusalem Center.

Because I knew Italy so well and knew people that we could stay with (and also because I was the oldest of our little group of 4), I was in charge of planning the whole trip.  For 6 days, we ran around Rome, Naples, and Florence and had an incredible adventure with our rental car and sleeping on floors, beds, and in cars.  

I will just share some of the highlights and pictures.

Josh and I go to the airport on Thursday (Joseph and Anna arrived earlier in the day) and we are picked up by some members of the Ostia ward, David, Riccardo, Marco. Oh how wonderful it was to see these people again, the YSA of the Ostia ward!  I love them so much, and as I talked to David before coming to Italy, he touched my heart by telling me that the members of the Ostia ward would be willing to help me in anyway because they were grateful for my service to the ward, it was their way of repaying me.  It brought tears to my eyes, and to see them again and their willingness to help me and my friends was so special! Especially because Riccardo was an investigator in Ostia, found when I was serving there a year ago, and now he is a baptized, strong member of the church! What sweet memories those are.

On Friday morning we went to the airport to pick up a rental car we had reserved.  There were some misunderstandings and I animatedly argued with the rental car person in Italian, surprisingly bringing back even more sweet memories and a passionate side of me that only the beautiful Italian people and Italian language can bring out, haha.  I honestly love the freedom I feel speaking in Italian to express exactly how I feel in exactly the way that I feel it.

After the car fiasco and an extra 150 dollars, we toured around Rome and left that night to go to Napoli, a city in my mission but one I had never been to.  We had plans to stay the night with Marco, a talented Italian studying at NYU who I had met on the plane just a month before.  He had an incredible apartment, in what was probably one of the richest parts of town, penthouse with a balcony and a view of all of Naples, the ocean, and Mount Vesuvius.  It was absolutely incredible, and to top it off we bought 5 Margherita pizzas and ate them on the balcony with the amazing view. That was definitely a highlight of the trip, a once in a lifetime experience.

On Saturday we went to Pompeii and it was hot. Then we drove to Positano.  Positano is a beautiful beach town just south of Naples on the Amalfi Coast. I had heard about how great it was from my mission companion Sorella Olsen, and it was one of my "must sees" next time in Italy.  The drive there was spectacular, a narrow winding road through steep cliffs that dropped down to the ocean and they somehow built a colorful little town on the side of these cliffs. 

Positano

Pompeii

Trevi Fountain

Saturday night was spent at Dima Scotchi's (a missionary I served with) on his floor, and on Sunday morning we went church hopping! Thanks to the rental car, we were able to go to Ladispoli for the first hour and Ostia for sacrament meeting and I saw so many people that I love so much!  Even better, in each ward I had an old companion currently serving there (Sorella Buma in Ladispoli and Sorella Olsen in Ostia).  Ladispoli was great, but being back in Ostia especially with Sorella Olsen, was a dream.  We were a few minutes late and I snuck in and sat by Angela, my Ukranian miracle baptism.  She had no idea I was going to be there, and was so happy to see me!  We stayed around church for an hour after it ended just so I could talk to everyone in the ward and I couldn't have been happier. Ostia was my favorite area, my favorite ward with my favorite people.  

In the afternoon we went to see the temple grounds. We had to see it from the top story of the building next door because the grounds are closed off, but it was crazy to see how much work they had done since last time I saw it!  9 months ago there was just a hole in the ground, and now there are 4 tall buildings under construction, the temple, church, hostel, and visitor's center. 

We toured around Rome a bit more, ate pizza in front of the Colosseum at night, and began our drive to Florence.  We couldn't find a decently priced place to sleep that night, so in the early hours of the morning, we pulled over at a random rest stop  in between Rome and Florence and slept in the car.  I couldn't sleep at all in the car, so I actually sat at the top steps of a closed cafe and watched the sun rise over Tuscany and listened to music.  Even though I was absolutely exhausted, it was one of the coolest experiences for me to find a little bit of alone time and reflect on things during the Tuscan sunrise.  

On Monday we toured around Florence and climbed to the top of the Duomo.  We made it back to our hotel just as the sun was setting. Our hotel was about a 25 minute bus ride from the heart of Florence, on top of a hill just about a little town, and it had a spectacular view! 

Duomo in Florence

View from the top of the Duomo in Florence

Ponte Vecchio in Florence

 

San Gimignano

San Gimignano from the top of a tower

San Gimignano

On Tuesday we toured other Tuscan towns including San Gimignano, a beautiful town on top of a hill with lots of towers.  That night Anna and Josh went into Florence to try to see Michaelangelo's David, and Joseph and I drove around trying to find a certain monastery. We weren't able to find it but ended up in a piazza with a spectacular view of Florence, and then got kebabs!

Wednesday we went to Siena and then I was dropped off at the airport, where I was flagged for being very suspicious (my passport picture looks nothing like me and I technically don't have a visa yet for Israel...) After intense questioning and an hour later, I made it on the plane but it was my fault that the flight was 20 minutes late! Oops!

Being in Italy was absolutely fantastic, made even better by Joseph, Anna, and Josh.  Every day we packed in so much, had a dozen mini-adventures, and memorable moments.  I want to just summarize what some of my favorite moments were:

1. Luca, my Romanian friend and investigator in Ostia, spent a day in Rome and came to Napoli, Pompeii, and Positano with us.  Hanging out with Luca was incredible, we all loved having him with us and he fit right in.  More than that, I was so impressed with him. Sorella Olsen and I found him on a train over a year ago, and although he isn't baptized, I am astounded to see how much he has changed. He is happy, he is so involved with all the other young adults of the Church, and is practically a member. Even more, I was so impressed with his maturity.  For any problem that came up or any question that needed answering, Luca was by my side, helping. He drove the car when we all were exhausted, helped navigate, and showed us great pizza places in Rome. It has been a long time since I have been "his missionary", but I still feel that missionary-like love and concern for him, and it made me so happy to see him doing so well.  

2. Food!

Pizza on the balcony in Napoli

Pizza at night in front of the Colosseum

Every town we went to, we stopped for gelato. So good!

Sandwiches in the pinetta on Sunday in Ostia. The same pinetta where we taught so many people, so many memories, we ate fresh bread with fresh mozzarella cheese and meat.  So simple and yet so good!

One of our many gelato stops

Pizza being made in Napoli

Eating pizza on the balcony in Napoli with Marco

3. Seeing all the people in the Ostia ward again. It was such a sweet reunion

Ostia!

4. Sunrises and sunsets in Tuscany, watching the sunrise on the balcony in Napoli.

sunrise over Tuscany at the truck rest stop. Everyone else was asleep in the car, hidden behind the trucks in the picture

View from our hotel room in Tuscany

Sunset over Florence

5. Spending hours driving around, lost, either in Rome or Florence or Napoli or on our way to some other place.  So many one way streets!  So many roads we drove on that were illegal for non-residents! Oops!

6. Adventures like jumping over the fence to sneak into the building by the temple grounds and scaring the only two people in the building. Or jumping the wall at Pompeii to run around the top of the ampitheater

7. Views of the cities from the tops of church duomos and towers

8. Not being able to express myself clearly in English and having to switch to Italian to more quickly give directions to Luca. Ahhh, Italian :)

9. Laughing fits over nothing because we were functioning on just a few hours of sleep each night

10. Being stung by a jellyfish at Positano! 3 weeks later and I still have the marks...

jellyfish sting!