Thursday, June 23, 2011

Venice


Well, I am finally getting around to writing a post about Venice. Usually at this point I wouldn’t bother writing about things that are so far gone, but this experience was way too great not to post about.

When we got to Venice I was completely depressed. I know, I know, I was in one of the most magical cities in the world and I was crying my eyes out! Sad, but true. I got over it pretty quickly though. How can this be? Right? Well, I had just left one of the best cities I had ever been to, had been staying at a beautiful hotel and sat for six hours on a train to arrive in this eery little harbor city that was drenched in rain and the forecast projected that it would be like that the whole time we were there. So I was a little bit more than disappointed.

 After a ten minute breakdown on the bed of my hostel, being comforted by Curtis of course, I sucked it up, changed my clothes and made my way out into the magical/eery little city of Venice, Italy. I was satisfied to find that even in the rain it was quite an enchanting city and we enjoyed walking around in the daylight that was left that day. It helped that we found an amazing cafĂ© to eat at which we ended up eating at twice during our three days in Venice.
The second day we woke up to cloudy skies, but no rain. The forecast had changed for the day and it showed showers only in the evening. So we were pumped up as we headed out for what turned out to be a really great day!

We bought a boat pass for the day and headed over to St. Mark’s Square by way of the Grand Canal. The boat ride alone was quite lovely. We were beginning to really understand the appeal of Venice as we rode down the Grand Canal to St. Mark’s.

We got to St. Mark’s and it was an absolutely beautiful Basilica, unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures inside, but the outside itself was incredible.
After the Basilica we headed up the bell tower for an amazing view of the whole city, this is the view of St. Mark’s Square from the tower.

When we finished at the Bell tower we decided to feed the pigeons. These guys were crazy, if you gave them the tiniest crumb they would jump all over you! I love birds, so I actually kind of liked it.

After that we headed over to the island of Murano where they make amazing Murano glass. It was a beautiful island, maybe even more enchanting than Venice in some ways. It was small and quaint and they had a huge variety of beautiful things made of their ever so famous Murano glass.

After Murano, we headed over to Burano, I know, the names rhyme, hahaha, funny funny. I am not sure why they rhymed, but I do know that they were a lot alike, except for the fact that the houses on Burano were all very brightly colored and beautiful. The other thing I am aware of is that my photo of Burano is not very beautiful. That was completely my fault, since I forgot to fully recharge the battery, which almost led to breakdown #2 in Venice, until Curtis found a nice restaurant with some good wine ;)
We got our full worth of the boat pass that day using it two more times after our return to Venice. We made our way back to St. Mark’s square to search for a restaurant that my sister had been to in Venice.


After a little bit of a lengthy search, we found this beautiful little piece of heaven called Rafaelles, right on the canal where the gondolas pass by. It was nice to be there, at a place where my sister had eaten about a year before. At this point I hadn’t seen my sister Angela for two years, or any of my family for that matter, so it felt good to be connected in this way with her.
The next day in Venice we spent our time exploring the island. We walked around basically all day, we spent about six hours or more exploring the island, we figure that we spent a total of about four hours just walking around and seeing different things. Not a bad work out at all ;)
We took breaks of course, cappuccino breaks

gelato breaks

We saw some great things while we were walking including this beautiful church


We also got a chance to climb up this great bamboo sculpture, that was kind of like every kids dream.

It even had a cool hangout at the top with pillows and really chill music playing. It was quite interesting. You can read more about it here.
For our last dinner in Venice we actually went back to the same restaurant that we were at the first night. It was really good food, the service was great and so was the location. So we ate there one last time and reminisced about our time in Italy.

Overall we had an amazing time in Italy, the sights were beautiful, the people were friendly, the food was amazing and the company was wonderful! I think that one of my favorite things about Italy was the Gelato though ;)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Rome



I know it seems ridiculous, but yes, I am posting on my blog from Rome, even though I am terribly tired from three days of running around the city and all I want to do is crawl into my comfortable bed at this great hotel that we are staying at.
I am only doing it because I know that I probably won’t do it when I get home. Why? If you ask, you don’t know me well enough. I will be with my family and I will probably be posting something about how exciting it is to be home. So I need to write about Rome while I am excited about Rome.


Rome is better than anything I ever expected. Just the feeling of being here is difficult to explain. The sites are beautiful, but even more than all the sites, I just like the feel of walking the streets.
This is where we ate the first night. From where I was sitting I could see Trevi Fountain.

The pizza was delicious! My first real Italian Pizza!!
Rome was gorgeous in the evening especially Trevi Fountain. This was one of the three times we saw it!

This square was perfect…

And so was the latte I drank while gazing at it…

Don’t be fooled, although there is not one picture of me eating Gelato, I ate tons of it! It was probably my favorite part of Rome!
We didn’t go inside the coliseum because it was raining and we really didn’t care to, but it was cool to look at!

This is the view from the Spanish Steps on a rainy day

The rain just kept coming down, but we still managed to get a nice photo. A Curtis & Katina Classic for sure!

After climbing down the Spanish steps we took refuge in this restaurant and ate some calzone for our first time in Rome.
Then we finally made it to the Vatican on our second day

Overall, Rome has been an amazing city. There were some hard times, with hurting feet, soggy shoes, runaway buses and many more things. But those things I will forget. I will always remember the good times we had in Rome and I know that I am blessed for being able to go to this wonderful city!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Home

I can’t wait to go home. I don’t want to downplay the fact that in a couple of hours I am leaving for one of the most exciting and beautiful cities in the world, because I am totally excited to go to Italy and experience the land of my heritage. But I am more excited about the home of the free and the brave. Not just because of the fact that it is my homeland and I can’t wait to see the ocean and drink a frappuccino at Starbuck’s, but because of the people who are there.


So many times on this journey I have been sure that I was too weak to make it without them. But G*d has gotten me through those times. In the middle there, the middle being last summer, there were days when I did not want to continue. I just wanted to lie in bed all day. I was so sad that I had to wait another whole year before seeing them again. But He was there, holding me, loving me and lifting me slowly out of that slump till I was able to stand again, able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The time here has been sweet, and a lot of the time I was okay without them, but there were days…
Now, it is time to celebrate, because the time has come to visit my family! To run with joy and excitement into their loving arms again! There were some days in the past two years where all I wanted was to be in their presence and now that the time has finally come for it to happen, it feels like a real gift. Like never before. I have never been so excited to see my family. The yearning is about to be quenched; I am about to embrace the ones that I love so dearly, the ones that I have missed so longingly.
Mom and Dad, I can’t wait to sit at the kitchen table and drink a cup of coffee with you in the morning and just enjoy the feeling of being home, in the home that I grew up, the home that I have known for years. I can’t wait to walk the neighborhood with you and feel the cool ocean breeze. 
Jay & Sheila, I can’t wait to laugh with you and be poked by Jay, to play with Eowyn and Lexie and swim in your pool, to watch a movie with you guys and maybe even go to the animal shelter again ;)
Tara, I can’t wait to give you the hug that I dreamt about in November, it seemed so real. I woke up with tears in my eys because it had been so long and hugging you felt so good. (I’m crying now & I hope you are too) ;)
I can’t wait to pick up your little girl for the first time and give her hugs and kisses. I can’t wait to see Henry riding around on his scooter in person and saying “Auntie Katina, watch me!” I just can’t wait to be with you and Bill in your new home!
Dominic, I simply can’t wait to be around you and laugh at everything you do and marvel at the man that G*d has made you; the dad, husband and brother that he has made you. I also can’t wait to hug you Brenda and bake carrot cake with you.
I can’t wait to make Gabriella smile that beautiful smile of hers and just embrace her and feel her little arms embrace me back. I can’t wait to play games and dance around with Sofia and Olivia. I can’t wait to sit on the porch and watch the sunset from your beautiful home :)
Angela, oh fanny. So many times I have wanted to just call you or tell you about something funny. I am thankful for facebook because most of the time that has made it possible. But I can’t wait to just hang out with you.
When I first came here Lucy was a baby, only six months old. I was in Ch*rch one day and I saw a 2 year old girl run into the arms of her mother. At that moment the thought crossed my mind that Lucy might be that age when I saw her again. I saw an image of Lucy running to me as a 2 & ½ year old girl and I was overcome with the sadness of the thought, tears filled my eyes as I asked G*d to get me through the next two years without kissing that precious face. He has, and now the time has almost come for her to run into my arms as a 2 & ½ year old girl. I can’t wait for that moment, and I also can’t wait to hang out with you and Alan in your new home :)
I am sad for what I have missed, but I know that this is what G*d wants, or I would never be here, away from the ones that I love so dearly. I m also thankful that He is giving us this summer to spend lots of quality time together!
I also want to mention that I have missed my extended family and friends so much and I can’t wait to see you guys either! I am also looking forward to our time in Redlands with Curtis’ family! I love you all so dearly as well!
Can’t wait to see you all soon!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Graduation year 2


For the second year in a row, graduation has proven to be the culmination of a year of hard work. Although I don’t write about it that much, we put a lot into our teaching. At graduation we find out how much our students really appreciated the class and all of our hard work.
One of the things that really touched me this year, was these two young girls. I knew they had a lot of fun in the class, but I had no idea how much they actually loved us, until they wouldn’t let me go at the end of the graduation. They were both crying and saying how much they would miss us over the summer. These are the things that keep me going when I remember how far we are from family and friends.

Another touching thing that our classes did was present us with gifts. Each of them gave us something special to remember them by.
A student designed a t-shirt for Curtis’ birthday and he hasn’t taken it off since :)


One amazing class really knew the way to my heart… They bought me an electric mixer
The funny thing about the mixer is that the student who decided to buy it for me was at my house the day before the graduation party helping me bake. I had her working on the chocolate chip cookies and when she got to the adding flour part she asked me why I didn’t have an electric mixer. I told her ours broke and she was on top of buying me one the next day :) It is a really nice one with a blender attachment, so I am pretty excited.
In reality, these gifts don’t matter much. They were well appreciated and the gestures of love were felt. But what matters is what we have poured into these student’s lives. We hope to see fruit from what we have poured into their lives. And we hope that some of the connections that we have made will become lifelong friendships.


We have truly been blessed and could not have asked for a better second and last year teaching ESI. We will miss teaching ESI, but we are also excited about what G*d has in store for us next year! Please continue to pr*y, as we are not sure about who will teach alongside of us next year. Thank you all so much for your constant support, pr*yers and love!