The Director Arrives

Our last week here in the hotel was brightened on Wednesday with the arrival of Dr. Terry Edwards, the program director. As most readers know, he was unable to come with us in September as a result of open-heart surgery he suddenly had to undergo in August. Stress tests a couple of weeks ago resulted in his being cleared to fly. He came to help shut the campus down next week and to negotiate contracts for next fall. Terry spoke in chapel Thursday and has been helping students (and faculty) with travel arrangements for next week.

Our end-of-semester banquet was Thursday evening. We had steak! After a fine meal, Terry serenaded the group with a Neapolitan song, accompanying himself on the guitar. Then we watched a slideshow Jonathan had put together. Nearly everyone appeared in it, but a few students were very overrepresented because most people didn't give Jonathan any photos to put into the show. Many pictures were taken afterwards while everyone was still dressed up.

Everyone is supposed to be in the process of cleaning out their rooms and preparing things for shipment. This morning was the last available time to ship boxes home. We began cleaning papers and such out of our apartment yesterday afternoon. There was some extra room in our suitcases on the way over, but I think the souvenirs we've acquired this semester will probably take up most of it when we pack today and tomorrow.

Free Travel #3 (Part 3)

Monday was the last full day of the free travel period. We rose early and left the hotel shortly after 8:00 for Orvieto, about two hours south of Citerna. It's a hill town most famous for its cathedral and for being the birthplace of the Corpus Christi holiday. We parked in a garage and took escalators up to the town center. We spent about three hours in town seeing the cathedral and the surrounding area. We climbed to the top of a tower in the center of town and had a very nice view of the city and surrounding countryside.

From Orvieto we drove further south about 10-15 miles to a tiny hill town called Civita di Bagnoregio. It is probably the most dramatically situated town I've ever seen. In the off season the place is nearly deserted, and we had the little place almost entirely to ourselves, although we sat in a little eatery for awhile and let the proprietors coo over our children. It was a very good day all in all, a good one on which to end our free travels. We got back to Citerna about 6:00 p.m.

The students had been told to be back at the hotel by noon on Tuesday; this deadline had been extended from Monday evening to accommodate the train strike which was scheduled to end at 9:00 p.m. Monday. Almost all the students made it back on time, although a few had delayed trains and the like that kept them out until after lunch. The down side of the extended break was that we had to have classes in the afternoon Tuesday. Thus we entered the home stretch of lectures.

Free Travel #3 (Part 2)

(I have added photos to earlier posts as far as back as the entry on Assisi.)

On Saturday we drove into Florence with Jenny Towns, who was souvenir shopping. I wanted to give Vickie another dose of the city because she had had little exposure to it up to that point. Arriving in town shortly before 11:00 a.m., we managed to park along the Arno in a metered space about half a mile upstream from the Ponte Vecchio. Jenny left us to do her shopping, and we went to the Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti Palace. Our tickets included admission to the costume gallery and special exhibit on the Medici and science, but not to the main part of the palace. We enjoyed what we had paid to see, and we ate a picnic lunch near the "Isoletta" at the bottom of the gardens. After leaving the gardens, we spent another couple of hours walking the streets between the palace and the Duomo, paying a visit to the "piggy market" so Vickie could get some gifts. We finally made it into the Duomo, which had had long lines on our previous visits. We didn't have to wait to go inside this time, but I still could not believe how crowded the piazza in front of the church was or how busy the pedestrianized streets were between the Duomo and the Piazza della Signoria. I guess there is no off season in Florence anymore. It's saddening.

On Sunday we returned to Florence but did not go downtown. Instead, we drove up to Fiesole, a small town sporting nice Etruscan ruins on a hill overlooking Florence. We spent about an hour there, and then drove back to the opposite side of Florence via the autostrada to the HUF villa, where we met Robbie and Mona Shackelford for lunch. We spent almost three hours with them and had a very nice visit. The HUF students were all in Rome, so we had the villa to ourselves. We actually had to cut our time short so that we could get back to Citerna for the worship service we had scheduled for 5:00 p.m. As the only male present, I ended up doing the whole service myself. Afterwards we had pizza and were rejoined by Dr. Gardner, who had ended his own travels early so as to return before a 24-hour train strike went into effect at 9:00 p.m. that evening. That night we enjoyed watching The Philadelphia Story with Jenny (we had watched It Happened One Night Saturday evening); the students were too philistine in their tastes to join us, unfortunately.

Free Travel #3 (Part 1)

We've just gotten a lot of pictures loaded from the trip to Assisi and everything after that. I will try to update some of the earlier posts to include photos.

Last Thursday morning the exodus from the hotel began for the third free travel period. It seems as though many students were planning to spend nearly the entire time in Paris, with some possible side trips to Belgium. Others went to Switzerland (again), while one small group was planning to go all the way to Denmark. I believe there was another group with the Czech and Slovak Republics in their sights. I'm sure there will be some interesting stories to hear once everyone is back. Five students, Melissa (the program assistant), Jenny Towns, and my family all stayed here at the hotel.

Although we slept here every night during the travel period, we went out every day to visit places in the region we had not yet seen. On Thursday we actually left before most of the students to go to Cortona, which we saw (insufficiently) in early September. We picnicked at the Medici fortress atop the city and marveled at the huge fog bank below us. It was like being in an airplane. Descending to the main part of town, we visited the museum of the Etruscan Academy, an organization founded in the eighteenth century to study the ancient civilization that preceded the Romans in this region. We enjoyed our time in town, and on the way out stopped the car at a couple of Etruscan tombs that have been excavated. We also stopped a few minutes at a little town called Montecchio between Cortona and Castiglion Fiorentino to see a magnificent castle that dominates the town. Unfortunately, after driving on some really tiny roads to make it up to the castle, we found it closed for renovations. We did get to see a lot of people harvesting olives, though (by hand!), and that was interesting.

On Friday we drove up into the Casentino region north of Arezzo to visit several places. First was La Verna, where St. Francis of Assisi is said to have received the stigmata (the wounds of the crucifixion) as a mark of God's special favor. The place is isolated in the hills, but there is a significant pilgrimage infrastructure there. We got some good pictures and met a busload of American Catholics. Our second stop was in the small town of Poppi, which has another impressive castle; this one was actually open, and we all got to tour it and climb the tower. Finally, we visited another hermitage, this one at Camaldoli, which houses about 40 Carthusian monks and has a nice Baroque church that is open to the public. It was good day, but a tiring one, and we were glad to get back to Sobaria. Vickie became very excited when she finally learned how to make cappuccino in the machine in the kitchen, and we have had a cup nearly every day since!

Attack of the Zombies

We had class every day this week through Thursday. Papers are coming due, and several students have subjected themselves to the dreaded all-nighter in order to complete their assignments. Cautions from professors that all-nighters result in terrible papers continue, as at home, to fall on deaf ears. Compounding the problem was the insistence of quite a few students to stay up all night on Tuesday to watch election returns, as if by doing so they could somehow influence the outcome. The result was dozens of zombies roaming the hotel on Wednesday and Thursday.

Realizing that our time in Italy will soon come to an end, my family made an afternoon excursion early in the week. On Monday we drove to Castiglion Fiorentino, which lies between Arezzo and Cortona. We had driven by the place the first week of the semester when we went to Cortona and thought that it looked interesting enough to visit. We easily found parking outside the old city walls and spent a couple of hours wandering its streets. It obviously contained a number of shops and such that catered to tourists, but it was equally clear that tourist season there was over. We had the streets mostly to ourselves, and the places we would have liked to see the inside of were closed. (It didn't help that we were there on a Monday, when many things in Tuscany are closed.) The kids were upset that we weren't able to get into the tall tower on top of the hill, but it required advanced booking for visits in the off-season. Still, we enjoyed the town, which commands an impressive view of the surrounding valley in addition to having some nice architecture.

On the way back to Citerna, we had to make a detour to Fighille so Vickie could run into the supermarket and buy diapers for Richard. I certainly won't be sad not to pay European prices for staples when we get home.

A Visit from the HUF Group

Sunday was a class day. We omitted chapel from the schedule and ate lunch at 1:00 p.m. The last class ended at 3:00, and at about 3:45 a charter bus carrying the HUF group arrived at the hotel. We worshipped together in the classroom at 4:00; Dr. Gardner preached the sermon. At 5:15 we began shuttling people down to the soccer fields in Fighille, a village on the Sansepolcro side of the ridge. The most direct road to Fighille is quite steep in some places, and on my second trip back to the hotel, I think I left part of the station wagon's tires on the road because I couldn't get enough traction. The students played for about two hours on three fields; they formed six mixed teams (genders, schools), and from what I heard afterward everyone seemed to have a pretty good time. I was spared shuttling duty on the way back to the hotel, and apparently Giorgio executed a series of death-defying maneuvers getting a packed minibus back up the really steep slope to Citerna. Shortly after 8:00, we were all sitting down to pizza in the dining room. The HUF group left for Florence between 9:00 and 9:30. I didn't have as much time to visit with Robby as I would have liked, but we made tentative plans to meet at the villa for lunch on Sunday, when we'll be on free travel and the HUF students will be in Rome.

A Day in Assisi

Saturday was another free day for us; it seems so strange to write that after the busyness of most of the semester. I decided to take the family and any students who wanted to go to Assisi, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes away from Citerna. In the end, four students took me up on the offer, so we drove the minibus through the rain down the E45 to the pilgrimage site, finding a parking place right around 10:00.

As approached the Basilica of St. Francis, it struck me that we were there on a holy day, All Saints Day. Of course that meant that the major churches of Assisi were packed with pilgrims, and that there were numerous services being held in the churches throughout the day. As a result the majority of St. Francis's church was inaccessible to us. However, we were able to go into the crypt to see his tomb. I think it was good for the students to see a full Italian church, whatever else might have happened. After leaving St. Francis's, which is near the bottom of the town, we walked up to Piazza Matteotti, and then turned around and slowly made our way back down through the town, following a walking tour in Rick Steves's guidebook.

We walked through a neighborhood that is built around and incorporates a first-century Roman amphitheater. We went into the cathedral dedicated to San Rufino, where St. Francis, St. Clare, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II were all baptized. We spent some time in the Basilica of Santa Chiara (St. Clare), named after a convert of St. Francis who founded her own semi-monastic order, the Poor Clares, for women. We saw St. Clare's tomb in the crypt, but were unable (because of an ongoing service) to get to the chapel containing the crucifix that is supposed to have spoken to Francis in a vision. In the oldest part of Assisi, we saw a Roman temple to Minerva (Corinthian columns and all) that had been converted into a Christian church in the Middle Ages. To top it all off, we had some magnificent views of the Umbrian countryside from several vantage points along the route.

We ate lunch in a cafeteria near St. Clare's church, and made it back to the bus around 1:45. I would have liked to have stayed longer and perhaps driven up to the top of Mt. Subasio to see one of Francis's retreats, but it was raining on us again, and Jonathan had asked us to have the bus back in Citerna by 3:00 so that a group of students heading into Florence could ride it into Arezzo. So we returned for a more or less relaxing afternoon and evening.

Classes, Visitors, and a Party

We have had five consecutive days of class since Monday, and everyone has been in the thick of the school routine. Students are working on papers on projects, and things are proceeding much like they did last week. There have been more soccer games, and a group went to see one of the professional matches a couple of nights ago (at a cost of 50 euros per ticket—too rich for my blood!).

Jonathan Edwards's brother (Brandon) and his wife joined us here in the hotel this week and will be here until the first part of next week. They have a three-week-old baby named Charlotte who has been turning heads throughout the hotel. Our son Richard is no longer the youngest person here! Brandon and his wife are missionaries in Sicily, and they are here for a sort of vacation and also to get their daughter a U.S. passport. I had not seen Brandon for many years, so it has been a treat to talk to him. I discovered that he and I lived in the same city in China at different times, and that has given us a lot to talk about.

I have been busy in the afternoons. On Tuesday my family drove into Arezzo for some sightseeing, and we managed to see the cathedral and the church of San Francesco, which contains an important fresco cycle by Piero della Francesca telling the story of the Legend of the True Cross. Wednesday afternoon I went back into Arezzo with a couple of Faulkner students to see the Medici fortress and the remains of the Roman amphitheater, as well as Petrarch's house, which was inexplicably closed. On Thursday I drove my family up into the Casentino region north of Arezzo to see the birthplace of Michelangelo, which is in a little hill town called Caprese. The weather is changing here and getting quite cold, windy, and rainy. We were on the verge of getting uncomfortable on top of that hill.

Thursday was also Birthday #6 for our oldest son, Edward. Vickie made a big cookie for him with a candle that he blew out at supper last night. All the students sang to him, and he enjoyed it.

This evening we are having a "Harvest Party" here in the hotel, which I understand is supposed to be followed by an excursion to a cemetery to tell ghost stories. Students are dressing up in costumes; Kevin Cline and Elizabeth Nabors are going as me and Vickie. I'm sure that will be interesting.

Citta della Domenica

This past Sunday, as I noted earlier, was another free day for the students. Many were still traveling on their weekend trips which had begun Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. My family drove down to Perugia to visit Citta della Domenica, a combination zoo and amusement park, for the kids' benefit. It took some doing to find the place; our directions were unclear, and we had to stop to ask for help once or twice. We finally located it on top of a hill opposite from the main body of the city, and spent about four hours there. Edward and William both got to ride ponies and drive go-carts around a track, and there was a train to ride and a big slide to go down as well as lots of animals to see. It wasn't up to the standards of most theme parks in the states, but the price was much cheaper; we all got in for less than $50.

We got back to Citerna around 4:00, and I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for the sermon I was to deliver at the worship service that evening. By 7:00, when the service began, I think everyone in our group had returned except for Dr. Gardner, who had flown to Philadelphia to attend a Monday board meeting for an energy company he works with. After the service we had our usual Sunday evening pizza and began to gear up for another week of nonstop classes.

Urbino

We deviated somewhat from our original schedule this weekend. We had planned to have a free day on Saturday, during which students would be free to travel somewhere within a reasonable distance, and then a group trip into Florence on Sunday. In the middle of the week the decision was made to cancel the group trip and give the students the entire weekend off, with a group worship service here at the hotel Sunday evening. As a result, a number of students left the hotel Friday evening, and more left Saturday morning for trips to Venice and other places in Italy. Others took day trips into Florence on the weekend.

My family took advantage of the free day Saturday to drive to Urbino, a hill town to the northeast of Citerna that played a significant role in the Renaissance. Urbino's ruler in the fifteenth century was Duke Federigo da Montefeltro, a soldier of fortune who managed to take over the city and legitimize his rule through military victories and subsequent patronage of the arts. Urbino is also the hometown of the painter Raphael. The place is not very accessible; we had to drive about 90 minutes on some very winding roads to get there. However, the drive was worth it. The town is very picturesque; the ducal palace (built by Federigo) dominates it, but there are numerous other sites of note.

For a mere six euros each, Vickie and I got discounted combination tickets that gave us admission into most of the town's significant sites, including the palace, which houses a museum with some important Renaissance works in it, including a couple of Raphaels and Piero della Francesca's Flagellation; Raphael's birthplace; two oratories with interesting interiors, including a mock grotto; and series of chapels under the cathedral. We spent about four or five hours in the town visiting these sites, with breaks for a picnic lunch at the fortress atop the hill and a cup of gelato at the end of our tour.

We made it back to Citerna around 5:00 and ate supper with the students who were here. Piera, the cook, informed us that Italy went off daylight savings time that evening, and that we all needed to set our clocks back an hour before going to bed. For most of us, that was an extra bonus to the free weekend: an extra hour of sleep in addition to two days off!

Four Days of Classes

From Tuesday through Friday of last week we were on a normal class schedule. Students are busy with semester projects in some classes and simply trying to stay on top of regular assignments in others. This has not prevented them from playing soccer regularly with or without Jonathan (who took a trip down to southern Italy this weekend to visit his brother, who has a new baby).

We had a special event on Wednesday afternoon when our group made a trip to Florence to visit Harding University's villa, which houses the Harding University in Florence (HUF) program. The villa is located on the outskirts of Scandicci, a Florence suburb. Because I spent two semesters at HUF—once as a faculty child in 1986, and again as an undergraduate in 1993—this was a homecoming of sorts for me. I had not visited the villa since 1998, and there have been several changes to the grounds since then. I had a reunion with Robby and Mona Shackelford, the onsite directors, and with Renata, the lady who used to do the laundry at the villa and who came out of retirement this year to help in the kitchen.

Our group had dinner in the villa with the HUF students, and afterwards the students loaded up the bus and two vans to go down to the Scandicci soccer field for a match against each other. After dropping them off, Robby took my family and a couple of ladies visiting from Searcy over to Piazzale Michelangelo, which offers a great view of the center of Florence. We got back to Scandicci to see the end of the soccer game (our group won 4-2), but the bus didn't get us back to Citerna until after midnight, so we were all exhausted the next day. However, I think most of the group thought the experience was worth it.

Free Travel #2 (Part 3)

To readers eager for group updates, I apologize for all the details about my family's travels, but members of my family stateside are clamoring for information, so please bear with me. After this post, I'll be back to the group.

Saturday morning, October 18, we checked out of our hostel in Padua, but before leaving town we walked over to the church of St. Anthony, which is the burial site of St. Anthony of Padua and one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Christendom. Anthony was a 13^th-century Franciscan who is supposed to have been one of the most powerful preachers of all time. He was canonized soon after his death, and this church was begun immediately. It is quite large, so even though there was a service underway when we entered, we were fairly unobtrusive. We visited the tomb and the relics chamber before leaving the church, checking out Donatello's Gattamelata (the first full-sized bronze equestrian statue to be cast in a thousand years) in the piazza outside. Then we visited an open-air market to buy some gloves, and left town for the South Tyrol.

The South Tyrol (also called Alto-Adige) is the northeastern part of Italy. From the Middle Ages until 1919 it was Austrian territory, but Italy got it at the end of World War I. The population is still largely German-speaking. Our purpose in going was to visit Europe's largest alpine meadow, the Alpe di Siusi. We stayed in a small town called Castelrotto (Kastelruth), one of the most picturesque mountain towns I have ever seen. We slept in a bed-and-breakfast operated as an appendage to a family farm, and the farmer took the kids into the barn to see their cows (about 30). On our arrival Saturday afternoon we took a chair lift from Castelrotto up to a spot on the lower edge of Alpe di Siusi where there was a hikers' hut, a playground, and a half-dozen goats. We actually got to eat Wienerschnitzel in Italy, and the scenery was beautiful. After coming back down the chair lift, we did some grocery shopping, checked into our B&B on the edge of town, and then walked back into the town center to take a look at things. Most of the buildings are 19^th-century but look as though they are from an earlier period.

Sunday morning we went back into town to see the locals turn out for Mass in traditional clothing (a tip from our guidebook). The church in the town square was completely packed, all the proclamations of the death of religion in Europe notwithstanding. We stayed inside the church for the first few minutes of the service and then left for the cable car in the neighboring town that would take us up to the main part of Alpe di Siusi. The town of Compatsch at the meadow's head is at about 1500 meters elevation. From there we took a chair lift up to a plateau at about 2100 meters and hiked a loop trail for a couple of hours. We had one incredible vista after another, and even though lugging strollers over rocky parts of the trail was not fun, the experience was well worth the effort. In the late afternoon we rode the chair lift and cable car back down to our car and drove back to Castelrotto. We had a nice evening at the farm and were able to have a worship service for our family.

Monday morning we went into town one more time, primarily to check out a woodcarver's shop we had noticed Saturday and a museum dedicated to the town's claim to fame, a folk-music band called Kasteruth-Spatzer. Apparently these guys are the hottest thing since sliced bread in the German-speaking world, having put out best-selling albums for 25 years or more. One reason we took an interest in them is that their annual hometown festival/concert (which had occurred the week before our visit) takes place at the farm where we stayed, and we had seen lots of photographs of them already. Our hostess had told us at breakfast that this most recent festival had drawn 50,000 people over three days! After visiting the museum—yes, we bought some music—we got back in the car and spent about five hours driving back to Citerna.

Free Travel #2 (Part 2)

My family spent Friday, October 17, in Venice. Rather than attempting to drive from Padua, we planned on riding a commuter train that takes about 35 minutes to reach the island part of Venice. Thursday afternoon we learned that a train strike had been planned for Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., so we made sure we made it to the train station around 8:00 in order to get on a train that would reach Venice before the strike was scheduled to begin. Our plan worked without any hitches, and at 9:00 we were in the Venice train station. However, we learned when we got out to the Grand Canal that the strike included the vaporetto boats that function as buses, and service was irregular, with no boats going all the way to St. Mark's square.

So we decided to walk to St. Mark's. This turned out to be a mistake, because the kids (especially William) had their hearts set on riding a boat, so whenever we crossed a canal between the train station and St. Mark's, William almost threw a fit. We took our time getting to the piazza, not arriving until after 11:00. We waited in line to go into the church, and once we were inside we paid to go upstairs into the gallery and museum. The morning had been cloudy, but the sun came out while we were inside and lit up the mosaics brilliantly. After leaving the church we fed pigeons in the piazza and got some funny pictures. The kids thought that was the best thing ever.

Then we went into the Doge's Palace and spent more than an hour there. The kids weren't too impressed by most of the rooms, but they really enjoyed the armory, which was about what I had expected. We snacked in the café and then went back to the Rialto Bridge, which we had passed on the way to St. Mark's. There we waited in line for a vaporetto heading back for the train station so that the kids would get their boat experience. Fortunately, they enjoyed the ride immensely, despite its relative brevity of about 5-10 minutes. We disembarked at about 4:00 p.m., an hour before the train strike was scheduled to end, and we spent most of our waiting time in a cafeteria called Brek that was recommended by Rick Steves. Our return trip to Padua was uneventful, and we made it back to the hostel around 6:15, early enough so that we felt justified in going out to dinner at another pizzeria. We got back to the hostel around 8:30 and turned in to prepare for another day of travel on Saturday.

Free Travel #2 (Part 1)

Students began leaving late in the morning of Wednesday, October 15, for the second free travel period. From what I've heard, it seems that nearly every group found itself in Switzerland at some point, but various groups made trips to Germany, Austria, northern Italy, France, and Belgium as well.

Once again, my family remained in Italy. On Wednesday we drove north from Citerna before lunch and made it to Ravenna around 1:00. We spent between three and four hours there enjoying Byzantine mosaics in 1,500-year-old churches (San Vitale, the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and Sant'Apollinare Nuovo), seeing Dante's tomb, and visiting the small diocesan museum containing, among other things, a 6^th-century throne made entirely of ivory. We bought a little mosaic kit for the kids so they could make a picture according to a pre-made design once we get back to the states.

Late in the afternoon we drove another two hours or more to Padua, which was to be our home base for the next few days. We did not have good directions to the hostel where we were staying, and we ended up meandering through the center of town for at least thirty minutes trying to find it. I had to stop the car and ask for directions in pidgin Italian twice, but we finally arrived and even found a place to park the car on the crowded streets surrounding the hostel. We hiked to a pizzeria in the next neighborhood for supper (it was nearly 8:00 by this point), and everyone was ready for bed when we got back.

Thursday morning we were up early and fought our way northwards in the car through a maze of one-way streets to the Padua train station, where we parked. We walked down to the Scrovegni Chapel, which is home to one of the most famous cycles of frescoes in Europe: Giotto's story of the life of the Virgin Mary and of Christ. I had visited the chapel in 1998, but the process is much more complex now; we had had to reserve (and prepay for) tickets online in advance, and show up an hour before the assigned time slot for our visit. We took advantage of our hour-long wait to see the art museum adjacent to the chapel; it contained a number of very nice pieces from the medieval and Renaissance periods. After seeing the chapel we took about an hour to do a walking tour of central Padua, visiting the market (where I bought a pair of socks because most of the pairs I brought to Italy with me have since walked off from the hotel's laundry room) and the Duomo. We encountered some oddly-clad people in one piazza who were apparently university students involved in something strange. It may have been graduation festivities; Padua's university graduates a constant trickle of students throughout the year, so there is always a party somewhere.

We returned to the train station and drove east to see the Brenta Canal, which runs between Padua and Venice. Beginning in the 15^th century, when Venice began to expand its empire inland from the coast, the Venetian nobility built numerous villas on either side of the canal's banks. We did not drive the canal's entire length but saw quite a few impressive structures nonetheless. We stopped at one of the largest, the Villa Pisani, and paid to go into the house and grounds. The house was nice and had a Tiepolo ceiling painting, but the grounds were the big hit with the kids because there was a labyrinth on one side. Around 4:00 we left the villa and drove to Vicenza, on the other side of Padua. We parked outside the town and took a free shuttle bus into the center. By this time, obviously, all the attractions were closing up, but we took a couple of hours to walk around and enjoy the Palladian architecture. Around 7:30, we took the shuttle back to the car and returned to the hostel in Padua. Another long day.

Return from Greece; Classes

Everyone (including my family) returned safely from our second free-travel period last night, and we are settling down into our class routine again. I will try to bring the blog up to date in the next few days.

Our group set out from Athens on the morning of October 9 for the port of Patras. After a drive of about three hours, we arrived and boarded our ferry, which was identical in most respects to the first one we rode, for the return trip to Italy. The ship departed in the afternoon, and we had an overnight journey that was for the most part uneventful. I actually got some work done because I was able to claim a corner of one of the lounges where I was able to plug in the computer and edit some book reviews.

The ferry docked in Ancona late Friday morning. Giorgio was there waiting for us with the bus, and we spent the next few hours driving back to Citerna, with a stop for lunch at a roadside station along the way. Once back, we had about an hour to unpack before classes began. I think we started around 3:45 and went until after 7:00. It was a grueling day.

From Friday until the following Wednesday we had class every day. Because this stretch marked the mid-point of our class schedule for the semester, many of the classes (including my own) had their mid-term exams. I still have several tests to grade from one of my classes. There were many late-night study sessions and frantic attempts to write and submit papers over the six-day period. We worshipped here in Citerna on Sunday the 12^th, and the male students began a weekly discussion group to explore spiritual questions (the girls have had periodic devotionals since the beginning of the semester).

I don't recall any other noteworthy events from those six days. Of course, the students had to plan their second free-travel period which began Wednesday afternoon, but I'll discuss that in the next post.

Greece Trip Days #7-8

On October 7 we had the morning free; I think most people slept in after the constant activities of the previous week. We had a group tour of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens scheduled for 1:00 p.m. A tour bus came to pick up the group at 12:30, but my family walked the distance from the hotel so we could see more of the city. There were several pedestrian-only streets in the neighborhoods near our hotel, and we were able to walk about half the distance to the museum without fear of the getting run over by Greek drivers, who are just as zealous as Italian drivers.

We had a good museum tour that lasted about an hour. There were a number of artifacts discovered at places our group had already visited, and I think the students got more out of the experience with that in mind. The group got back on the tour bus for a trip back to the hotel afterwards and a free afternoon, but my family once again walked back the entire distance stopping to eat lunch in a Goody's (in Greece, Goody's sells hamburgers, not clothing) and to buy some supplies in a supermarket. After returning to the hotel and resting a while we ventured out once more into the Plaka and found a little tram-like train which gave 40-minute tours around the Acropolis and old city. It was only 10 euros for the whole family, and the kids really liked it. When the ride was over, we made our way back to the hotel and turned in for the evening.

The next morning (Wednesday), we had a group excursion to Cape Sounion, the site of a dramatically-situated temple to Poseidon. There wasn't much academic value to be derived from this visit, but the setting is beautiful, and I did speak to the students for a few minutes about Poseidon's role in Greek mythology and Greek religion in general. We spent a little over an hour there (it took us almost two hours to get there) and then went back toward Athens, stopping in Glyfada for lunch. The attraction of Glyfada is its beach and (to me) that it was the site of the semester in Greece I spent in 1994. I was able to go back to the hotel where my group stayed and take pictures and enjoy many memories. We boarded the bus again at 3:00 p.m. and got back to our hotel about an hour later. Once more, the evening was free.

I haven't caught up the account of our group's travels, but we leave the hotel again tomorrow for another free-travel period. I hope to update the blog again before we leave, but if I'm unable to, it may be Monday before I can get back to it.

Greece Trip Days #5-6

Sunday morning (October 5) we were up early again and off the ship at 7:00 a.m. for a visit to the palace complex at Knossos near the port of Heraklion in Crete. Knossos was the center of the ancient Minoan civilization, which flourished from roughly 2000 B.C. until around 1200 B.C. The site is tremendously important, but I'm afraid many of the students didn't "get it" because of the lack of any Biblical connection with the place. The complex is huge, and our guide spent more than an hour taking us through the ruins, a very small portion of which has been restored. Afterwards we were taken back into Heraklion to a museum containing the most important artifacts from the Knossos excavations, including several famous frescoes and the renowned "snake goddess" figurine. We then had about half an hour to shop for souvenirs before boarding the bus for the trip back to the ship, which sailed at noon for Santorini.

Santorini was the one big disappointment of the cruise because we ran into bad weather and rough seas. We actually had to cut short our afternoon worship service on the ship because a number of students looked like they were on the verge of nausea. The two guys serving communion could barely keep their feet. We sent everyone back to their cabins to rest. We arrived at Santorini around 4:00 p.m. but were unable to go ashore because of the winds and waves, which were preventing the tender boats from the shore from running. So we had to content ourselves with the view from the ship, which was still pretty spectacular. (Santorini, formerly known as Thera, was the site of a massive volcanic explosion in antiquity during which most of the island sank, leaving only a circular rim with a steep drop down to the water, where the crater had been. It may be the source of the Atlantis myth.) I visited the island in 1994, so I didn't feel the loss too keenly, but I know a lot of the students, as well as my family, were very disappointed that they weren't able to ride donkeys up the cliff road or ride the cable car up to the rim. The ship cruised around the island for about an hour before heading back towards Piraeus.

Monday morning we woke up in Piraeus and disembarked. We were delayed in leaving the port because someone from another tour group mistakenly took one of our students' suitcases and left his own. We had to make arrangements for the bag to be delivered to our hotel later in the day. Finally we set out for the drive into Athens for our visit to the Acropolis and Mars Hill. The Acropolis was absolutely packed with people, worse than I have ever seen it. It took us 20-30 minutes simply to make our way from the admissions kiosk up through the Propyleia. Niki, our guide, took us around the site for the better part of an hour. Then we slowly made our way back down to the exit and went over to Mars Hill, where we spent about twenty minutes. Dr. Gardner and I both spoke about Greek religion and philosophy and Paul's response to them. As always, it was a great experience.

We got back on our bus and drove past several important Athens sites such as the Parliament building and the old Olympic stadium. Finally we arrived at our hotel shortly before 1:00 p.m. and checked in. Then we walked a few blocks to a restaurant where we had reservations for a group meal, and everyone had his first Greek kebab. After lunch, Jonathan took the students on an orientation walk; my family trekked to Lycabettis (sp?) Hill, the tallest point in the city. We rode the cable car to the top, thereby softening the sting to the kids of not being able to ride the car on Santorini. It was a clear day, and we had a very nice view of the entire city as well as the Aegean. By the time we walked back to the Plaka near our hotel, it was getting close to 6:00. We got some street food and went back to the hotel to relax for the evening.

Greece Trip Days #3-4

On the morning of October 3, we left our Corinth hotel before 7:00 and drove towards Athens. We stopped for about 15 minutes at the Corinthian Canal to take pictures and wait for someone from our hotel to bring an iPod that one of the students had left in the dining room. Then we proceeded into the greater Athens area, skirting the center and ultimately arriving at the port of Piraeus, where we boarded our cruise ship. It took some doing to get everything situated: we had to go through a security check, check our luggage through to the ship, and turn over our passports to be stored in the ship's safe. In return we received plastic cards that were to be scanned whenever we boarded or disembarked from the ship. They also functioned as credit cards for anything we purchased while on the ship.

We sailed from Athens at 11:00 a.m. and headed for the island of Mykonos, which does not have much to recommend it from a historical standpoint. However, it is very picturesque and is a playground for the Mediterranean upper class. We arrived at 6:30 and had a few hours to wander. My family only stayed ashore for about an hour before returning to the ship for supper and to put the kids to bed. The food on the ship was excellent, and most meals could be taken either in the full-service restaurant or the open-air buffet at the top of the ship. We enjoyed the service at the restaurant but took some meals from the buffet during the cruise to simplify things with the children.

Our ship sailed around 11:00 p.m. from Mykonos, and the following morning we woke up in the Turkish port of Kusadasi. We disembarked at 7:00 and boarded a couple of tour buses that took us about ten miles to the site of ancient Ephesus. Our tour through Ephesus lasted over an hour and culminated with a short devotional in the theater where the mob gathered in opposition to Paul's ministry, as recorded in Acts 19. Dr. Gardner and I both spoke to the group there about the significance of Ephesus and its place in early Christianity. Many of the students were clearly overwhelmed by the setting. I later heard compliments about our group's singing from other people on the cruise ship who overheard us in the theater that morning.

After leaving Ephesus, the buses took us back to Kusadasi and dumped us at a carpet workshop where we received a mandatory demonstration and sales pitch. The two buses actually separated our group and took us to different places. A couple of students did buy small carpets to take home. A persistent salesman took my family into a room by ourselves and tried to sell us something. The carpets were all very nice, but we ultimately succeeded in resisting the pitch. I heard later that a student from the other bus narrowly avoided spending most of his money for the semester on a leather jacket.

Everyone eventually made it back to the ship, which sailed in the afternoon to Patmos, the site of the writing of Revelation. Our tour bus took us to the cave where, according to church tradition, John received the revelation from God and composed the book. After our visit there, the bus took us up to the top of the ridge to visit an Orthodox monastery founded in the 11^th century. The monastery's museum contained a number of important manuscripts, including one of the oldest known copies of Mark's Gospel. The chapels of the monastery also contain important frescoes that have been brilliantly restored in recent years.

Our bus took us back to the port. Most of the students (and my wife) took advantage of some free time to do some souvenir shopping. I took the kids back onto the ship to play in the children's area. We sailed for Crete around 8:00 p.m.

Greece Trip, Days #1-2

We are finally back in Citerna after ten days of travel that began October 1. Everyone is tired, especially since we had classes after our return to campus in the middle of the day today. We should be in the Hotel Sobaria until Wednesday of next week, and I hope to give an adequate account of our Greece trip in that time.

We left Sobaria bright and early (shortly after 7:00 a.m.) on October 1 on a chartered bus driven by Giorgio, who has taken our group all over Italy. The trip to the port of Ancona on Italy's eastern coast took a little more than three hours. Upon our arrival, Jonathan picked up and distributed our tickets for the overnight ferry to Greece. We boarded the ship around noon and sailed at 1:30 p.m. The ship was large and comfortable, although the cabins were a bit cramped. Most people took advantage of the ship's cafeteria facilities despite their priciness; for breakfast, I had my first eggs in over a month, so I thought the expense was justified. The one big frustration for me was that the ship's internet connection, like the one at the Sobaria, was insufficiently fast for us to send to Ed Hicks the file of the video for Faulkner's Benefit Dinner that Kevin Cline and I had spent the better part of two days shooting and compiling. Ed told me we would be able to post the video online upon our return to the states, so hopefully our work will not have been a complete waste of time, especially since Kevin did such a good job with the editing.

We arrived in the Greek port of Patras between 11:00 a.m. and noon on October 2. After getting drenched in a sudden downpour while trying to find a restroom in the port area, we boarded our tour bus from Aristotle Travel (with tour guide Niki) for our trip to Mycenae and Corinth. It was nearly 3:00 p.m. when we arrived in Mycenae. Before going up to the citadel, we ate lunch in the restaurant at the bottom of the hill (our first taste of lamb and souvlaki), so we did not get up to the top until after 4:00. We spent about 30-40 minutes in the citadel and then less than ten minutes in the "beehive" tomb further down the hill. Then we spent about 30-40 minutes driving to ancient Corinth.

We had about an hour in Corinth. After our guide's introduction to the history of the city, Dr. Gardner and I spent some time talking to the students about Corinth in Paul's day and the relevance of the setting to his epistles to the Corinthians. One of the students later told me that being in that place was one of the most thrilling experiences of her life. It was after 7:00 p.m. when we left the ancient city and drove another 30 minutes or so to our hotel (in the more modern area of Corinth), where a buffet supper was waiting for us. Everyone was exhausted, and the hotel was oddly warm for October, but we slept well that night.

Free Travel #1

Everyone arrived back to Citerna safely from the hotel by Sunday night. There were students who stayed in Italy, some who went to Spain, some to France, some to Germany, some to Switzerland, and some to Austria. A few even went to Liechtenstein. There were some inevitable snags in the travel plans of some groups. One group of six had to take a long detour in order to get back here from Munich because all the trains to Italy from there were booked solid because of Oktoberfest. Another group got locked out of their hostel because they arrived in town too late. These sorts of things are certainly annoying, but part of the maturing experience offered by this kind of program is the opportunity to learn how to deal with unexpected situations. No one got hurt or lost, and so we all considered the weekend a great success!

My family spent almost the entire travel period in Tuscany, specifically the area around Lucca, a walled city in northern Tuscany that dates to the Roman period. We spent three nights in Lucca and used it as a base to explore the area. Wednesday, on our way there, we stopped in Collodi to visit the Parco di Pinocchio, a small theme park dedicated the wooden boy whose creator hailed from that town. Collodi is also home to the Villa Garzoni Gardens (pictured), which are quite impressive and include a butterfly house, which the kids enjoyed.

On arrival in Lucca, we had to park outside the city walls despite our hotel's being inside; only residents are allowed to park within the city. Lucca's walls are its most distinctive feature; they were built in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and are completely intact. They were converted into a public park in the early 19^th century and now attract joggers, bikers, and others who simply want to enjoy the view. We spent all day Thursday in Lucca, walked on the walls, visited a couple of villas that are now museums, and climbed the city's highest tower, which actually has trees growing on top of it. We even found a playground that the kids were able to play on for a while.

Friday morning we drove to Pisa and spent a couple of hours in the Piazza of Miracles. This was the only experience during the travel period that was not new to me. The Leaning Tower now costs 15 euros and a couple of hours' wait to enter. Furthermore, they do not allow children under the age of eight inside, so we passed on that. We paid to go into the cathedral and spent the rest of the time relaxing in the piazza. Then we returned to Lucca, checked into our new hotel outside the walls—we were unable to get reservations for all three nights in the same place—and walked back into town to rent bicycles. We found a rental shop and hired two tandem bikes that allowed us to tow the kids behind us, and then we took the bikes up on the walls for a ride around the city. It was quite fun, and Edward and William really enjoyed it (Richard fussed a lot.) Afterwards we returned to the hotel and relaxed the rest of the evening. The only wrinkle was that I got a call from Ed Hicks back at Faulkner informing me that the administration wanted us to produce a video of the Study Abroad students for Faulkner's Benefit Dinner on October 2. I had no idea how to do this, but said we'd figure something out.

On Saturday, we left our hotel and headed west to Torre del Lago Puccini near the coast. Lucca was Giacomo Puccini's birthplace, and the town boasts several sites associated with him, including a café where we got charged nearly five euros for a couple of coffees. However, Torre del Lago Puccini is where Puccini lived for most of his adult life and where he composed several of his most famous operas. His home there is still owned by the Puccini family and operated as a museum. The place is not big, but it is nearly perfectly preserved; his son left everything there the way it was when his father died and made it into a museum the following year (1925). After leaving there, we took a driving tour into the Apuan Alps and saw some fantastic scenery, including some apparently abandoned marble quarries. We made it back to Citerna around 7:30 p.m., tired but happy.

On Sunday, we breakfasted at the hotel before setting off for Perugia, about an hour south of Citerna by car. The historic center of Perugia is actually very nice. A series of escalators takes you from the public parking areas up into the remains of the 16^th-century papal fortress and from there out into the streets. We did a walking tour of the town's most historic streets, sat in on part of a Mass in the cathedral, ate lunch in the town square for about half of what it would have cost us in Florence, and got free admission to the city's major art museum. To top it off, we found a nice painting on canvas in an open-air market that we decided to buy for our wall at home. All in all, I'd have to say it was a very successful trip. We got back to Citerna in the mid-afternoon, and I tried to catch up on some schoolwork. At 7:00 p.m. we held a worship service for everyone who had returned to the campus by that point; we had about a dozen people there to participate. The rest of the groups trickled in over the next four hours.

Monday and Tuesday (yesterday and today) were class days and a time of recuperation from the free travel. It was also a time for Kevin Cline and me to try to put this Benefit Dinner video together. We have come up with something that I hope will meet with everyone's approval; we hope to email it to Dr. Hicks tonight. We are also recharging our batteries for our trip to Greece, for which we depart at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow. I don't know what the availability of internet connections will be in our hotels, so I may not be able to post another update until October 10. Please pray for our continued safety on these travels.

Four Days of Classes

Today is our fourth consecutive day of classes since returning from Rome and Pompeii. The energy devoted to getting coursework done while we are here at the Hotel Sobaria overshadows the other things that are going on (or is that just a professor's wishful thinking?). There have been a couple of more afternoon trips down the hill to play soccer or volleyball. Jonathan has set up the first intramural events; I've been told that I am supposed to play in a ping-pong tournament for which I did not volunteer, and that I am a team captain for some other sport (volleyball?—I can't remember).

On Sunday and Monday nights, Jenny Towns (the English instructor from Freed) and I screened the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries for extra credit to our students in English Literature and Western Cultural Heritage. Some of the students came early on and found it not to their taste, but we had at least a dozen who stuck it out through the whole six hours over the two nights.

The only excursion I have made since Pompeii is a trip to Sansepolcro, a small town north of Citerna, on Saturday. Sansepolcro is known primarily as the birthplace of Piero della Francesca, a prominent Renaissance painter. His Resurrection fresco in the Civic Museum is one of the best known works of the 15^th century. I had wanted to see it for a long time, and it did not disappoint. The rest of the town is charming, too; most of the historic center's architecture dates from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Unfortunately, we inadvertently left our camera at the hotel, so a return trip will be necessary to acquire some photographs.

The looming event for everyone here is the free travel period which begins tomorrow afternoon after classes end and lasts until Sunday. Each group of students traveling together has been required to provide an itinerary as well as contact information and arrival/departure trains from Arezzo. There are groups going to Spain, Austria, and Switzerland, as well as some students who are staying in Italy. I think the smallest group has six people in it, so there should be adequate safety in numbers. Still, all prayers will be appreciated.

My family is headed for northern and western Tuscany, and I will be posting more information about our trip in the coming days.

Pompeii

On Friday morning we were all supposed to be on the chartered bus at 7:00 to depart for Pompeii, but one roomful of students failed to appear on time. Jonathan had to go roust them from their room; they claimed they had never gotten the message about the early departure. So it was about 7:15 before we actually pulled away from the hotel. It was a three-hour drive to Pompeii, and by the time we arrived, it was raining lightly. Edward and William were transfixed by the knowledge that they were looking at a real volcano, and the resemblance to smoke of the cloud bunched around the top of Vesuvius only added to their excitement.

This was our first experience with a tour where the guide spoke to us through radio headsets. We had often seen groups using this technology in Florence and Rome, and I think on the whole it worked fairly well. It certainly would have been nice to have in the Vatican Museums when there was no way the people on the fringes of our group could possibly have heard Dr. Gardner or me. Jonathan told us that his father was considering investing in a set for the program to use on a permanent basis. Our Italian guide took us to most of the significant sites in the ruins, with the amphitheater being an obvious exception. There were a number of other tour groups there that day, so the going was slow at points, particularly in the public baths. The entire tour lasted about two hours. Unfortunately, we had no opportunity for independent exploring; as this was my fourth visit to the ruins, it was no tremendous loss to me, but I'm sure some of the students would have enjoyed looking around on their own.

We ate lunch at a cafeteria-style restaurant outside the ruins and had some time to shop for souvenirs. I bought a little book for Edward that had imaginative overlays of shots of the ruins to show what the city may have looked like in the first century. The price was a hefty 14 euros because it included a DVD that covered not only Pompeii, but also Herculaneum and the Villa Jovis on Capri. Edward looked at the book for much of the six-hour journey back to Citerna.

The tedium of our return trip was ameliorated by a couple of movies Jonathan played for us on the bus's system. We arrived just after dark, a little before 8:00, and had supper waiting for us. It felt great to be "home" again!

Rome Day #3

Thursday was a completely free day in Rome for the students (and faculty). From what I heard afterwards, different groups went to a variety of places: the Borghese Gardens, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain, St. Peter-in-Chains, etc. Everyone made it back to the hotel at the end of the day, so I suppose we can count the time as a success.

My family went to the Testaccio neighborhood, an area I had never visited on my four prior trips to Rome. We saw the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius, built by an ancient Roman nobleman as his burial chamber; it was smaller than its Egyptian counterparts but with the same proportions. Next was the Protestant Cemetery, begun in the eighteenth century and containing several notables, including John Keats, Percy Shelley, Richard Henry Dana, the son of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Antonio Gramsci. After the circus of the previous two days, the cemetery was blessedly uncrowded and peaceful. We spent more than an hour there before walking down the road to look at "Mount Testaccio," which looks like an ordinary hill or ridge, but is actually an ancient trash dump for earthenware pots that piled up for 500 years. Returning to the pyramid, we visited the small museum in the gate of the ancient city wall adjacent to it; it contained a number of artifacts discovered at Ostia Antica, Rome's ancient port.

After exhausting the sights in the immediate area of the pyramid, we walked south along the Via Ostiense a little more than half a mile to the Museo Montemartini, which is a branch of the Capitoline Museum. It was certainly one of the most unusual museums I had ever visited: hundreds of pieces of ancient statuary and mosaics were displayed in the city's first power plant, which still contained all of the original machinery from the 1920s. The juxtaposition of the statues and machinery looked strange, to say the least. However, there were no crowds, and the kids were able to run around to an extent.

After leaving the museum, we lunched in a nearby cafeteria and then proceeded farther south to the church of St. Paul's-Outside-the-Walls, which contains the tomb of the Apostle Paul according to Church tradition. I had forgotten how big the place was; it's one of the largest churches in Europe. We enjoyed walking around the place and even paid to enter the cloister and attached museum, which contained a number of interesting documents (papal bulls and the like) and reliquaries. Again, the crowds were light, so this was by far the most enjoyable day for me in Rome.

We took the subway back to our hotel's neighborhood and did some grocery shopping at a supermarket for another picnic supper. The kids had not been eating the hotel's breakfast food, so we bought some yogurt and other things we figured they would consent to eat the following morning. I think we got back to the hotel well before any of the students (around 6:00) and retired early because we had to be up early the next day for the bus to Pompeii . . .

Rome Day #2

Wednesday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and set out around 8:00 for the subway. We managed to keep the group together without incident, traveling four stops to the station closest to St. Peter's. We arrived in the colonnaded square around 9:00 or so; Dr. Gardner and I explained the history and context of the church before we took everyone inside, past metal detectors and other such things that were not present on my last visit in 1998. We spent the better part of an hour inside the church, letting the students mill around before regrouping outside and walking around the walls of the Vatican to the entrance of the Vatican Museums. Dr. Gardner and I got copies of the official guidebook and shepherded the group through the galleries, stopping at several points to discuss specific works such as the Laocoön, the frescoes in the Raphael Rooms, and of course Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel. After exiting the chapel we made our way to the museum's cafeteria and had our lunch about noon. Then we turned the students loose for free time for the rest of the day.

I think nearly everyone went back to the Colosseum at some point that afternoon because our Forum tickets from the previous day included admission to the Colosseum through Wednesday. Since it was Vickie's first time to Rome, my family also went there, but we arrived later than most because we stayed in the Vatican to see the gallery of paintings we had not seen as a group. When we arrived at the Colosseum, about a dozen people from our group were lounging on the grass outside, having already been into the place. We went through the security check and found half a dozen of our people unnecessarily waiting in the lengthy ticket line; I pulled them out and took them through the "fast lane" for people who are in groups or who already have their tickets. The Colosseum has definitely changed since my last visit; it looks as though there is an ongoing attempt to reconstruct a section of the floor and seats, which ought to turn out interestingly. They have even installed toilets in the outer section.

After we had finished looking around, we left the students gawking and made our way outside, walking past the Forum and, since I felt an obligation to take Vickie to some iconic Roman sites, all the way to the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. We made the kids happy by stopping for gelato; I think at least ten Italian ladies stopped to coo at Richard with chocolate all over his face. To be honest, though, the crush of tourists in both places sapped a lot of the enjoyment for me. I think Rome in December is more my speed.

We hiked back to the subway and rode back to the neighborhood of our hotel, picnicking in our room for supper. On the way we stopped in a bookshop to buy an English version of the original Pinocchio stories, which we had never read. This was an essential purchase because we are planning to visit a Pinocchio theme park in northern Tuscany this week on our first free travel period. We read several chapters of the book both before and after supper, and Edward and William nearly laughed their heads off. I think for the first time ever, I was so tired that I fell asleep before the kids did that night; I vaguely remember hearing William say, "Night, night, Daddy, I go bed," while I was lying nearly comatose.

Rome Day #1

Tuesday morning we hit the road early, loading up a 55-passenger bus and driving to Arezzo to catch a 7:46 train to Rome. Everyone got his luggage onto the train without incident, and although the train was crowded, we all found seats. In fact, my family was able to lay claim to a compartment in the mostly day-coach train after the first forty-five minutes or so, having to share it with just one other person for most of the journey. The train arrived in Rome around 10:30, and after taking a bathroom and snack break, we loaded our hired bus for the day.

Roman traffic is horrendous, at least in the center of town. Nearly every road was under construction, and it took us nearly thirty minutes to go the mile between the train station and the Capitoline Hill. When we reached Piazza Venezia, I pointed out the "Mussolini balcony" and the monument to the united Italy's first king, Victor Emmanuel. However, the bus was unable to stop there for pictures; it dropped us off down the street from the Capitoline, and we hiked back to walk up Michelangelo's ramp to the Campidoglio. After an orientation atop the hill, we descended the other side to the Mamertine Prison, which the students found fascinating. We spend the next hour or so walking through the ancient Forum and ascending the Palatine Hill. It was only the second time I had actually gone inside the ruins and my first time on the Palatine, so I particularly enjoyed that.

We exited the Forum around 1:45 and had about 30 minutes for a lunch break by the Colosseum. Dr. Gardner took the opportunity to walk over to St. Peter-in-Chains and found it locked up tight, so we were unable to peek in there that day. Also during that time, the group suffered its first successful pickpocket attempt. (There had been an unsuccessful attempt in Siena; the intended victim was our adult student who was former military, and the would-be pickpocket found himself on the ground with a crushed hand in short order.) One of our girls had removed her money belt and put it in her bag temporarily, and the thief had removed it without her knowledge. We did not discover the theft until we were back at the bus a few blocks away, and Jonathan went back to the Colosseum to retrieve it; somehow he had gotten word from the authorities that a passport had been recovered. The group went on without him for the time being.

I had asked the bus driver to take us by St. John Lateran so I could point it and the Holy Steps out to the students. We weren't able to stop there, unfortunately. We then went to the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, where Christians buried their dead from the late second century to the fifth century, for a guided tour. Because our group was so large, we had to wait longer than usual for a guide—Jonathan rejoined us before we went in, having taken a taxi from the Colosseum—and then the tour went slowly. The 30-minute tour took nearly an hour, but most of the students were in awe of the place. We were able to sing and pray briefly in the last chamber.

By this time it was nearly 5:00, and our driver took us to our hotel, which lay a few miles west of the Vatican, about a 10-15 minute walk from a subway stop. Jonathan took most of the students back into Rome on the subway that evening to show them the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and Piazza Navona, but my family and a few tired students remained in the neighborhood of the hotel. We found a quiet restaurant and ate pizza there for supper before going back to the hotel to collapse. It was a fulfilling but tiring day.

Off to Rome

We are leaving in twenty minutes on a bus to take us to the Arezzo train station, where we will get on a train for Rome. We return Friday evening, so there may not be any blog posts between now and then. I don't know what the availability of internet service will be.

Sunday we had a worship service downstairs in the classroom and then started classes at 11:15. Monday was a normal class day. So there is not a lot to report other than that there was another soccer excursion yesterday afternoon. The students and Jonathan are organizing some sort of "Olympics" with all kinds of different events such as ordering cappuccino; I don't really have a good grasp of that process . . .

At any rate we should see the Forum, Colosseum, and several other sights today and the Vatican tomorrow. Thursday is scheduled as a free day in Rome, and Friday we go to Pompeii before returning to Citerna.

THE STUDENT SIDE OF THINGS: A report and review of the week

Greetings from Citerna,

I have been trying to add more pics to the site but the internet being so slow makes it virtually impossible to do. I apologize and will continue to try. I also apologize for not writing sooner. The life of a student here is a bit crazy. So I will try to give you a quick synopsis of what has gone on for the past week.

WELCOME TO A BRAND NEW GAME: SOCCER
Now, for those of you who know me well, you know I am a huge American Football fan. I played it since I was in middle school and I love to watch and play whenever I can. I honestly would love to strap on some pads and play again but I am so out of shape it would be embarrassing.

Also, if you know me well, you know I am not a fan of soccer. I used to play it when I was a kid but I have not played since. Before I came to Italy, I thought soccer (or calcio in Italian) was one of the most ridiculous sports in the world. I am just being completely honest when I say I thought it was a bunch of people that couldn’t cut it in a real sport. Yes, I was close minded but I plead ignorance. Since we came to Italy, we have been surrounded by Calcio and I am thankful.

Every few days, we drive down the hill to the town of Monterchi and play Italy’s favorite game after class. During our first trip to Florence, Jonathan bought us jersey's in the three colors of the Florence team. Each person was given a jersey and the colored teams (Red, White, and Purple) would play against each other in a 7 vs. 7 game. I am on the white team. First to score would stay and the losing team would trade out with the waiting team. Sometimes we would play for 4 or 5 hours and not get back until dinner time. Since we started this tradition, I have gained so much more respect for the game. It is so much more than people kicking a ball around. It even gets rough (which, being a football player, I like) and can get you in shape if you play long enough.

One of my favorite memories is after we played the second time, a local guy (sorry, I did not catch his name) came to watch us play. Jonathan talked to him for a bit and then told us that the guy’s team wanted to challenge us American’s to a game later that night. I was up for anything. So we went and played against this team. The field in Monterchi is dirt with a bit of grass. The field they told us to go to was turf and fenced in. This change in field was new for us but it really did not phase us too much. We played the Italian team from Citerna. These 7 guys have been playing together since they were 6 years old. They grew up together and know how each other play. They even play on the local club team together. I thought we were going to get stomped by this team. After loosing 3 soccer balls to the darkness surrounding the field and the rough and tumble game we played against the Italians, 2 and a half hours later, we came out of the cage VICTORIOUS!!! 12-11. The game was a great game and we all got in to play.

This past Friday, we went down to Monterchi and played against each other again after class. We came out of Hotel Sobaria to the porch to get ready to leave. We looked out over the mountain and saw that a storm was building and coming our way. I thought they would cancel the game but Jonathan is one of those people that would not allow anything but God to come between him and playing the game. So we made the journey down the hill. We knew that the storm was about to hit but, not being from the area, we had no clue that the weather was going to be so bi-polar. We got to the field and White and Purple started to play until suddenly, the bottom fell out. We continued to play in the rain anyway and was having fun slipping and sliding until I started to get hit by something hard falling from the sky. IT WAS HAIL!!!!! Pea size hail had begun to fall and began pelting us on the field. When the hail size began to grow larger, Jonathan told us to get into the bus. We all climbed in and waited out the storm.

All of the sudden, a weird figure began to come towards the van and knock on the door. We couldn’t see that it was Andrea Kelly through the fogged up windows of the van. We had forgotten her at the Hotel and she walked all the way down from Citerna. She was soaked from head to toe and looked a bit like a drowned rat. It was quite amusing to tell the truth. After the rain went away, we resumed the game. By the end, everyone was muddied up but no one had anything on Nick (Warren) O’neal (Another Faulkner Crew Member). He played his position of Keeper hardcore for the Purple team. Both the goals had a huge batch of fresh mud on in front of it so whenever he would save the ball, he would dive into the mud. He was quite the spectacle to see him after we finished playing.

I'll keep you updated as we continue to play. Injury reports, trades, and contract signings will be in my next update. So stay tuned.

THE “STUDY” PORTION OF STUDY ABROAD: NOT THE MOST FUN WORD IN THE DICTIONARY

So, to tell the truth, we did not know how rough the whole “STUDY” portion of “STUDY ABROAD” was going to be. Honestly, the program should come with a warning label or something telling people if you do not know how to buckle down and focus on studying, you might not want to do this trip. It is so hard to be in class here because there are so many new things to discover. You want to go out and explore the city and see the sites. However, classes everyday make it hard to make trips outside of Citerna. Also, the fact of studying for each class makes it harder too. Now, I do admit we do get breaks from classes more then people back at home. Whenever we go on class trips, we usually have either an abbreviated schedule or just cancel classes all together. Those days are nice but when you do not get back until late at night, it is hard to study for your 7 am class the next morning or your online classes as well.

Most of us have found remedies for this dilemma through going into town and studying or studying out on the porch of Sobaria. The scenery is beautiful and the locals walking by make you feel like you were on campus studying outside. Others have banded together to study and have made success that way. As for me, I do both. Currently I am helping teach Leah Introduction to New Testament Greek while she is here. I am sort of her T.A. (TEACHERS ASSISTANT) for the class since I was the only one to survive intro last year. We usually go study on the porch. So do not worry parents. We are studying and turning in our work. We are doing fine with school. It is just a bit rough.

INTERNET: THE BATTLE FOR THE BEST CONNECTION

Ok, if you want to see the war of the century, you need to look no further than the halls of Hotel Sobaria. Since we Americans come from a land where internet is fast and stable, a lot of us have been trying to get the best connection to the wireless network here in Sobaria. Why? Because the internet is slow. VERY SLOW (that is if you compare it to what we are used to back in the states). Imagine having the capabilities of wireless with the speed of dial-up. (YOU SEE THE PROBLEM????) This slow connection makes it hard to download pictures/videos to the net/ blog/ Facebook/ MySpace, makes it hard to Skype back home so we can talk to our families, hard to download the files that are due for our online classes, buy plane tickets for free travel etc. It is especially slow when the porch of Sobaria turns into a Facebook Fiesta/ Internet Café every night.

There is a lot of complaining about the connection to the internet here in the hotel. However, I find myself grateful that we even have the internet. This summer, I worked at a church that had no wireless or dial-up connections (SHOCKING, HUH???) Whenever I had to look something up, I had to use the internet on my blackberry. NO FUN!!!! Jonathan was telling us that we are the stars of the internet world here in Citerna because we are the only ones with a Wireless Network with in miles of here. Some people in town would come to the hotel just to use the connection for a bit. So whenever people complain, I just remind them of the fact that we could have no Internet. Parents, thank Jonathan when you get a chance that we can even communicate on the internet. He set it up so we can use it and that it is SEMI- fast. Be thankful.


THE FUN PART OF “STUDY ABROAD”: OUR TRAVELS

Over the time I have not written, we have done some traveling.

Wednesday the Tenth, we made and all day trip to Siena and San Gimignano. Siena is a town right outside of Florence. Back in the times of the Renaissance, towns acted like their own countries. They had their kings and leaders and battled other towns to try to take more land. Siena and Florence have been rival cities ever since then. Even though Florence took them over in 1555, the rivalry still remains between the cities in sports and other events. The city itself is made up of Seventeen Contrades, or Burrows. Each Contrade has its own flag and colors and the people that make them up show a lot of pride for their individual contrade. The Contrade pride truly comes out on July 2nd and August 16 the dates when the Palio di Siena is held. The Palio is a traditional medieval horse race that is run around the Piazza del Campo each year. This event is attended by large crowds, and is widely televised. The Seventeen Contrade vie for the trophy: a painted flag, or Palio bearing an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ten of the seventeen run in each Palio: seven run by right (having not run in the previous year's corresponding Palio) and three drawn by lot from the remaining ten. A horse is assigned to each by lot. Though often a brutal and dangerous competition for horse and rider alike, the city thrives on the pride this competition brings. The city is Beautiful. I have some pictures of the city from the Torre del Mangia. I'll try to post them.

Later that day, we went to a smaller town called San Gimignano. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance era, it was a stopping point for Catholic pilgrims on their way to Rome and the Vatican, as it sits on the medieval Via Francigena. The city's development also was improved by the trade of agricultural products from the fertile neighboring hills. The city flourished until 1348, when the plague that affected all of Europe, compelled it to submit to Florence. The Plague stunted the growth and today it is said that San Gimignano is a Renaissance Town “stuck in time”. The town has many towers that were used as defensive measure. They were great for people to hide in and to make their enemies have to fight up the tower to get them. They were also great for pouring hot tar on to enemies as well. Each tower was owned by a wealthy family and the families would battle each other for the tallest towers, making a statement of the power they had over the town. San Gimignano is also home to arguably the worlds best Gelato (Ice Cream). They local Gelatoria has won the Gelato World Championships 3 years running and is a crowd favorite.

This past Saturday, we made another visit to Florence. The group had much more free time to explore the city. However, rain did put a damper on things for a bit. A group of us went to the Duomo, one of the most Beautiful and largest cathedrals in the world. We went inside to explore. After we met with the group and went to Galleria dell'Accademia to see the works of the great Michelangelo, including the world famous THE DAVID. This statue is considered one of the greatest sculptures ever conceived by man. After this stop, our group made our way to a view point that’s name escapes me at the moment, but I think it is called Michelangelo Square. It is on top of a hill and gives you one of the most incredible views of the city. We also enjoyed what Jonathan thinks is the best Gelato in the world up there as well.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Either Tomorrow or Wednesday, we will be leaving for Rome and spending three nights there. I will update you as soon as possible about our trip. Also, the 24th - 28th is our first free travel days. I am going with a group to Sevelle, Cordoba, Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. I'll update you as soon as I can on our trip and will try to get other students to write a synopsis of their trips.

Conclusion:
This is all I have for now. I hope all is well where you are. Continue to pray for our continued safety. The week has been crazy but we are still going strong. Love y'all and PRAY HARD!!!!


In and because of Him,
Your brother in Christ
KC
Συνέκδημος υμων
(THE FELLOW TRAVELER OF YOU)

Florence Visit #2

On Saturday we made our second trip to Florence. The students rode the city bus into Arezzo from Monterchi and made it to the train station about five minutes before our train was supposed to leave. However, unbeknownst to us, our group was about to have its first encounter with the dreaded and all-too-frequent European train strike. The strike had been scheduled for several weeks, apparently, but we had no knowledge of it. Trains were running, but there were many delays. Our train finally arrived about 45-50 minutes late. So instead of arriving in Florence at 10:30, as we had planned, we didn't pull into the Santa Maria Novella station until nearly 11:30. Plus, it was raining, so the stars seemed to be aligned against us.

We had reservations for the Galleria d'Accademia at 2:00, so we dispersed from the train station to do our own thing and eat lunch for a couple of hours. My family took three students into the Santa Maria Novella church, which now charges 2.5 euros for admission. (It really is a shame that nearly all the significant churches are charging admission these days. It certainly seems to be dissuading many of the students from going into any of them.) After spending some time in there with the Masaccio and Ghirlandaio frescoes, we ate lunch at a snack bar with tables in the piazza in front of the church. Then we went to rendezvous with the group at the Duomo at 1:30.

We met at the cathedral because most of the group didn't know how to get to the museum. It took us about 5-10 minutes to walk there, and we were able to go in immediately, unlike the people without reservations, who were forming a long line stretching all the way down the street from the museum. I pulled the students into a group in the first room and gave a very brief history of the "David" and tried to explain its place in Florentine life. I also briefly described the other Michelangelo statues they were about to see in the gallery, but nearly all of them were so overwhelmed by the "David" that when they saw it down at the end, they headed straight for it and ignored the six other works along the way.

After leaving the museum, the group split up again. We went into a supermarket across the street, bought some picnic fare, and then went into the Piazza San Marco nearby to snack. Since it was so handy, we decided to go into the church and museum at San Marco to see the Fra Angelico frescoes and Savonarola's cell. Then we gradually made our way back toward the strain station, stopping at the San Lorenzo market for some postcards. We also went into the San Lorenzo church to see Cosimo de' Medici's and Donatello's tombs and a Brunelleschi chapel.

We reconvened at the train station at 6:00. The train we were hoping to catch at 6:09 actually left more or less on time. Because of the uncertainty of our return time to Citerna, Jonathan canceled dinner at the hotel and gave everyone a second meal allowance for the day. When we got back to Arezzo, the students walked into the town to find supper. Our parking allotment was about to expire, so my family went ahead and drove back to Monterchi to eat at a restaurant there. It was a nice place, and it's a good thing there was a cheap pizza menu, because that was about all we could afford. It was very good, though.

Unfortunately, the battery on our camera died Saturday morning, so we have no pictures from this Florence trip. It did stop raining on us about 1:00, but it remained very cloudy, so we would not have gotten very good photographs in any event. The churches and museums are all forbidding photos these days . . .