It's been quite an adventure since last I updated. Mike, Chelsea, Israel and I went on a two week adventure to Italy before University started. First, Milan. We stayed with a missionary family that Israel knew and slept about their church for three nights while we explored Milan. It had a beautiful and impressive Duomo (cathedral) but on the last day we were there, we actually got to see The Last Supper (very impressive!). After changing some travel scheduling we made our way to Venice. To me, Venice was the most beautiful city we saw. With it's small water ways, bridges and narrow cobbled walkways, Venice gave me the feeling of what old Italy might have felt like. It was there that I bought some Morano glass necklaces for some friends, and where I bought (and unfortunatlyu lost) a Venician tie that I bought for Brandon. It also rained really hard on us one night, and that same night we opted to sleep at the train station. All in all, Venice was awesome. Our next train at 8 am took us all the way down to Rome. We spent the next three days in a small hostel outside of town, taking the train in every morning and night. In Rome, we saw not only the Colosseum, but the Moses statue, The Trivi fountain (tossed a coin over our shoulder too), the Roman Forum, the Old Roman Road (and with it some beautiful sights of the Roman country side), the Catacombs, a castle, and naturally, The Vatican City, St.
peter's Basilica and The Sistine Chapel. My favorite part of Rome was after a violent wind storm and a half hour of rain, the sky cleared up and in doing so, casted two perfect rainbows over the Colosseum. I don't think I have ever seen something so magical and beautiful before. It was awesome. However, I think the least favorite part was leaving my change purse (with my last 90 euros in it) at the Vatican post office. Never found it again, and although we only have a few more days left in Italy, it put a little damper on my day. But, money is only money, so, i couldn't be that upset. Our last trip was Florence, where we stayed with our friend Matt from Sonoma who was studying there. He introduced us to his really nice roommates and we spent a day and a half exploring Florence. It's a beautiful city and I liked seeing the David statue replics even if we never saw the origional. We also walked up a ton of stairs on the outskirts of the city and found a beautiful look out spot on the whole city from above. That was absolutely breath-taking!

But coming back to Germany was amazing. I had missed the language, the culture, the people, and the bread! Haha, but yea, I'm back in Tubingen, happy for both my adventure and now having my own bed to sleep in again. Just looking forward to the year ahead of me and all that can and will be possible.

Love you all, thanks for always reading what I write!