Sometimes I carry a water bottle around with me. There aren't really public fountains around and water is never free, and I think it's good to stay hydrated. So I have this black metal water bottle with capital letters "DDB" on it.
One morning, I went to a bar near my house to a get a little coffee. Side note--a bar is, of course, what Americans consider coffeehouses. Yum. When I put up my water bottle on the counter to have my hands free to pay, the guy behind the counter looked at my water bottle kind of funny and said something in rapid Italian that ended with the word "doping." I was confused, so he repeated what he had said; he asked me in Italian if I was "doping." I looked at him for a few seconds with an expression of I'm sure must have been something between confusion and incredulity. To clarify, he said slowly and clearly "energy drink" in Italian. I replied--in Italian, woohoo!--that there was only water in my water bottle. He repeated "energy drink," and the guy at the counter next to me chipped in with "Drugs. For the athletes." I asserted a couple more times that I was only drinking water. "Ho l'acqua solamente. Sempre l'acqua!" I don't think they believed me. They continued to debate whether it was an energy drink or steroids in my strange black container for liquids. On that note, I decided it was time to go catch my train.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Vino Bianco and the Olive Harvest
If you have a romanticized idea of harvesting olives in which you go to a mountain overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and spend a weekend picking olives and taking breaks to go photograph a picturesque house in ruins overrun by flowering vines and watch the sun sink into a sea of color illuminating the silhouettes of mountains... keep that idea. It is entirely correct.
This weekend my friends Angela and Niki accompanied me as I headed back to my Italian home region of Liguria. We arrived in Genova in the late afternoon and after we got off the train, I realized it was a different station than the one where I wanted to get off. Not a problem--we just took the opportunity to walk around Genova a little bit more as we wound our way to my relatives apartment. We had fun meandering and trying genuine Ligurian focaccia, which is different and utterly superior to focaccia from anywhere else. I had fun playing tour guide and showing off all I knew about the city. We eventually ended up at the home of my relatives, where Irene was waiting for us with tea, biscuits, sweets, and special breaded olive-meatballs from the south of Italy. We spent the night in Genova, and in the morning drove to Chiavari, stopping at Boca____ (I can't remember the end of that word--I'll have to ask Irene and get back to you) and Camogli. At Boca____ we got gelato and climbed to a beautiful lookout point with an almost 270 degree view of the sea. Best pistachio gelato of my life. So good I almost capitalized it just now. At Camogli we walked around, saw the lighthouse and the old cannons in front of Castello Dragono, literally Dragon Castle. It might have been a surname, but I hope not. If I owned a castle, I would come up with a kickin' name for it.
We eventually arrived in Chiavari and made our way to the olive grove where Irene's father Franco and her brother-in-law Davide were working. Had been working, I should say. It was about 4 in the afternoon and they had been there since early in the morning. Franco was very happy to see us. Let me instruct you in the ways of olive picking: you isolate the end of a tree branch, track it to where it forks from a bigger branch, and make a gentle fist as you run your hand down to the tip of the branch, causing the olives to fall to the ground where you have a net set up to catch them. Then you gather the net, pour the olives into a bucket, reset the net under another tree, and do the same for all the trees. After that, you empty the buckets into a primitive filtering machine that separates the olives from most of the leaves and twigs you may have inadvertently gathered with the olives. I don't think there are any other steps between that and taking the olives to the people who have machines to press the olives into oil, but I don't think there are. The last step, of course, is to enjoy the fresh, high quality olive oil you toiled for. And that's how it's done, folks.
We only worked for a few hours; at around 7 we had to pack up and call it a day because the sun set and we couldn't work in the darkness. That night, we had dinner in the home of Irene's cousin Francesca, who was one of the girls I went hiking with in the Alps. The thing is, I could understand the girls at that dinner better than I can understand anyone in Milan! I didn't think there was that much of an accent difference, but apparently my unconscious ear is more discerning than I realized. Interesting.
The next morning we woke up and spent some time seeing Chiavari and eating focaccia on the way to the train station to drop off Niki, who had to get back to Milan to meet up with her visiting parents. Angela and I met up with Irene and her uncle Vittorio and headed back to the garden to pick more olives. When we got there, Vittorio broke out the pandolce (sweetbread) and white wine. It was actually really funny to be caught between Franco the olive harvesting machine and Vittorio, who loved to invite people to take breaks. Vittorio wanted us to try the wine and the bread, and sit and talk, and take a picture together, and happily enjoy each other's company while not picking olives. Funny stuff. Two different, fun, mutually exclusive ways to spend a weekend. Vittorio actually had to leave before too long, which was when we started to get most of the work done. We finished working a little earlier than Saturday because Franco and Davide had not gone to mass that day and they had to catch the 6:30 service. Angela and I caught a ride back to Genova with Irene and caught the train from there back to Milan.
A lovely weekend--you should try it sometime.
This weekend my friends Angela and Niki accompanied me as I headed back to my Italian home region of Liguria. We arrived in Genova in the late afternoon and after we got off the train, I realized it was a different station than the one where I wanted to get off. Not a problem--we just took the opportunity to walk around Genova a little bit more as we wound our way to my relatives apartment. We had fun meandering and trying genuine Ligurian focaccia, which is different and utterly superior to focaccia from anywhere else. I had fun playing tour guide and showing off all I knew about the city. We eventually ended up at the home of my relatives, where Irene was waiting for us with tea, biscuits, sweets, and special breaded olive-meatballs from the south of Italy. We spent the night in Genova, and in the morning drove to Chiavari, stopping at Boca____ (I can't remember the end of that word--I'll have to ask Irene and get back to you) and Camogli. At Boca____ we got gelato and climbed to a beautiful lookout point with an almost 270 degree view of the sea. Best pistachio gelato of my life. So good I almost capitalized it just now. At Camogli we walked around, saw the lighthouse and the old cannons in front of Castello Dragono, literally Dragon Castle. It might have been a surname, but I hope not. If I owned a castle, I would come up with a kickin' name for it.
We eventually arrived in Chiavari and made our way to the olive grove where Irene's father Franco and her brother-in-law Davide were working. Had been working, I should say. It was about 4 in the afternoon and they had been there since early in the morning. Franco was very happy to see us. Let me instruct you in the ways of olive picking: you isolate the end of a tree branch, track it to where it forks from a bigger branch, and make a gentle fist as you run your hand down to the tip of the branch, causing the olives to fall to the ground where you have a net set up to catch them. Then you gather the net, pour the olives into a bucket, reset the net under another tree, and do the same for all the trees. After that, you empty the buckets into a primitive filtering machine that separates the olives from most of the leaves and twigs you may have inadvertently gathered with the olives. I don't think there are any other steps between that and taking the olives to the people who have machines to press the olives into oil, but I don't think there are. The last step, of course, is to enjoy the fresh, high quality olive oil you toiled for. And that's how it's done, folks.
We only worked for a few hours; at around 7 we had to pack up and call it a day because the sun set and we couldn't work in the darkness. That night, we had dinner in the home of Irene's cousin Francesca, who was one of the girls I went hiking with in the Alps. The thing is, I could understand the girls at that dinner better than I can understand anyone in Milan! I didn't think there was that much of an accent difference, but apparently my unconscious ear is more discerning than I realized. Interesting.
The next morning we woke up and spent some time seeing Chiavari and eating focaccia on the way to the train station to drop off Niki, who had to get back to Milan to meet up with her visiting parents. Angela and I met up with Irene and her uncle Vittorio and headed back to the garden to pick more olives. When we got there, Vittorio broke out the pandolce (sweetbread) and white wine. It was actually really funny to be caught between Franco the olive harvesting machine and Vittorio, who loved to invite people to take breaks. Vittorio wanted us to try the wine and the bread, and sit and talk, and take a picture together, and happily enjoy each other's company while not picking olives. Funny stuff. Two different, fun, mutually exclusive ways to spend a weekend. Vittorio actually had to leave before too long, which was when we started to get most of the work done. We finished working a little earlier than Saturday because Franco and Davide had not gone to mass that day and they had to catch the 6:30 service. Angela and I caught a ride back to Genova with Irene and caught the train from there back to Milan.
A lovely weekend--you should try it sometime.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
It's about time!
Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to this, folks.
I feel I'm settling into a nice rhythm in life here in Italy and at the university. Classes, coffee with friends, church, seeing new places, trying new things, you know. La dolce vita.
I will tell you the thing that has made me the happiest in the past several days. I was at a house party the other night and before I left I went around to the girls who were staying longer to make sure they were okay and could get home all right. Some people at the party were a bit drunk. One girl who I have a couple classes with but have never hung out with stopped me and said, "I want to tell you something. I don't know what it is, but you have this light inside you. I don't even really know you, but you're so full of light I feel like I just love you!" And she gave me this big hug. I'm so happy about that! I have been praying specifically that I would be a light to the people around me, and was really encouraging to hear that exact word echoed back to me.
I got two new apartment-mates today! Does it seem like I'm constantly talking about roommates coming or going? It sure does to me. Hopefully, this is the last change, and the four in the apartment now will stick it out together until the end of the semester. The new girls just arrived from China and seem very nice but find it difficult to communicate too much in English. I feel bad, I'm going to have to ask for their names at least one more time. My ear is not at all used to picking up and remembering Chinese names! One of the girls said that my pronunciation was really good, though. Hooray! I do love accents.
Remember the "never ending process" from an earlier blog? I have to apply for a permit of stay, and it's a long and complicated process. I went back again yesterday. My appointment was at the police station for about 8:20, so I got there at 8:05, hoping to avoid having to wait for too many people, and found out that the office didn't open until 8:30. Hmm... After I got in and waited for a long time (but not as long as last time) I was called into the office. The woman and I went through my paperwork, and I entered all my fingerprints into the computer. Then her computer died or something so we waited for it to shut down all the way and power up all the way so she could pull up the program again and I could enter my fingerprints. Since it was my first time applying for a permit of stay, I also had to enter my fingerprints into a different machine connected to a different computer. Apparently they changed the password on that computer, and after a few failed attempts to log on, she got someone from a different office to tell her what it was. Then she failed to log on again and we had to wait for the person from the other office to come enter it for her. Then I could enter all my fingerprints--again--along with my entire handprints. I amused myself through the process by replaying the scene in "Men in Black" when Will Smith becomes J and has to burn off his handprints and fingerprints. I found out that I didn't have copies of everything I needed. They told me to turn in the originals, so I brought the originals (of a letter from the school saying I'm a student, a receipt from the post office during an earlier step in the process, etc.). Turns out I should have brought copies to turn in. After we finished everything else, the woman told me where a copy place was so I went, made copies, and came back. I waltzed through the waiting room and into her office, dropped off the paperwork, and tangoed out of the police station. No, I didn't waltz or tango. That would have been interesting, though. I walked 20 minutes to the train station, got on the train back home and thought "Wow, I'm really glad I can go back to sleep now. I wonder if Angela and Molly are still sleeping." The party I mentioned earlier was the night before and some girls slept at my place instead of traveling all the way back to their apartments. And I had gotten 4 hours of sleep, thanks to my morning appointment. Before my station, I got a call on my phone. It was the woman from the police station. She had forgotten to have me sign something. Could I please come back right now and sign it? I sighed and told her I'd be back in about an hour, then made my way to my apartment. I got the girls some breakfast, and then as we all waited together for the train to the station in Milan, I thought "Well, at least it's warmer now than it was at 7:15 this morning." I made my way back to the police station, marched through the waiting room, and waited in the doorway of the woman's office until she was done with the person that was in there. You know what I had to sign? A printout of my fingerprints. Yup. At least now I think the process is almost over. I only have to go back to the police station one more time, and it's just to pick up my permit.
Last night a couple girls came over and we made foccacia! So fun and so delicious. I need to make it every once in a while so that 1) I can enjoy eating it, and 2) so that I can engrave the recipe in my mind. I want to be able to make it once I'm back in the good ol' US.
I feel I'm settling into a nice rhythm in life here in Italy and at the university. Classes, coffee with friends, church, seeing new places, trying new things, you know. La dolce vita.
I will tell you the thing that has made me the happiest in the past several days. I was at a house party the other night and before I left I went around to the girls who were staying longer to make sure they were okay and could get home all right. Some people at the party were a bit drunk. One girl who I have a couple classes with but have never hung out with stopped me and said, "I want to tell you something. I don't know what it is, but you have this light inside you. I don't even really know you, but you're so full of light I feel like I just love you!" And she gave me this big hug. I'm so happy about that! I have been praying specifically that I would be a light to the people around me, and was really encouraging to hear that exact word echoed back to me.
I got two new apartment-mates today! Does it seem like I'm constantly talking about roommates coming or going? It sure does to me. Hopefully, this is the last change, and the four in the apartment now will stick it out together until the end of the semester. The new girls just arrived from China and seem very nice but find it difficult to communicate too much in English. I feel bad, I'm going to have to ask for their names at least one more time. My ear is not at all used to picking up and remembering Chinese names! One of the girls said that my pronunciation was really good, though. Hooray! I do love accents.
Remember the "never ending process" from an earlier blog? I have to apply for a permit of stay, and it's a long and complicated process. I went back again yesterday. My appointment was at the police station for about 8:20, so I got there at 8:05, hoping to avoid having to wait for too many people, and found out that the office didn't open until 8:30. Hmm... After I got in and waited for a long time (but not as long as last time) I was called into the office. The woman and I went through my paperwork, and I entered all my fingerprints into the computer. Then her computer died or something so we waited for it to shut down all the way and power up all the way so she could pull up the program again and I could enter my fingerprints. Since it was my first time applying for a permit of stay, I also had to enter my fingerprints into a different machine connected to a different computer. Apparently they changed the password on that computer, and after a few failed attempts to log on, she got someone from a different office to tell her what it was. Then she failed to log on again and we had to wait for the person from the other office to come enter it for her. Then I could enter all my fingerprints--again--along with my entire handprints. I amused myself through the process by replaying the scene in "Men in Black" when Will Smith becomes J and has to burn off his handprints and fingerprints. I found out that I didn't have copies of everything I needed. They told me to turn in the originals, so I brought the originals (of a letter from the school saying I'm a student, a receipt from the post office during an earlier step in the process, etc.). Turns out I should have brought copies to turn in. After we finished everything else, the woman told me where a copy place was so I went, made copies, and came back. I waltzed through the waiting room and into her office, dropped off the paperwork, and tangoed out of the police station. No, I didn't waltz or tango. That would have been interesting, though. I walked 20 minutes to the train station, got on the train back home and thought "Wow, I'm really glad I can go back to sleep now. I wonder if Angela and Molly are still sleeping." The party I mentioned earlier was the night before and some girls slept at my place instead of traveling all the way back to their apartments. And I had gotten 4 hours of sleep, thanks to my morning appointment. Before my station, I got a call on my phone. It was the woman from the police station. She had forgotten to have me sign something. Could I please come back right now and sign it? I sighed and told her I'd be back in about an hour, then made my way to my apartment. I got the girls some breakfast, and then as we all waited together for the train to the station in Milan, I thought "Well, at least it's warmer now than it was at 7:15 this morning." I made my way back to the police station, marched through the waiting room, and waited in the doorway of the woman's office until she was done with the person that was in there. You know what I had to sign? A printout of my fingerprints. Yup. At least now I think the process is almost over. I only have to go back to the police station one more time, and it's just to pick up my permit.
Last night a couple girls came over and we made foccacia! So fun and so delicious. I need to make it every once in a while so that 1) I can enjoy eating it, and 2) so that I can engrave the recipe in my mind. I want to be able to make it once I'm back in the good ol' US.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
What Dreams May Come
Last night I had a dream in which I baked many delicious desserts for some kind of fundraiser. The most popular were the lemon meringue cupcakes. Now I want to bake, bake, bake! Unfortunately, I lack ingredients and equipment. But I'll have a few things to try come December in the Rak kitchen.
Thursday night after class I went with a friend to where her host family lives in Como Lago, a small town on a lake about an hour by train north of Milan. It was gorgeous! The combination of the mountains (these are called the "pre-Alps") and the water of the lake reminded me of Liguria, the region of Italy that contains Genoa and Cinqueterre, only this was a slightly smaller scale. There was a traditional boat there that reminded me SO much of the boat that sank in "Anne of Green Gables," leading to Gilbert's rescue of our red-headed heroine.
A funny thing... Before I speak, Italians almost never assume I'm an American. Most of the time they think I'm French. I wonder why. Maybe they think I look like I can bake delicious pastries. Hmm, baking... After I speak, of course, they figure me out pretty quickly. BUT, the other day, I ordered a cappuccino and sounded so Italian, the guy making it for me was really surprised when he found out I wasn't! Look at me, pickin' up the accent.
Thursday night after class I went with a friend to where her host family lives in Como Lago, a small town on a lake about an hour by train north of Milan. It was gorgeous! The combination of the mountains (these are called the "pre-Alps") and the water of the lake reminded me of Liguria, the region of Italy that contains Genoa and Cinqueterre, only this was a slightly smaller scale. There was a traditional boat there that reminded me SO much of the boat that sank in "Anne of Green Gables," leading to Gilbert's rescue of our red-headed heroine.
A funny thing... Before I speak, Italians almost never assume I'm an American. Most of the time they think I'm French. I wonder why. Maybe they think I look like I can bake delicious pastries. Hmm, baking... After I speak, of course, they figure me out pretty quickly. BUT, the other day, I ordered a cappuccino and sounded so Italian, the guy making it for me was really surprised when he found out I wasn't! Look at me, pickin' up the accent.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Hello, Germany!
Friday night I grabbed a purse and headed off to join 150 students going to Munich. I was running about 15 late thanks to a slow train and was a little concerned I would miss something important, but I had nothing to fear. I arrived, met up with some friends, and stood around for an hour before we were able to load onto the buses and wait there for another hour. Finally we left and drove through the night through Italy, Switzerland, and Germany until we reached Munich at 6:30 in the morning. We hung out by the buses and had breakfast before we walked over to Oktoberfest and the group I was with started waiting in lines. The way things work at Oktoberfest is there are many different tent/buildings, each serving a different kind of beer. You wait in line until you can get into a tent, grab a seat if you can find one, and enjoy beer and food until you want to go to another tent. There is also a whole carnival connected, so you can go on rides if you want. Which seemed a little funny to me considering how much beer was being consumed. If you need any extra help throwing up...
Anyway, my group spent a couple hours waiting in different lines and then leaving them. Let me just say it's much better to say what you want to do when someone asks you than to say you're up for anything and then complain about what you end up in line for. The group lost someone, and some people went to go find her, and then others went to find them, and after a while my friend Angela and I figured we had become a group of two. It was perfect! We wandered around looking at things for a while, made our way into one of the tents and wandered around it for over half an hour looking for any available seats before we left. After that, we went to get brats. Gloria and Carla were with me then, along with the ghosts of brats eaten at Bass Lake. After that, we decided to leave Oktoberfest and have adventures in Munich. We quickly ran into a few Italian guys who were desperately searching for a Starbucks. There are no Starbucks in Italy, but one of these guys had studied for a while in London and apparently got to really like Starbucks. He was pumped to have the chance to find one in Munich. I thought that was funny. Angela and I spent most of the day wandering Munich. We tried on clothes in a secondhand store, admired the jewelry in an antique jewelry store, and had a snack in nice park we found which we found out later was called the "English Garden." It was surrounded by all kinds of fancy-pants stores like Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Prada... you know, the stuff you find in Milan, as well as some really upscale German stores. We wandered freely, and when we decided to go back, we asked people which direction Oktoberfest was, and one woman said it was impossible to walk--it was too far! We asked someone else, and he said it was in that direction, if we wanted to walk all night. We got there in about half an hour. There were flowers growing out of windows in a lot of the buildings--it was gorgeous and I loved it! When we got back to Oktoberfest, we slipped into a seating area right away just before the guards closed it off so not too many people would flood in, and found people leaving a table. It was a little astounding how easy it was this time to get a seat, when we had tried for hours earlier and not been able to! So we sat, and Angela ordered a beer. They brought her the full liter, so we had an excuse to stay a long time. Some guys sat down at the table with us, and after a while a guy walked up--a stranger--who apparently had to leave immediately but had half a beer left and instead of wasting it, gave it to our table so one of us could finish it. The people around me all had their own beers and there was no way I was going to drink a half-finished beer that some stranger dropped off, but it was nice to put in front of me and hold every once in a while to validate sitting at the table so long. The guys (who were Italian, by the way; we couldn't stop running into Italian men in Germany) left, and a couple girls sat down. They were really nice, and they were the only Germans we interacted with at Oktoberfest! Hmm. One funny thing about the day was that there were stands all over selling stuff that made sense like glazed nuts, brats and other sausages and huge pretzels, but there were also a ton of stands selling heart-shaped gingerbread cookies of various sizes with words written in frosting on them. They were on ribbons, and people hung them around their necks like huge pendant necklaces. It was so funny! Couples would buy them for each other, parents would buy them for children, and people would buy them for themselves. One woman we saw had three around her neck: small (the diameter was maybe the same as a grapefruit), medium (the size of a small dinnerplate), and large (you could lie a baby on it if you wanted). She had adjusted the lengths of the ribbons the hearts were hung on and proudly arranged them so that there was no overlap. She looked like she had a gingerbread torso.
It was a little tough finding our way back to the buses since it was about 10 minutes walking away from the festival, we had been led in a large group early in the morning, and no one told us we would need to find our own way back alone or in small groups in the darkness. We eventually made it back about half an hour late after getting a little lost. It didn't really matter that we were late, though, because none of the trip leaders were back yet. It was about two and a half hours until everyone made it back onto the buses and we were able to leave. I got back to my apartment at about 7:30 in the morning and flopped into bed.
Several hours later I woke up, showered, and journeyed forth to find a church I've been wanting to go to for a couple weeks. I found it after getting a little lost and felt bad for walking in late, but hey--I wasn't about to turn around and go back to my apartment. I love the church! I'll admit, I'm a little spoiled when it comes to worship, but I love their emphasis on prayer and how the sermon was chock full of Scriptures. There's a Bible study that meets Tuesday nights, and I'm looking forward to checking it out. And guess what? One girl from the church goes to the university where I am studying, and it turns out she lives in my apartment building two doors down! As we were riding the train together, we found out that one girl she became friends with at the university last semester is the sister of a girl I hung out with in the Dominican Republic! What are the odds, huh?
Anyway, my group spent a couple hours waiting in different lines and then leaving them. Let me just say it's much better to say what you want to do when someone asks you than to say you're up for anything and then complain about what you end up in line for. The group lost someone, and some people went to go find her, and then others went to find them, and after a while my friend Angela and I figured we had become a group of two. It was perfect! We wandered around looking at things for a while, made our way into one of the tents and wandered around it for over half an hour looking for any available seats before we left. After that, we went to get brats. Gloria and Carla were with me then, along with the ghosts of brats eaten at Bass Lake. After that, we decided to leave Oktoberfest and have adventures in Munich. We quickly ran into a few Italian guys who were desperately searching for a Starbucks. There are no Starbucks in Italy, but one of these guys had studied for a while in London and apparently got to really like Starbucks. He was pumped to have the chance to find one in Munich. I thought that was funny. Angela and I spent most of the day wandering Munich. We tried on clothes in a secondhand store, admired the jewelry in an antique jewelry store, and had a snack in nice park we found which we found out later was called the "English Garden." It was surrounded by all kinds of fancy-pants stores like Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Prada... you know, the stuff you find in Milan, as well as some really upscale German stores. We wandered freely, and when we decided to go back, we asked people which direction Oktoberfest was, and one woman said it was impossible to walk--it was too far! We asked someone else, and he said it was in that direction, if we wanted to walk all night. We got there in about half an hour. There were flowers growing out of windows in a lot of the buildings--it was gorgeous and I loved it! When we got back to Oktoberfest, we slipped into a seating area right away just before the guards closed it off so not too many people would flood in, and found people leaving a table. It was a little astounding how easy it was this time to get a seat, when we had tried for hours earlier and not been able to! So we sat, and Angela ordered a beer. They brought her the full liter, so we had an excuse to stay a long time. Some guys sat down at the table with us, and after a while a guy walked up--a stranger--who apparently had to leave immediately but had half a beer left and instead of wasting it, gave it to our table so one of us could finish it. The people around me all had their own beers and there was no way I was going to drink a half-finished beer that some stranger dropped off, but it was nice to put in front of me and hold every once in a while to validate sitting at the table so long. The guys (who were Italian, by the way; we couldn't stop running into Italian men in Germany) left, and a couple girls sat down. They were really nice, and they were the only Germans we interacted with at Oktoberfest! Hmm. One funny thing about the day was that there were stands all over selling stuff that made sense like glazed nuts, brats and other sausages and huge pretzels, but there were also a ton of stands selling heart-shaped gingerbread cookies of various sizes with words written in frosting on them. They were on ribbons, and people hung them around their necks like huge pendant necklaces. It was so funny! Couples would buy them for each other, parents would buy them for children, and people would buy them for themselves. One woman we saw had three around her neck: small (the diameter was maybe the same as a grapefruit), medium (the size of a small dinnerplate), and large (you could lie a baby on it if you wanted). She had adjusted the lengths of the ribbons the hearts were hung on and proudly arranged them so that there was no overlap. She looked like she had a gingerbread torso.
It was a little tough finding our way back to the buses since it was about 10 minutes walking away from the festival, we had been led in a large group early in the morning, and no one told us we would need to find our own way back alone or in small groups in the darkness. We eventually made it back about half an hour late after getting a little lost. It didn't really matter that we were late, though, because none of the trip leaders were back yet. It was about two and a half hours until everyone made it back onto the buses and we were able to leave. I got back to my apartment at about 7:30 in the morning and flopped into bed.
Several hours later I woke up, showered, and journeyed forth to find a church I've been wanting to go to for a couple weeks. I found it after getting a little lost and felt bad for walking in late, but hey--I wasn't about to turn around and go back to my apartment. I love the church! I'll admit, I'm a little spoiled when it comes to worship, but I love their emphasis on prayer and how the sermon was chock full of Scriptures. There's a Bible study that meets Tuesday nights, and I'm looking forward to checking it out. And guess what? One girl from the church goes to the university where I am studying, and it turns out she lives in my apartment building two doors down! As we were riding the train together, we found out that one girl she became friends with at the university last semester is the sister of a girl I hung out with in the Dominican Republic! What are the odds, huh?
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