Italia - Beautiful land of gelato, sunsets, and culture

Again, I've been a horrible slacker when it comes to updates! So sorry...I’ve been doing well. I've definitely turned a shade darker since our amazing trip to Italy this past week. We (Lillian, Chelsea, Tasha and I) took a night train to Florence, and we weren’t in a sleeper car. We had seats that we could pull out and get pretty flat, but it was really cramped all night and no one got much sleep. When we found our hotel we conked out on our soft beds for a couple of hours before we set off exploring. Florence is beautiful, although it definitely wasn’t the most beautiful city in Europe as some people believe. My favorite part was the Uffizi museum, the oldest art gallery in the world, where we saw the painting the Birth of Venus, as well as some originals by Cranach and Dürer, two of the most famous German artists. We happened to be there on one of the biggest holidays for Florence, celebrating their patron saint (I forgot which one it was), so we saw a parade and watched fireworks from the ponte veccio, the oldest bridge in Florence that has some of the most amazing jewelry shops in the world. We spent a few hours just window shopping, drooling over the ring selection.

We ate tons of gelato everywhere we went. Gelato does not equal ice cream… it’s a step beyond all of the other European ice cream which is so much better than American ice cream… it’s absolutely divine!!!! We found the best gelato in Florence with the help of some missionaries that we ran into. We ended up replacing meals with gelato. It was the last thing we ate in Florence.

Ravenna was our next stop… it’s not a tourist center, which was really cool since we got to see more of the real Italy. At the bus stop close to our hostel we got confused about which direction we were supposed to take to get to the beach, and so we tried asking an Italian lady who didn’t speak any English. She was so nice and we used sign language, Chelsea’s limited Spanish and Lillian’s few words of Italian to communicate. I love languages so much! Maybe I should be a linguistics major so I can learn more of them. Anyway, we made it to the beach, and sadly I hadn’t brought my swimming suit, but I rolled up my jeans and completely soaked them by the time we were done. We made Chelsea into a living mermaid sand sculpture and a random little Italian boy thought it was so funny he came and took a picture of our art. The water and the sky were beautiful. I love the Mediterranean! In the evening Lillian, Tasha and I went to explore the city by twilight. It must have been an old roman center, because almost all of the buildings were Romanesque.

Early the next morning we caught a train to Venice. Our original plan was to leave our luggage at the train station, but there weren’t any lockers left when we got there. Carrying a really heavy backpack isn’t the best way to tour a city, but it was bearable despite the heat and weight. I wasn’t super excited about seeing Venice, since the last time I had been there was the end of a two week trip through all of Europe with 12 people and I had gotten tired of traveling by then, but this time around it was different. The tiny twisty streets, the bridges, the gondolas and the bustling crowds were fascinating. The colorful booths dotting the streets were bursting with glittering masks, delicate glass, and silky scarves fluttering in the wind. It was a recipe for disaster for a person who is slightly clumsy and is carrying a huge backpack… but I made it without breaking anything!

After seeing San Marco with the stunning golden mosaics we took a water bus to Murano, a little island that is devoted to glassmaking. We watched a master create a tall slender vase and a delicate horse from the malleable glass. We enjoyed some window shopping and I was tempted to buy some of the Venecian glass I had just seen made, but I withstood. I bought a sweet mask instead… silver and blue. It’s gorgeous and I can’t wait to wear it at a masquerade… I just have to find someone who will go with me when I get back to Provo. How annoying. The trip ended with a gelato and a gorgeous sunset. The pictures turned out really well… I'll try to put them up on Facebook so you can see them, and when they're up I'll send a link.

Hope you are all doing well and to hear from you soon!

Love,

Margaret

Vienna!!!!!!

Let’s see… more adventures of Vienna!

The day after I arrived, Lillian and I met up with Chelsea and Tasha in the heart of Vienna to explore the Naschmarkt (snack market), which has become our favorite place to snag some lunch before class every day. The beautiful, delicate smell of roasting Döner meat was absolutely irresistible, and soon we were all munching pita bread filled with strips of succulent chicken or lamb, crunchy lettuce, onions and tomatoes. Sadly, even a döner couldn’t cure me… my energy was low, my throat hurt a little and I was completely congested. We decided to go to Chelsea and Tasha’s home to use their internet and rest a bit. Chelsea had some advil that she finally persuaded me to take, and wow, I have a reaffirmed testimony of medicine! I felt soooo much better after that started kicking in. The four of us sat around discussing life together for a few hours, then Lillian and I made our way home with some Sudafed in our pockets.
Sunday we miraculously found the church from the vague directions our host mom was able to give us. The ward is fairly large for a European ward, but rather small for American standards. Everyone was very friendly, and listening to everyone speak with their own variation of an Austrian accent was fascinating to me. I did have to try a little harder to understand what they were saying, but didn’t have too much trouble. Our Sunday school teacher was my favorite… he’s a short slight old man with white hair who has one of my favorite accents and lots of stories. Everyone was surprised we spoke German, since the last BYU group in Vienna had been a music group where only 2 people spoke German. Later in the afternoon we ventured into center city to find the outreach center. We walked up and down Florianigasse a few times before we finally found it. Quirkful Elder Gill heartily welcomed us, gave us a tour of the center, and informed us that we could get 2 full hot meals/week, all we can eat for 1.50 euros on institute and FHE days (Mon and Wed). That was definitely good news! After meeting a few of the JAEs (Young Single Adults), we watched a really good fireside about the dangers of wasting your life on the internet/in a virtual sphere. I think we really needed that… it’s so sad how computers eat up our personal relationships nowadays. Anyway, the outreach center has become one of our second homes with the good food, fun activities and instructive lessons that are offered there.
Our Architecture class involves picking out a building that we tour/see during class to write about, and Lillian and I enjoy going back to the sites to sketch and to really get another feel for the building before we write about it. So far we’ve written about the Augustinerkirche, the Romanesque Ruprechtskirche, Gothic Stefansdom, High Baroque Peterskirche, Renaissance Schweizertor and Rococo Schönbrunnen, each of which are sights that I will never forget. Pictures just aren’t the same as being there, and I get so frustrated at my inability to capture the true beauty of what I’m seeing. I really don’t know what to do, since writing doesn’t capture it either…

I’ve become reconciled to the fact that I won’t be able to really get caught up in all the details of my trip, so here are my
RANDOM ADVENTURES:
Once upon the month of May I enjoyed amazing European foods: ice cream (caramel, yogurt, nutella, raspberry, forest-berry yogurt and a few other flavors), Moor im Hemb (a Viennese chocolate cake covered in chocolate sauce) at the Griechenbeisl (the oldest restaurant in Vienna), Apfelstrudel at Café Tirolerhof and at the Griechenbeisl, some delicious Spätzle with tomato zucchini sauce made by our Gastmutter, Schnitzel Semmel, fresh cherries and pita bread with chummas at the Naschmarkt, a chocolate croissant, Syrian style pizza, palat schinken (very much like crepes), chocolate truffle Torte with hot chocolate at the café Centrale (the swankest café in Vienna), and more.
I went on a trip to Graz for two days with the YSAs where I played basketball, völkerball, danced the night away and listened to Lillian open her mission call (BERLIN!!), our whole class went Melk where we saw a beautiful Baroque monastery, I watched “Our Mutual Friend”, took tons of pictures with a bunch of girls at Schönbrunnen, drifted around the largest underground lake in Europe where the Three Musketeers was filmed, hiked to Burg Liechtenstein to frolic in the tall grass there, visited the Prater (an amusement park in the middle of Vienna), heard the Viennese philharmonic orchestra live in Schönbrunnen and in the Musikverein, went to a missionary farewell party, and participated in the long night of churches (night were all the churches are open and have musical programs going on till about 2 am) till midnight.
So far my trip has been a glorious, golden experience… I miss you all, and wish you could be here!

~Margaret