New song

So, not really a blog post, but I feel like this song is 100% worthy of being shared with EVERYBODY I know. Daniel sang it at church this weekend and I seriously teared up. Our God is seriously such an awesome, awesome God!

As for important life updates, Amanda and I move into our apartment on Friday! I am so incredibly excited to get settled in and have friends over! Yay :)


For the song, click on the word "music" below

Music

Sugar Land, mi amore

So I am officially home from traveling for awhile. I guess this is when real life sets in. It's nice to calm down, but a feeling I haven't dealt with in about 7 weeks. It's kind of bittersweet... I don't know yet if I like it, but I know in a day or so I'll be back to being lazy and a Texan.

After getting home from Italy, a day later I headed off to Port Aransas with Kolbe and her lovely family! We were there for about 4 days just enjoying the sun and time with everyone. It was so nice and relaxing to just sit back and read a book and catch some sun :) I saw so many dolphins and when I have the time, I'll try to upload a video of it. To go along with my dolphin watching, I'm even coming back with a nice tan. Can't complain about that!

There is so much I have to do to get ready for the start of school. I seriously don't even know where to start. But I am so excited to move into my new place with the sister and to decorate. We live so close to the park and so many other great things, so I'm expecting her to play with me a lot! Hopefully her hours for school aren't too stressful :) I think this will be a great year and that Rome was the perfect start to a great year!

So glad to be back and missing all of my new friends in Roma!
Ti amo,
T

Lasts

I am way too tired to blog right now & I have to wake up in 3 hours, so here are a couple pictures of my last day in Rome. They range from the guys at scholars, to the Milan kids in my class, to my last dinner, etc! Be back home soon!

Pistachio e bananas

Another day down! It is getting more & more realistic that I leave Saturday. I am pretty much packed and tomorrow I have my final. I am so excited to get back home & be with my family and friends, but I am also gonna miss Rome like crazy! Rome and I have definitely had our ups & downs, but at the end of the day I feel like we always go to bed happy with one another. I don't know when I'll be back here next, but I can say with certainty that I learned a lot from this place. For starters, I am 100% more sure of myself and know that I am who I say I am. I was always pretty confident in this, but since being in situations where alcohol is heavy and faith is low, I am even more confident.

Today was a long, productive, and breezy day. After class, I came home & packed everything up. I surprisingly did really good at condensing all of the stuff I brought and the stuff I bought. When packing, I got pretty anxious to get back! There is so much at home waiting for me. So many new adventures and friendships to continue to grow and develop! After packing, I headed down to school and roamed around Trastevere until some of the girls were out of class. When we were all out, we walked around Trastevere a little more & then headed to Borghese Gardens again. I don't have a final I can study for so I took a nice nap there while the others looked over notes. Around 6ish we headed back home to Gianicolense and since then, 4 of us have just been relaxing and talking. We are all such different people, but we have connected so well and formed such great relationships. There has never been an awkward moment or a time where I felt like I didn't already know these girls. I hope that our friendships continue to grow!

Tomorrow is our last night out and our last day to explore! I will definitely be taking advantage of that and eating a lot of food :)

A short list of things I love about Rome:
-WALKING!
-Gelato (pistachio, bananas, e fragola)
-meeting new people & not feeling awkward
-The Irish
-Fresh Fruit
-My roommates
-Old Italian couples
-Red Pants
-Businessmen on Vespas

La musica per "the soul"

3 Days now until I leave! The smaller the days get, the more excited I am about going home. However, I feel like it's for all of the wrong reasons that I'm so excited. I love my roommates, but 6 girls in one house is just never a very good idea. Also, it would be nice to be around southern men and women again.

Today has been good though. I haven't done much yet, but in a couple hours I'm gonna go out on the town. There is a nice breeze going on here & I am currently sitting on our wrap-around balcony stealing wifi :) I guess I should update y'all on the speech competition. I tied for 2nd place out of 13 contestants, so I feel like that is pretty good. The kid I predicted to win first place did! He is from Milan and is an awesome writer & speaker so I wasn't surprised at all!

Tonight, Natalie, me, and possibly some other people are going to dinner on the Tiber River. I'm pretty excited about this because I think I've determined that the Tiber is my favorite landmark in Rome. It took me awhile to come to this conclusion, but it definitely has a strong place in my heart. The Tiber separates Trastevere (where I live) and the city/monuments of Rome. At night it is beautifully lit & from high landmarks the thing looks amazing!

Well, I should go focus on packing some more. I am pretty much all packed up, but I am currently waiting for some more clothes to dry. So soon I will be back in the land of REAL mexican food & bbq! I can't wait.

Ti amo,
Tay

Italian Oldies

Does this picture make anybody else as happy as it makes me? I love to see these old men sporting their fashion. They are so well dressed and look so adorable and sophisticated. I really wish that men in America were brave enough to try some of the fashion styles that the men try here! For example, the picture of the glasses. I love them!

So as of right now, it is still pretty early here in Rome! I've been to class, stopped by the melon boys (I was asked to kiss them AGAIN!), and am now home cooking lunch. It's a really pretty day out right now & I'm in a really good mood! As for tonight, I am a part of a speech competition...GO ME! haha or as Kolbe told me last night, NERD ALERT! About the speech though...My teacher works for the FAO and being in a speech class, she has asked us all to participate. The first round was for a grade & now we have to compete for the number 1 spot. Personally though, I'm just glad that tonight is replacing my last speech and I'm pretty sure I already know who will win.

I go back to Texas now in officially 4 days! Crazy talk! And then I start school and Amanda graduates in December! Life is moving so fast hahah but I'm excited to get back to my "other life" and to see my family, friends and Kala (the girl I mentor) and go explore Houston some more!

A domani,
T

Home Sweet Rome

Wow!! I actually leave to go back to Texas in 5 days! I seriously can't wrap my head around that. It feels like I just got here and like I have so much more I need to do and see. It's funny because even 6 weeks isn't enough to see all that you want to see in Rome, let alone Italy or Europe. I'm excited for what the future holds though. I'm excited to get back to Texas & move into my new apartment, I'm excited to make decisions about working in the school year, I'm excited to start applying for internships, and I'm even a little excited to start classes. However, I'm really sad about leaving this city. I'm not really a city girl, but in some crazy way, I've fallen in love with this place & how active I am here. I could never live here for several reasons I won't go into on here, but I feel as if it's home after a long weekend & that's more than I could ever say about Waco and Baylor.

This weekend helped me to appreciate the city and living here more. I was so busy every day, but I wouldn't change that. I love that I always have something to do here & don't have to worry about wasting gas money :) Here's a breakdown of what I've been awful at posting...Hopefully this week I can try to write each day, but we will see.

Thursday: After completing my third speech of the summer session, I was really needing a break from all things school. Therefor, I crossed over the Tiber and went into the city. I was able to go off and explore by myself which was really nice & refreshing. I purposely got lost in the city, going down back allies and never worrying about if I'd find my way out. I would usually be nervous in this situation, but in Rome everything is different. I was totally at peace and eventually I ended up in Piazza Navona. I finished the day with some shopping and going to Scholars with Natalie. We both got fruity drinks that were amazing! Mine had strawberry, pineapple, and other fruits. We headed home pretty early because our next day was gonna be early.

Friday: On Friday, Natalie, Paulina, and I headed off to Milano! We caught the fast train at 8am and met a really nice Canadian that had been backpacking throughout Europe. He shared his stories with us and showed me all of his pictures from Ireland. He told me it was the prettiest and friendliest country he'd been too! I'm thinking this whole moving there thing is looking better & better.

At around 11, we finally arrived at the train station where we caught the metro to the duomo. The duomo was gorgeous and was by far my favorite in Italy! The architecture is unbelievable and from the roof, you feel God's beauty! If I lived there, I'm pretty sure the 5 euro to the top would be a frequent trip for me. As for the rest of the day, we went to Castello Sforzesco and did a lot of shopping! Of course I bought a couple of things and ate way too much gelato, but the whole day was completely worth it and I'm glad we went. We got back home to Rome around 10:30pm.

Saturday: Well this was another early morning. On Saturday, all of my roomies minus two headed off to Sperlonga, a Roman beach, about 1.5 hours from the city. In Sperlonga, we were able to relax and catch up on sleep. I took several little naps this day and people watched like crazy! The families are so entertaining to watch. Nobody cares how they look as long as they're getting their tan on. The little girls run around topless and everybody is having the time of their lives. There are a lot of traits that America could benefit from here. After a couple hours, we walked around the city. It consisted of a lot of stairs, but after awhile we made it to the top and were able to see the view of the city. The water was so blue & the town was so peaceful. The rest of the night we spent back in Rome. We got dinner at da'Tony's! It was amazing!

Sunday: I headed off to the Porta Portese market with the girls. It was a lot more crowded this week than last week but that's because it was a couple hours later. There was so much to look at and a lot to buy if you were looking for little trinkets. Nat is the only one that bought anything and she got a little espresso maker for pretty cheap. The rest of the day Paulina, Natalie, and I walked around the city. We took a break on some grass near the Tiber and were able to people watch and nap. Like usual, we finished our day by going to karaoke at Scholars. We sang "I want you to want me!" I'm seriously going to miss this place and I honestly feel like these guys have become my "friends." This is by far one of my favorite places in Rome and I will miss the environment and the workers who have opened up their hearts to us and have watched over us while in Rome.

With all of that being said, I still can't believe how fast the time has gone by! I'm hoping mom has some nice Mexican food waiting for me for dinner when I get home or that we at least go to Chuy's after church on Sunday! I am so carbed up and need something to eat besides pasta (but I do LOVE pasta)!

Can't wait to see you all!
A presto :)
T