Arezzo - my first real excursion

Last weekend was a holiday weekend (la festa). Friday was Liberation Day, the celebration of the end of WW II therefore we had no class on Friday and a true holiday weekend. Some people at the church organized an international lunch. People brought food from their nationality. There was some sausage with a sauce from the English, a potato dish with an amazing sauce from a guy from Peru, sushi, fruit salad (the American entry) and other various meats and vegetables. The sun was shining and we sat outside on the upper terrace of the church. We played games and talked until evening. It was great! Then later that night some people came over to my place to hang out and help me drink my new jug of wine!

On Saturday I went to Arezzo with two girls from the church who are also students at the University for Foreigners, Frankie & Lucille. They are in the higher levels of language, so we agreed to only speaking Italian all day. It was so good for me, but I had a massive headache by the evening.
Below are some pictures of us in the city:

This is a small city in between Perugia and Florence. It was where the Italian scenes from the movie "Life is Beautiful" were filmed. It turned out to be a beautiful day. We left around 11am and it took about an hour by train. We found a cute little restaurant for lunch and then walked all over the city. You can see that Lucille likes to climb. She is quite the adventurous person and so much fun.

There were many spectacular views of the city, but one point of interest was the setup of the cemetery. I guess when land is scarce you bury people upward. It may be hard to tell, but the back wall of this picture is layers of buried people. I am not sure if there are bodies in these spots or just urns and flowers, but it was massive.

So after spending all afternoon walking around this city, we stop for a gelato (so good!) and head back to the train station. Here is where the adventure begins...we end up getting on the wrong train going home. When we realize this the train is in motion and one of the workers on the train tells us we can get off at the next stop and get a train to Perugia no problem. Well, because this is an inner city train, (which should have been our first clue it was not right) the first stop is a good 20 minutes away. It ended up being a fun adventure, but a trip that should have taken an hour took about 3 hours.
After a week of thinking about this trip and preparing to head to Bologna this weekend (another la festa), I came to the conclusion that making these kind of mistakes are helpful. It reminds me of driving the jet skis when I worked with the High School kids at Northwest Bible. I had to take the jet ski out by myself and make myself fall off in order to not be nervous when driving the kids. I know this is a bit warped, but it was that I had to prove to myself that if I fell off, I would be OK. So God continues to use these mistakes to remind me that He is there to take care of me and will work out the unknowns. And often what I think of as a mistake He uses for a bigger purpose!
Sorry this was a bit long. That what happens when I don't write for awhile, so I will try to be better. Stay tuned for the Bologna adventure!!