A Little Past the Halfway Mark

Greetings from Brussels!
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Hi Guys,

As you could probably gather from Facebook pictures, me, Amy, Natalie and Dan (apparently The B.A.N.D.) just came back from a weekend together in Brussels, Belgium. I had an amazing time and it was really good to see people that I haven't seen since May. At the same time, coming back from seeing them suddenly made me feel a twinge of homesickness that has eluded me since I've been in Glasgow.

As of today, there are 54 days left until my flight home, and there were 110 days from when I arrived in Glasgow. At this point, a little past the halfway mark, I've been reflecting on my time here and it's really been an incredible experience but just the same, I'm suddenly feeling a little wistful for people at home (in NJ and Duke). Glasgow will never feel like "home" to me and I'm beginning to feel really itchy to see people, especially my parents, my best friend and Peter.

It's hard to maintain relationships through purely electronic communication like skype, AIM and facebook. In the end, when you think about it, you're just talking to a hunk of metal and that's pretty depressing.

I'm sorry I'm being so emo right now, but I just wanted to let the people at Duke who read this blog and feel jealous of those of us studying abroad know that we're jealous of you guys too!

Anyways, to end on a lighter note... studying abroad has definitely helped me realize how amazing God is in that he's the same God in NJ, at Duke, in Scotland, in South Africa, in Australia, etc. He transcends all geographical boundaries and doesn't need a passport =]

I hope that you guys at Duke have a FABULOUS time at fall retreat and I look forward to living vicariously through your pictures!

Beka

Rejoice, for God is with you. And take comfort in His blessings.

Just got back from a fellowship retreat in Mid Wales. To be honest, I was feeling quite lonely after it all. I didn't really hit it off with many of the guys (girls are usually very nice to you), and I was subsequently missing Austin and Duke. At the same time, I was feeling like I didn't belong anywhere.. And usually when things like this happen, I begin to selfishly desire things for myself to make things better and make me feel "better". In the midst of this loneliness, however, I remembered there were encourage-o-grams written for people at the end of retreat, and I hadn't read mine yet. I picked it out of my pocket and read them, and that was very touching. I definitely felt God's love through them, because I didn't feel as "present" and "acknowledged" as the comments suggested. Anyway, the thing that did it for me was one specific line Sophie, the worship coordinator here, wrote. It reads: "It's been really cool getting to know you this weekend. I pray you'll find God's purposes for you in Manchester over the coming months - He has brought you here. - Sophie" Wow. What the heck. That line just served as a resounding reminder that God is always there and always guiding me. Being away from Duke has taught me that God is the rock and foundation who never fails and never leaves us. And despite how unfamiliar we may be in our surroundings, it's the pursuit of Him that always gives us comfort and strength.

Top o' the morning to ya!

Hi Guys!

I’m loving this sudden flurry of activity on the blog, it’s great! I haven’t written since my bloody nose post so I thought I’d share about my past weekend in Dublin, Ireland. All these pictures are on facebook, but now you can have a story to accompany them.

Perhaps the biggest attraction for tourists in Dublin is the Guinness Storehouse. It was like the adult version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’ve got the golden ticket!

It really was like Willy Wonka’s factory. Look, they even have a waterfall!

Guinness tastes pretty nasty. I hate it, it’s so bitter and thick so at the end of the tour we were supposed to get free pints… I opted for a Diet Coke.

Oh my gosh, this is my roomie Hannah and she almost got her purse stolen! We were at this restaurant and four of us girls were sitting at a table, two on each side facing each other and then we’re just talking and then all of a sudden this table next to us gets up and then this man starts hitting Hannah’s shoulder telling her to “check your bag, check your bag!” We were all confused and then one of the guys from the table grabs this man (who was sitting behind Hannah) and led him outside. Apparently, the guy sitting behind Hannah had been kicking at her bag to get it near him so he could steal it! Oh man, Hannah had EVERYTHING in there- her passport, creditcards, money, ID, everything. It’s one thing to lose your passport in Glasgow, but another thing to lose it in Dublin when we’re leaving the next day. But God is good, and that table of guys who got up and grabbed the guy? They were 5 off duty cops. So then this police car with its sirens on comes by later and Hannah just gives her contact info and doesn’t need to make a statement because the cops saw it the whole time. Isn’t that amazing!

Very Irish drinks- Irish whiskey, hot chocolate and Bailey’s, Irish coffee. All delicious!

You can see our hostel from the bridge, it’s on the left side. Dublin was pretty beautiful when it wanted to be.

I. LOVE. THE. ZOO. Dublin zoo is amazing. Definitely check it out if you go!


Supermac’s = Irish McDonald’s… yummay

All right guys, well, I am having a great time here! I’m so excited for upcoming trips. Like Natalie said, I schedule my work around my weekends. It’s amazing, I have more days off than school days since I don’t have classes Monday and Friday. I’ve already booked tickets for Brussels (holla!), Barcelona and Rome and am planning on going to Paris with my flatmate. Should be awesome!

Missing all of you a lot and excited to see you Europe kids in BELGIUM!

Bekakakakaaa

Yatah!!!!

I did it! it was a lame, half-hearted mumble, I'll have to admit. But regardless, the first step was made. Pushing through the fears of seeming hopelessly awkward and blatantly alien, I stepped towards the gym worker at the front desk, received my membership card and uttered the word that I have been using in all of my email as of late but have never used in real life:

Cheers.

Vroom Vroooom

Naples! Panoramic view of the entire city from a castle a few hours before we got on a train to Venice.

Venice at night! On our way to a Vivaldi Concerto!

Statue in a preserved Celtic village in Germany!

Ciao amici!

Sounds like you all are living it up around Europe (& Down Under)!! And I completely agree-- time is on steroids!

I can't believe that once-upon a time I was seriously second-guessing studying abroad in Venice. I may or may not deny that in the future if you ask me, but it's completely true. What an experience! I've made great friends, met such interesting people, and I keep eating "the best food I've ever had" like everyday (however, this comment does not apply to our cafeteria food)! When I first got here, I couldn't believe an entire bowl of pasta was seriously just the 1st course. And THEN I was expected to eat a 2nd course (meat) and a 3rd course! AND dessert! It was fantastic.

Besides the food, life in Venice has been fabulous. My classes are really interesting & only slightly demanding (which is great- we all plan our presentations & work around travel plans, not the other way around :D...) I may have mentioned this in my last post, but VIU is an international program & each school brings their own professors. And the students come from all over the world. I'm in a WWII class with German, American, Japanese, Italian, & British students. Can you imagine class discussions?!

I still feel like I haven't gotten to know Venice as well as I need to before I leave! A few weekends ago we explored several of the islands in the Veneto-- saw Murano (the famous glass-making island), some other one with beautiful parks & modern art, and San Michelle cemetery (Ezra Pound is buried there). I was reading my "Let's Go Italy" book & was super surprised to learn that there were 108 islands in the Veneto! Hellooo, I've been to like 5. 

Oh, and flood season is coming up! Obvi we live in the lowest point in all of Venice. Our knee-high rain boots won't suffice! I may have to rock those tight, thigh-high rain boots they sell here. Oooor not :D.

On weekends, I've mostly been traveling-- trying to take advantage of the few weeks before winter hits Europe. This last weekend I went to Frankfurt & visited a friend & a few weekends ago we went to Naples & Capri! These next few weeks (consecutive!) are already booked: Rome (this weekend), Brussels, Budapest, Prague, Dublin & Paris! Hopefully I'll get to go to Morocco! I really wanted to go to Cairo, but it looked like I was going to have to sell a body part to buy a plane ticket. People actually do that on E-bay though.

It's been so great to hear from everyone. You are all in my prayers!

nat

Breaks and animals

Haha i get spring break twice this year. Ive been having lots of fun in australia. I have 3 weeks of class left... trust me, it passes by quickly. Enjoy the time you have left, no matter how cliche that sounds. Going along with amy, i can't believe how blessed I am to have this opportunity. Over the past week or two, i went to the beach to take a surfing lesson with someone from my small group. That went pretty well, it was really fun and I can now stand on a surfboard for a couple seconds before i faceplant into the water now. I think i will buy a surfboard when i get back into the states. I am really glad i finally got to see blue water, as much as i like north carolina, the beaches kind of suck. Then a couple days later i went back to the beach again with my housemates and that was really fun getting to know them more and hanging out. Its about a hour and a half journey to the beach by public transportation so its pretty easy to get there.

Today i went to the lone pine koala sancutary, basically a zoo. There were a lot of koalas but you couldnt touch them, they're pretty boring anyways they dont really do anything. But there were other animals there like kangaroos and emus. Those two are really cool and entertaining to hang out with. They are really over exposed to humans so they are really friendly (by friendly i mean they want your food) so it was cool being able to play with them. I think i really like animals and i think that after dealing with my psycho german shephard, im not really afraid of other animals biting me so it was cool befriending the emu.

The weather is starting to get warm, but it was cloudy the past couple of days so it was really nice not being hot(no ac).

In other news, my sister is having to apply to college right now so i've been dealing with that and helping writing her recommendations for her counselor, and ive discovered that recommendations are really hard to write, and i don't know my sister as well as i would like. We have a weird relationship, i'm more of a parent than a brother to her, so its been more of taking care of her than getting to know her really well emotionally. When we talk its more about getting down to business, what do you have to do, what do you need, do you need any help etc. So when i have to write about her quality traits and what is great about her, it takes more thought on my part to convey why i think i have a great sister.

I miss you guy! Cant wait to live together!



Emu I befriended, he followed me around for a bit, mostly because i fed him.

I was pretending the kangaroo was dan.
Emu was jealous i was feeding the peacock

Part of the city at dusk.
Gold coast, surfer's paridise beach

Quick Update

I can't believe how quickly time is passing! I've mainly been traveling to small towns around Florence and exploring the city for this half of the semester. We have all of our projects/midterms coming up so I'll have to start staying on top of academic things now a little more than I have been. However, in two weeks I'm starting another round of travels... I'll be meeting up with a few of you in Brussels (yay!), then going to London, and Dublin. The following weekend I'm going to Barcelona and then to Vienna for Thanksgiving. It's going to be a whirlwind!

One thing I definitely miss over here is having a campus fellowship. I've tried out a couple churches here in Florence but I still haven't really found a place where i feel `'at home`' if you know what I mean. Plus, as you said Dan, finding a church and really getting involved is hard because we are traveling on the weekends and studying abroad is such a short amount of time anyway. I attended an Italian mass in the Duomo (huge cathedral) in Florence which was really interesting but I couldn't understand more than a few words given my limited knowledge of the language :) . Since then I've tried the two English-speaking churches I could find. One was an Anglican Church (which was a lot like a Catholic mass) and then I went to a worship night in an Evangelical Church across the street from me. Both were good services but I really miss the powerful sermons back home and the worship music. Fortunately though, I met some really nice girls studying abroad with Indiana University so I'm going to try to spend time with them sometime if we can arrange it. It's a little hard being the only Christian in my apartment and not having other people to talk to about the spiritual journey. Sometimes they will make comments based upon Chrisitian stereotypes and I have to walk the fine line between defending my faith and still wanting to "fit in" and keep them as friends. At the same time, being here is motivating me to really seek God out for myself. Not having "regular Christian events`' makes me personally responsible for my own spiritual growth. I just hope that God can use me while I'm here to spread His love.

Saturday, September 27th was fantastic because my aunt from Taiwan actually came to visit me. She was taking a tour of Italy with some of her friends and they were in Florence for about 8 hours so I was able to meet up with her while she was here. I was SO excited to see her because we've always been really close. Trying to get in touch with her was quite interesting though because I had to call a hotel and talk to a man who spoke Italian to try to get him to transfer me to my aunt who speaks broken English. When I met up with my aunt's tour group, they had lunch reservations at this restaurant so I was able to go and eat with them. I was able to try the steak that Florence is famous for and it was DELICIOUS!

What was really nice was that I was able to give my aunt a tour of my apartment and show her some of the places that I go on a daily basis. The only thing was that being around all those Chinese speakers made me wish in a way that I had studied abroad in China or Taiwan. I'm LOVING my experience in Florence (it's a dream come true!) but I definitely feel like not being able to speak the language really limits your ability to immerse yourself in another culture. I almost feel as if I'm living in a little "NYU Bubble here" because we all go to the same place for classes, live together, and hang out at the same clubs/bars on the weekends. In a way, I think I really would have enjoyed a homestay in another country because I feel like you experience so much more when you are actually surrounded by locals but I wouldn't trade what I've been blessed enough to have.

Last Sunday, I went on a bike tour of Tuscany. It was absolutely GORGEOUS! We toured a castle where they have vineyards and did wine tasting and sampled their fresh olive oil. :)

Here are a few pictures from the tour (including the picture in our dorky helmets! Haha)

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