That Week I Spent in Italy

Before term proper—Michaelmas Term (essentially Fall Quarter in Oxford) began, we had a travel break. Thanks to Gregory Seahurst Swim Club and Grand Central Bakery, I had enough money to spend a week in Italy.

Well, I think I had enough money. I won’t know for certain until I get to the end of term and find out if I can still buy food. But it’s Italy, so it’s worth it either way.

The day after our pre-term class ended, I went into London for the day with three other girls in an attempt to see a play at Shakespeare’s Globe. We found out that the Globe is only open through September, so this would be our last chance. We walked in and got £5 tickets for the matinee without a problem. Since we were a few hours early for the show, we went to the modern art exhibit at the Tate Museum for some culture.
Then, we went back to the Globe and stood one row back from the stage for about three hours, soaking up every word of Much Ado About Nothing.
This just happens to be my favorite Shakespeare play, and the one I’ve read the most.
Of COURSE.
God is so good.
I was standing there thinking, This is exactly what people did 400 years ago. This is where they stood. This is what they laughed at. It was the best theater experience I have had. EVER. The acting was phenomenal, and the venue was brilliant. We laughed; we cried; we “awww”ed at Claudio; and we “booooo”ed at Don John. And, of course, we went to a pub afterward and had some really great conversation.

RANDOM FACT: I watched the 1999 film version of Mansfield Park yesterday, and the actor who plays Mr. Yates is the actor who played Benedick!! And somehow, he was better looking onstage, 12 years later, than in the film.

The day after my trip to London—Saturday— was spent freaking out, packing, and freaking out some more. Traveling, especially for the first time in foreign countries without someone else planning everything, is stressful. Thank God that before I left I wrote out several passages on worry from the Bible in the back of my journal. They were running through my mind over the course of the trip, reminding me of God’s gentle control.

Italy—The Basics
Who? Heidi—who played one of Zangler’s Follies with me in Crazy For You last spring, and her roommate Hannah. Both easygoing middle children with really sweet hearts. They were the perfect balance to my first-time-traveling-detail-oriented-firstborn-girl anxieties.
When? We left on a bus at 3:10am, Sunday morning, and returned at 10pm the following Sunday
Where? The first two nights were at a B&B in Rome, next three nights in Florence (two at a Plus Camping hostel up at Michaelangelo, and the last one crashing in a student flat), and the last two nights in Vicenza at a hospitality house run by an ex-military couple.

Side-note about that 3:10am bus: Oxford at 3am is an interesting place. Two guys who live with me walked me to the bus station (for which I am SO grateful to them), and we saw a very different side of Oxford than the one daytime tourists see. My observations from that late-night walk ended up becoming my first short story for my creative writing tutorial.

ITALIA
What did we do?

Rome/Roma—

1. The Colosseum

2. The Roman Forum

3. The Pantheon

4. The Trevi Fountain (including having a random guy ask if he could take a picture of us)

5. The Spanish Steps. A thunderstorm broke while we were there, and we walked home in the pouring warm rain.

6. Vatican City—Saint Peter’s Square and the Sistine Chapel. We missed the memo on having to cover your shoulders and knees, so we spent an hour shopping for inexpensive Italian clothes (those words do not belong together) so they would let us inside.


Florence/Firenze—
1. Ate breakfast at the Ponte Vecchio (one of only four bridges in the world with shops built on the sides)

2. Put our hands in the lucky boar’s mouth at one of the markets

3. Took pictures at the Piazza de la Signoria (go watch A Room With a View right now).

4. Stood in line at the Accademia and the Uffizi so we could see Il David, Birth of Venus, and looooots of other famous works of art. It’s Florence; you have to see del arte!

5. Overlooked the city at Piazzale Michaelangelo as the sun set. We even witnessed a romcom-worthy proposal there!

6. Went to a house party on a rooftop! Ok, not a real party. It was a DINNER party, Mom. Somehow, I met up with one of my AWANA camp friends from sophomore year; I definitely hadn’t seen this lovely young lady for five years, but she and her housemates were models for hospitality. They even let us crash there for free that night! That may or may not be illegal in Italy, shhhhh.



Vicenza, Verona, e Venezia—
1. Spent an afternoon in Verona, visiting Juliet’s house. And, along with dozens of tourists—from 60-year-old women to 15-year-old boys—we felt up Juliet’s right breast hoping to be lucky in love. Ironically, the statue was only placed there in the 1970s, so it’s just a moneymaking ploy. Oh well.

2. Spent time with my cousin Renae and her family. Her husband is a soldier stationed in Vicenza, and they have two small children (SO precious!). I hadn't seen them in several years, so it was great to reconnect. We went to church on the Base Sunday morning, and they took us to the commissary where we could buy some American snacks for the plane (a welcome treat after a month of British supermarkets).

3. Showed up at the hospitality house and got a free meal. Also got to hang out with some American soldiers stationed there. Lots of man love, just like home.
The couple that run the house are absolutely precious. They made us waffles from scratch for breakfast. And they gave us detailed instructions on how to buy tickets at the “REAL little old Italian train station.” It was an experience. You have to buy tickets at the bar across the street ‘cause it’s an unmanned station.

4. Spent the day in Venice, wandering the streets and Saint Mark’s Square. I also spent several hours in the Doge’s Palace. After chatting with a couple from Denver in line, they paid for my ticket! We had a great time exploring the palace together. They were my surrogate grandparents, sharing their audioguide with me because it was “such a good history lesson.”
You know that moment in Anastasia where she’s singing “Once Upon a December” and the imaginary couples swirl out of the windows and dance with her? I was in that room. Well, not REALLY that room, because it’s in Russia, but I definitely had a moment like that. It was the largest room in Europe until sometime in the 1800s. Enormous! And it had balconies overlooking the Adriatic, which is the most beautiful blue sea I’ve ever seen. The tour included a visit to the prisons and a walk across the Bridge of Sighs.
I know why millions of people visit Venice every year. It is a city from a mysterious fairy tale, and every street is unique. Venezia, queen of the sea, was my favorite stop of the journey.

5. Had gelato for the 14th and final time. Yes, we had gelato twice a day, every day. We calculated how much we spent on it, and were horrified for a minute. But then we remembered that we stayed for free three nights, so that balanced it out. And really, it was a money saver, because we just had gelato for lunch every day, which was cheaper than buying real food.


There you have it, Italy—the high points.
And now you can FINALLY look forward to a post about Oxford academics!

"I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful"--William Butler Yeats

I'm in my flat eating honey, plain Greek yogurt, and raspberries. I feel like you can't understand the biblical honey imagery unless you've had honey and plain Greek yogurt. I want to live in a land flowing with milk and honey; what is sweeter than honey on your lips?

But now about Oxford, haha. I just got back from the Ashmolean Museum. Really gorgeous exhibits. I took pictures of jewelry across many centuries. I also stood face to face with a bust of Nero, gaped up at an enormous statue of my favorite goddess, Athena, and stood with my nose six inches from an Assyrian relief.

Last night, we went to the Turf Tavern. It's through a winding alleyway under Oxford's Bridge of Sighs (Hertford College). The wall in the back courtyard is from the 13th Century. Amazing!

One of our lectures yesterday was on Children's Lit authors circa WWI: Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Graham, A.A. Milne, J.M. Barrie, Rudyard Kipling, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Many of these authors had ties to Oxford that are evident in their writing. Carroll's Alice, for example, searches for little doors leading into wondrous gardens. Oxford is full of these. Many of the doors are just as tall as me, and lead into the gorgeous, lush grounds of the colleges. It's easy to feel like Alice, for many of them are locked, as if the city is keeping you out of Wonderland. Once you get in, it's not quite as pleasant as it seemed, for someone may well shout at you for a confusing reason. I haven't had that experience yet, but some of the other students here have been shouted at or laughed at on a bus or in a store. It can be a little harrowing walking around here, because you forget you're in a foreign country and all of a sudden you've offended someone by saying "cents" instead of "pence."

Though prices are expensive here, there's a market in Gloucester Green every Wednesday that is very affordable, if you can stand to walk a few miles with your arms full of groceries. They had HUGH bowls of apples, oranges, and bananas for £1 each. I was shopping for a flatmate and myself, so I carried 2 bunches of bananas, 7 nectarines, 6 oranges, 6 apples, 4 peppers, and 1 HUGE butternut squash (only 80p!!), around town all afternoon.

My first night here, I took a shower, but since then I've only taken baths. Many British homes still don't have showers. And, if you take longer than a 15 minute shower, you've used more water than it takes to fill the tub. I brought Maud Hart Lovelace's novel, Betsy and the Great World, with me. It's near the end of the Betsy/Tacy series, and tells of Betsy's trip to Europe as a 21-year-old in 1914. It's also impossible to read without wanting to take a bath. Have you ever taken a shower in the morning? Or when getting ready to go out in the evening? It is fabulous! Especially when you're living in a narrow, four-story flat in Oxford, Oxfordshire. Plus, next to drinking a steaming cup of tea, it's the easiest way to warm up while feeling British.

Our first travel break is coming up, September 23rd-October 2nd. If all goes as planned, I'll be in Italy for the second part of it with APU girls Heidi and Hannah. We might go to Italy for the whole time, but I'm also considering Paris for the first couple of days. I have another travel break from December 5th-13th, and I just received news that I may have a place to stay in Switzerland (cross your fingers!). It's amazing how random friendships from my past are popping up. God's definitely taking care of me. A girl I went to AWANA Camp with in 10th grade and have kept up with on facebook is in Florence for the semester, so we'll be seeing each other when I'm in Italy. If any of you have suggestions for things to see/do in Venice, Florence, Rome, or Verona, feel free to comment!

Before I go to the Continent, however, I'll have at least three amazing adventures here in England.
First, next Wednesday, we'll be taking a field trip to Hampton Court Palace (home of the Tudors). This will be my first castle visit!
Second, Saturday I'm going on a trip to the Kilns (C.S. Lewis' house!). Our tourguide is a G.K. Chesterton expert, and we're going to go visit a pub GKC used to frequent.
Third, next Thursday I'll be taking a train to Whitehaven, Cumbria, in the Lake District. My mum, as some of you know, went to Capernwray Bible School (Carnforth) when she was 20, and did a homestay with the Bowmans (Harry, Jennifer--for whom I'm named--and their sons Warren and Elton). They've visited us in the States a couple of times, and I'm going to stay with them Thurs-Sun. I spoke with Jennifer on the phone a few nights ago, and she listed some of the extensive itinerary they're planning for me, including a trip to see Beatrix Potter's house!

I really can't describe how grateful I am to live here for this term. There's so much to see--so much history--that it's overwhelming sometimes. Today, in the Ashmolean, I was looking at art from hundreds and thousands of years ago. I've been listening to lectures from absolutely brilliant scholars. I'm going to be in college with future authors and politicians, come October. It's a heavy and beautiful opportunity, and I'm still in shock that it's happening.



P.S. For pictures of some of the things I've described in this and previous posts, look at my Oxford (Beginnings) album on Facebook.