ITALY!!

I went to Italy a while back before school started, but now I’ll share my trip! I took a train from Freiburg to Vicenza, which is where I’ll be staying whenever I come to Italy- it’s where my brother Justin lives. :) I arrived at his apartment, and it is absolutely gorgeous! The first night we just went out and ate doner kebabs and I met a few of his friends.

The next day was my first day of venturing Italy in the daylight, and I loved it! Everything was so pretty and sooo different from Germany! That’s one thing I will never get over about Europe: you barely go any distance and yet there is a completely different culture right around the corner! But Italy is amazing. Justin took me out to wander through Vicenza, and we had a small hike going on! We hiked up a gigantic staircase and huge hill to a church. There was a sidewalk on one side that had a covering over it; Justin told me it was where people would do a knee-crawl to the church. They built the covering over it so that people could do it while it was raining. The church was absolutely gorgeous though. Justin told me that many people here visit churches for the artwork, and I definitely see why. The whole church is just like an entire piece of artwork; it’s completely different from any churches I’ve seen in Germany. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any pictures. After this Justin had to stop by work real quick at the army base. When we got there, he told me that there was a grocery store with ALL American stuff, and I took advantage of it. I got American taco seasoning, taco shells, Kraft macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, and pancake mix!!! EVERTHING I’VE BEEN DYING TO GET MY HANDS ON SINCE I GOT HERE! And to make me even happier, they had a taco bell, which was my dinner!

On a different day we went to Venice. This city is soooo beautiful! It was crazy to see all the water that goes up to a person’s doorstep in person! I loved seeing all the gondolas too. Just how it looked in textbooks. :) The first half of the day it was pouring and storming outside so after we church hopped, we went to a pizzeria to avoid the rain. We saw a bunch of different churches and they are all so beautiful. We also went to St. Mark’s church that was in Venice; his remains are in the church still. The church had SO much gold in it! It was ridiculous!!! It was very pretty, but too decorated for me. They also had relics of dead body parts of people they considered holy in the church. Not going to lie, that was pretty disgusting.

Another day that I was here we went to an antique market with Justin’s landlord and landlord’s wife. It was pretty cool to see antiques from a different country because everything is much, much older here.

Finally I just have to mention that I took a train back to Freiburg that went through Switzerland. At one point, I woke up and looked out the window and the train was going through the Alps!!! It was so beautiful! I would’ve taken pictures, but the window was really dirty so they wouldn’t have turned out. I definitely want to check the Alps out again; they look so much better in real life than in pictures!