The last...

This past week, I've been thinking a lot about the last time I will get to do things before I leave. The last time I get to be together with my family, the last time I'll see my dog, and even the last time I'll eat at Taco Bell (oh, what a tragedy). Every where I look there are things that I won't get to do again for a good long time. But I realize that this is only one side of the story. Along with the lasts come the firsts. Today is my first day in the Peace Corps and will also be the first time I will meet my fellow volunteers. Soon I will be spending my first days in my new home. And there will be many other firsts, many of which I don't even know about yet. New foods, new experiences, and new friends. It's difficult to say goodbye, but I'm not just saying goodbye to my old life, I'm saying hello to my new one.

I will still be in touch for the next few days while I am in Philadelphia. My flight leaves for Kiev at 5:50 on Thursday from JFK. After that, I'll talk to you from Ukraine!

Staying in touch!

I went ahead and posted my temporary address in Ukraine to the right. I will be able to receive letters at this address for the next few months, but no packages. After I finish my training I will move to my site and have a permanent address for the rest of my stay. I'll post that when I have it, but the best way to keep in touch with me will be through e-mail. International mail can be slow and unreliable. I won't be able to check my e-mail as often as I do now, but I will try to log on a minimum of once a week. I hope to be hearing from all of you while I'm there! For now I've got to finish preparing for my trip. Only three days left!

Italy

Italy was fantastic! The whole trip was kind of a whirlwind because we were constantly on the move, but we saw more in a week than most people would in a month. Unfortunately my camera died at the start of the trip. I have a few pictures from my Aunt's camera, but the rest will be from google images. Their pictures are better than mine would be anyway.

Most of the places we visited you may not have heard of before. There are so many beautiful places in Italy and this time we took a route that was off the typical tourist track. It was nice because the experience is really your own rather than having to share it with a few hundred other tourists. The picture to the right is of our entourage. From left to right you have me, my Aunt Gloria, Grandma, and her friend Joan. Joan was a last minute surprise, we invited her on the morning we left for Rome. She said yes, we booked the plane ticket, and she packed and then we were on our way!

After landing in Rome, we drove to Ravello. Ravello is high up in the mountains on the Amalfi Coast. It was the most picturesque stop on the trip. You could see the rolling hills, the coast, and a few smaller towns down below. The only catch was getting up there. There were lots of small winding roads with sharp curves. And the Italians love to zip around those curves. But we made it, and it was worth the trip! The views were spectacular. Many of the restaurants had balconies where you could look out over the Amalfi Coast while you dined. On a side note, we noticed a fair amount of graffiti as we were driving up. But graffiti is different in Italy, about 95% of it was love notes. It was sweet! A very refreshing change from what you see in the states.

The next morning we went to Paestum which is the ruins of a city originally founded by the Greeks around 600 BC before the Romans were on the scene. A few hundred years later the town became Roman after they fought a war with the Greeks. Now that the city was part of Rome the Romans didn't want the nicest buildings around to be Greek. They destroyed some of the Greek buildings or filled them with dirt so that Roman buildings could be built on top of them. The Greek buildings that weren't destroyed have now been excavated. The highlight of Paestum was the Greek temples. The oldest was built around 550 BC. They are pretty impressive now, but they must have been even more so in their day. Besides being brand new, they would have been very imposing when compared to the small houses that were around at the time. It was definitely worth seeing!

Next we headed for Naples. Even though there are plenty of sights to see in Naples, sampling the pizza was at the top of my list. The pizza all over Italy is fantastic, but Naples is really known for its pizza. My Aunt knew of a place called Da Michele that is extremely popular with the locals. They only make one kind of pizza, margherita (tomato, mozzarella, and basil), but they know how to do it right. At least that's what we thought when we got to the restaurant and there was a line of Italians outside waiting to get a pie. But when we finally tried it, we all agreed the pizza was mediocre. Oh well, there were other pizzas to be had and with very few exceptions the food in Italy was divine.

We stayed in Naples a bit longer and saw a few churches, sculptures, and the archaeology museum, but the city didn't have quite the same charm and intimacy as some of the smaller towns, so we decided to move on. The next stop was Herculaneum. You may have heard of Pompeii which is a city that was completely buried by a volcano about two thousand years ago. It has been excavated and you can walk around the ancient city much like when it was inhabited. Herculaneum is located nearby and was also buried, but is better preserved. There are many archaeological sights to visit in Italy, but walking through an entire town that was frozen in time is a very unique experience. We walked through the streets and stopped to see the tavern, blacksmith, baths, and homes. Many of the houses are bigger than the ones we live in today. Some were three stories high with gardens, mosaics, frescos, and even private baths. It makes you wonder how far we've really come in the last two thousand years, but then you remember that this was a resort town at the height of the Roman empire. Most of the rest of the world didn't live quite so well.

Our next stop was a town called Olevano Romano. It is a beautiful little town in its own right, but it has special significance to my family because we can trace our roots back there. We visited my great grandfather's grave and also visited some of our living relatives in town. They own a jewelry shop that has been in our family for many years. They were happy to see us and we stayed a while to chat. Too long, actually. We got a $50 parking ticket while we were inside visiting. I guess it can happen anywhere, but we were still glad that we made the stop.

The next day we went to Civita di Bagnoregio which is a very small town that sits high up on a rock. The only way to get there is a pedestrian bridge that is too small for most cars. Only very small cars and motorbikes can travel the bridge. And I do mean VERY small cars. We don't even have cars that small here in the states, but in Europe they aren't so uncommon. Anyway, the view was incredible. The only surprising thing was that there were hardly any tourists. They were even having a festival with donkey races the next day. Still, it was nice to have the place to ourselves. It is so easy to fall in love with these small towns and the people were wonderful. We thought about staying another day for the festival, but we decided to skip the donkey races and head on to Bevagna.

Now Bevagna was a nice place, but the most important thing I want to mention isn't about the town or the sights, it's about the gelato. I have had many of these all over Italy, but there is a special kind of gelato we had here called "artiginale." I think it means organic, but I can tell you that it was far and away the best gelato I have ever had. They are pretty good to begin with, but I have never tasted anything like this in my life! If you ever plan to go to Italy, add gelato artignale to your list of things to do just above seeing the Coloseum and the canals of Venice. Yes, it was really that good!

After Bevagna, we drove to Spoleto to have dinner, but didn't quite make it there. On the way we passed by a building where we saw a bunch of people dressed all in black. We thought it might be a funeral except they were smoking and chatting and didn't seem too sad. Then we drove around the corner and saw lots more people who were also dressed nicely, but were not in black. It turned out that there was an opera that was in intermission and the people dressed in black were the orchestra on a cigarette break. On a whim we decided to go inside to check it out and we ended up with front row seats to Rigoletto! We only missed the first act. I have always wanted to see an opera in Italy, but this particular one was very special. My Grandma's friend Joan is a retired opera singer and she had gotten her big break as the leading lady in Rigoletto! The performance was excellent and Joan was able to fill me in on the story as it went. She was even more thrilled than I was to see it and things couldn't have worked out better if we had planned them.

Our trip was starting to come to an end so the next day we headed back to Rome. We dropped my grandma and Joan off for dinner and went to park the car. Before we could do that it started storming and raining. Next thing we knew our GPS couldn't get a signal and we were lost driving around Rome in a thunderstorm. Finally we found a parking space and eventually found the restaurant, but we were completely soaked when we got there about 45 minutes later. When we arrived everyone in the restaurant clapped and cheered for us. It's amazing how helpful and caring the people in Italy were. More than once we stopped to ask for directions and the person was not only happy to tell us, but escorted us to where we were trying to go personally. After dinner we drove around and saw some of the sights of Rome. I have seen Rome before, but it was very nostalgic seeing the Colosseum and the Roman Forum again. It was so hard to leave, I have to make it back to Rome again!

Now that I'm home, it's straight back to reality for me. I only have a week to go before I leave for Ukraine. It seems like lots of time, but I have so many things to do before I go. In seven days, ready or not, I'm off to the other side of the world. I'm trying to get packed right now which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. It isn't like packing for a vacation. It's more like moving, except you can only take one hundred pounds of stuff with you. Everything else has to stay. On top of that, I really have to make sure I bring the right things because many of the things we take for granted simply won't be available over there. The packing is important enough that it will probably get its own post, you might be surprised by some of the things I need to take. But that's a post for another day!

details, details, details....

It's been a good weekend! I won some money playing blackjack at the casino with my brother and cousin. Not enough to quit my day job (if I had one), but it was a good time. Besides, any time I walk out of a casino with more money than I went in with, I'm happy. It's really a thrill!

I'm at the airport now ready to head off for Italy. We had a little bit of last minute excitement, but everything is okay now. I drove with my brother to the east coast and he drove my car back to the west coast by himself. I won't need it for the next week while I'm in Italy. The only problem was that my passport was still in the back of the car. Oops! On top of that his phone wasn't working so no one could get a hold of him until he got back to Sarasota. I thought I might have to drive all the way out to Sarasota and back (an 8 hour drive) which would get me back at about 4 AM. Luckily we finally did get Avery on the phone and he met me half way. Hopefully he's not too tired going into work this morning, we must have both gotten back at about 12:30. A bit of a late night, but not nearly as bad as it would have been for me. Thanks Avery, I owe you one! I've got to go because we are boarding soon, but I'll let you all know about the trip when I get back!

In Limbo

It's been over a month and a half since I moved out of my place in Indiana. So far I haven't spent more than a week or two in any one place. It feels kind of strange not having my own place to go back to and I am starting to realize that things aren't going to change any time soon. Even after the rest of my time here in the states, I will be living with a Ukrainian family for my first three months while I am in training. It won't be until after that that I will finally settle into my own place again.

Still, I consider myself lucky that there are so many places where I am welcome. My family and friends are the best! Not only have they invited me into their homes, but they have done everything possible for me. My parents are storing all my things. My brother Avery is looking after my dog until I get back. My other brother, Brian, is fixing my car as I type. But this doesn't even scratch the surface. I could go on and on about all the people who have bought me dinner or helped me out in any number of ways. I only hope that someday I will be able to return the favor.

And now to let you in on the latest. One person I haven't had a chance to spend much time with is my grandma. I was planning to drive to Pompano Beach to spend this next week with her. So she called me up last week and she said to me "If we're going to spend time together, wouldn't it be nice to do it in Italy?" I wasn't expecting that! But I'm thrilled to go and am looking forward to it. My grandma has always been the most generous person and she never disappoints. I was happy just to spend time with her, but Italy will be fantastic! We leave on Monday and we'll be there for about a week. I'll try to update the blog at least once while I'm there, but no promises. It might have to wait until I get back. I'll post some pictures!

20 days to go!