safe

i've been instructed to send out various messages declaring our safety... we're safe... and alive... yayer =)

Catch up... kinda

Okay, i'm gonna try to catch up sort of. It's hard because i feel like it takes a lot of time and words to adequately explain the places we've gon or things that we've done, but i'll try.

Soooo, Christmas...
   Being in Rome on Christmas was an entirely different experience than it must be on most other days of the year. It was soooo quiet. The same sights that we had seen the day before seemed so much more ancient and imposing without the hustle-bustle of tourists and venders. Of course there were a few, but not in the overwhelming way that they had been the day before. The Coliseum seemed even larger and greater, and the little streets that we explored, hand-in-hand, made us smile continuously.

We attended mass at a tiny church just a few blocks from the Coliseum. Afterward, we asked for directions to the place where we had arranged with someone, over the internet, to serve the homeless a Christmas lunch. It ended up that pretty much this entire church was going over there so we ended up driving with some of them in one of the tiny little cars that all Italians seem to have. This was a crazy experience. There are apparently no real rules to driving in Rome; you just get from point A to point B in any way possible and try (not very hard) to not kill anyone in the process.

Once we got there, we were faced with a bit of confusion. We never did find the person that was supposedly expecting us, but we did have an incredible time. We eventually found some people who spoke English (well, they found us) and were put to work in a way that we had not expected. Rather than being in a serving line or something of the like, we were put on a team of five people, assigned to table 18. Two teenage girls on our team had the job of bringing around and serving all of the food (which was basically 5 courses). The rest of us (mom, me, and a girl named Lucia who spoke English) had the job of going into the appetizer room, which was basically a foyer filled with chips and stuff, and to find 7 people to sit at our table and eat with us. This was a difficult job, since we didn’t speak Italian, but we found some people who spoke some English, and even with the language barrier, it ended up being amazing.

The whole precedence of this way of arranging this lunch makes so much sense. Christmas dinner has never really been about food, and I hadn’t really thought about that. Having a connection with others, and celebrating life, friends, and family is really what has always been the fun thing about Christmas (and presents, of course. Oh, yeah, there were presents there too), and it was truly fulfilling to help bring this feeling to others.

After exchanging e-mail addresses, taking pictures, giving our thanks, and saying our goodbyes, we walked back to our hostel, which was another quiet, lovely walk.

Okay, I was right, too many words, I haven’t really caught up on anything, lol. But whatevskies =P

  - oh, yeah, there was this woman there who, something about the way that she spoke, I could pretty much understand most of what she was saying. It was really cool.