And It Continues....

We’ve made it. We are in Africa. Becky and I had arrived on Tuesday, July 21st in Kigali, Rwanda. It has been a long journey leading up to our arrival..…..

After leaving the hidden treasure of Cinque Terre the four of us (Becky, Lindsey, Jaymi, and I) started our journey to the magical city of Venice.
Venice…hmmmm……how do I describe Venice. The uniqueness of the city made it a must see. Well maybe I shouldn’t say a must see. How about a “you can see if you want” see. Let’s just say I was disappointed. I felt like the city has lost it’s authenticity in catering to the thousands and thousands of tourist that visit each day (2 million tourists a year). The city wasn’t clean, it was hot and humid, very crowded, expensive, and not authentic at all. But I will admit it was a cool experience to leave the train station and have to take a “water bus” down the canal to our hostel.

Next stop was London. London was a nice change from 5 weeks in Italy. It felt good being back in an English speaking country. And thank the Lord no more pizza or pasta. Our first meal was fish and chips and a cold beer…… my kind of a meal. We stayed in London for only two nights, which only gave us one full day to see the city. So Becky and I tried to fit all the attractions in, in one day – Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus. We were drained from traveling and being constantly on the go, making it hard to appreciate the attractions (oops). But we did really enjoy London and the people.

Now we are in Rwanda. Ironically Rwanda has been really relaxing and a good change of pace. We are staying with one of my old roommates from Tempe and his wife, Paul and Linda Bork. They are currently volunteers working for World Teach for a 10 month period and are currently in their 7th month. It’s been really good to spend some time with them and hear about their experience (which is a positive one).

Their house is really nice, well really nice relative to the third world– 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and electricity. Currently we have no water at the house though. It’s dry season in Rwanda so the water is a constant hit or miss. So right now we are in our 2nd day without any water at the house and I still smell great (relative great).

Today Becky and I had our first market experience - bought some ant infested bread (protein), oranges, and bananas. We’ll spend the rest of the day packing and planning out our trip for Uganda. Which we leave for tomorrow early in the morning. Our bus leaves at 5:45 a.m. and takes 9 hours to reach the capital of Uganda – Kampala. There we will meet up with one of my old intern friends and experience Uganda for 3 days until we come back to Rwanda.

Adventure of a lifetime.

In Venice at Margherita Plaza having a drink (sorry a little blury)



Water Bus traveling down the streets of water in Venice


Hike Day - Becky and I in Cinque Terre


Our apartment we stayed in, in Cinque Terre (Lindsey, Jaymi, Me, Becky)



In London - Me posing as Big Ben (the clock tower)


In front of Buckingham Palace

Quick and Slow

It's been an exciting two weeks. Let me try to quickly update you with my limited internet time.

Our stop after Florence was Rome. Rome was amazing! All the sights we got to see were amazing. Surreal amazing. ---Trevie Fountain, the Patheon, the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum, and the Bourghese Museum (plus more littler sights). We were there for 3 nights and were go, go, go the whole time to fit everything in, even though we didn't even get close. Sweat, sweat, Sweat. I sweated 32 buckets of straight liquid, felt like I was going to pass out 3 times, walked 45 miles in 3 days and throughly enjoyed it.

Next stop ---> Cinque Terre. Talk about a change of pace. Cinque Terre is a collection of 5 small villages on the coast of the Meditteranean Sea. The first village is Riomagorrie, which we are staying at. I can't describe to you how beautiful this place is. Each village is built into cliffs along the coast and are surrounded by amazing scenery - vineyards, waves smacking against the cliffs, genuine Italian culture, mountains, and the endless sea. The villages are connected by Railway and walking paths, which make it easy to visit all five. The views are amazing from the walking paths and have caused us to make our four night visit into a 6 night visit. (look it up on google)

We are staying in this little apartment that sleeps 4 with a kitchen, bathroom (hot water), and dining room. We are only about a 1 mintue walk from the Sea and are surrounded by little cafe's, bakery's, food markets lined with fresh fruit and vegetables, and gelato!

Becky and I took out a Kayak for an hour this morning to soak in where we were. It was amazing.

I will post pictures as soon as I can. It's hard with limited internet access. Jesus is good and is defintely humbly good to us this trip. He has shown himself in more ways then one. Our next stop is Venice this upcoming Thursday, pray for our travels. I love you all.

2nd Leg

What did one olive say to the other other olive as he fell off the table?
0000-live.

Thought I would start off the post with a joke. I think it's funny, but I've used it twice since I've been here and others disagree. Anyways, camp is finished. The last day at Camp Darby (the military base) was July 4th. What an amazing and unforgettable experience. It's crazy to think the power and ability Christ has when he brings together a community of believers. Not only for the high schoolers and middle schoolers that came to camp, but also for "us", the work staff. God is good. He changes us to be joyful and complete in Him. All out of Love. That's what he did these past few weeks.

Now the Second leg of our adventure has begun. We took the train to Florence, Italy yesterday morning and will be spending 2 nights here (the 5th and 6th). The city is beautiful. We've been able to see a couple things so far, including the humongous statue of David....super cool. Check out the photos:


Walled city called Lucca - John, Scott, and I doing a jumping picture on top of the wall!



All the highschoolers at camp - they are singing at this point. If you look in the distance you can see that this was done on the beach one night.



At the train station eating some McDonalds before we left



At the Duomo in Florence - that big dome is the Duomo, which we are walking up into today (460 steps)



The Central market in Florence



Statue of David