We're always making history, right? Undoubtedly, some bits of it are more interesting than others. I suppose I was in a more interesting bit two days ago in London during the terror scare. So I'm very thankful for the London police force, and I'm thankful that five years after 9/11 the world didn't experience another terror attack.

And so I'm home once again. And HUF-- that indescribable, unforgettable experience-- is over.

It was difficult to leave the villa. Robbie hardly looked at me when he kissed me goodbye. Maybe I was crying too hard and he had to block it out, not think about it. I don't know how he and Mona do it every semester, say goodbye to all the students. I'm not good at goodbyes when they're for good. Robbie and Mona gave us the summer of a lifetime and shared their lives with us for a summer. You can't help but fall in love with them.

On free travel, the difference between 5 euro and 54 euro is the difference between a hard, straight-backed train seat and a comfortable sleeping berth. So I sat in a hard straight-backed seat on most of the overnight trains. I split off from my group for a bit this time and traveled by myself and so enjoyed being able to go just where I wanted to go. Went with some girls to Venice and Salzburg (beautiful!) where I left them and headed to Vienna and Berlin and Paris and Normandy. I was glad to meet up as planned with some other HUFfers in Paris and London and continue travel with them. We even ran into HUGgers in various places.

My favorite free travel memory? Hmm.....I think Normandy must be one of the most beautiful and poignant places on earth. The countryside. The beaches. I cried at Omaha Beach, walking in the sand that soaked up the blood of so many boys who died there. They went there knowing they wouldn't come out alive. They died there liberating people they would never know. I stepped into German foxholes further down the beach at Point du Hoc where rangers scaled the cliffs and took them, despite fierce enemy fire. Not far from the beaches I saw a monument inscribed in French, something like, "To the brave men who liberated our town." So the people of the little villages of Normandy will always remember.

In summation, I don't know why I have been so blessed, blessed to have had this amazing summer. I have seen many things. I have been many places. I have learned not to judge by outsides. I have learned that people are just people everywhere, no matter what country or language or culture. And I have learned to see different aspects of God in people and in His creation. I have learned so much, but mostly I have just learned that I have so much still to learn.

"The summers die one by one, how soon they fly, on and on................"

God is so good!  Sometimes I pray and I don't really have enough faith that He will answer, but then He DOES! And I've seen Him in so many ways this summer.

Exciting story: on my way home from free travel last week-- which, by the way, was an enjoyable trip to Lyon, Avignon, Arles, and Barcelona-- I sat by a young, very good-looking, and basically all-around intimidating guy on the train. I didn't know how much English he spoke (other than formalities) so I didn't really talk, but quietly worked on an assignment for my Bible class that was due the day after I got home. After about an hour, he finally asks, "Excuse me, but that's the Bible you're reading, right?" I nod, surprised. Why?" he asks.  Talk about God throwing an opportunity in your lap! We had a very nice talk then. He said I was the only girl he had ever seen reading the Bible. He never had. I hope maybe sometime he will pick one up and see what it's all about. 

Well, see what God does when you pray for opportunities? Lesson to self: be careful what you ask for! Or perhaps it's this: ask in faith, and always be ready to give an answer to any man who asks about the hope that is in you!!

We just returned a couple of days ago from a trip to southern Italy and I wanted to give a quick update since I leave in a few hours for my first free travel.....which is a terrifying yet thrilling thought.

Last Tuesday we left on a night train to go from Florence to Reggio Calabria. Because of a strike, the train didn't take us quite as far as it should have. Had some lovely delays and a ferry ride to Sicily. And then we went canyoning and it was quite exhilarating, especially since I nearly drowned going down the rapids. I'm not sure that I ever thought more seriously that I was going to die, though I'm sure I really wasn't. I suppose that everyone should have a near-death experience at some point. Stayed below Taormina that night and took a gondola up the mountain for eating (I ate an entire artichoke and tunafish pizza) and window shopping and walking and dancing in this piazza to the music of the very serious piano player at a nearby restaurant.

I could continue a play-by-play of the next 6 days but I need to summarize quickly. A few highlights, in no particular order, include Positano and Amalfi (perhaps the most beautiful places on earth?), buying an orange at a little grocery in Positano (I didn't have enough change in my pocket but the man smiled and said to take it anyway), the chairlift to the top of the world in Capri, the Hotel Athina with the gorgeous gardens and swimming pool, my fresh-squeezed orange juice at a bar in Sorrento, the boat around the Amalfi coast, watching the US v Italy world cup game with a bunch of Italians, and the beyond-creepy catacombs in Naples. In the catacombs, thousands of preserved bodies that died 200+ years ago were hanging on the walls in the clothes that they were buried in and they were fascinatingly decayed and it made me think about the transience of life and how they were once young and alive. Even the 85 yr old monk who let us in seemed decayed. Pompeii was also a highlight. The whole city is incredibly preserved. I felt somehow when we looked at the plaster-covered bodies that I should avert my eyes. The forever-preserved last anguished moments of these former living souls were too private...too intimate...to stare at. And yet I did.

Things that weren't so fun included lying on the sidewalks of Palermo retching, getting in trouble with the police because we were lying on the sidewalk retching, riding buses and trains and boats while very sick because there was no other choice. More than half our group ended up getting a stomach flu and being miserable for several days. But Mona got us medicine and shots and everyone helped each other and we survived.

And that was a quick summary that doesn't do any part of the trip justice. I couldn't convey either the beauty or the misery of the experience but I have to go finalize things for free travel. I just know I'm going to miss a train sometime this week and get lost in Oberdachstattennicht or somewhere like that if a place like that exists.