Well People

I'm not going to write if no one writes to me..... :( How am I supposed to know how everyone else is doing?? So comment.

Today is our last day in Florence, Italy. I am decidedly not a fan of big touristy destinations! There are lots of people, way too many, and it's hard to not be overwhelmed by both that, the heat, and the amount of immigrants trying to sell you fake Louie Vouttion (however you spell that) bags and belts and sunglasses. I am so grateful for Mr. Betsch's Art History class in highschool, because I am having a wonderful time recognizing and being able to place some of the art I'm seeing. We were at the Uffizi yesterday and the first room had the Madonna and Child of Duccio, Giotto, and Cimabue. I cannot even explain the excitement to walk into there and go "AH! I know this painting! I studied it! I wrote essays on this!! And now I'm looking at it in person!" It was really quite exhilarating. There were actually many paintings that I recognized in that gallery, which was very exciting for me. The Uffizi goes on my top three so far. Along with walking around San Marco square in Venice the first night and feeding the pigeons, and going to the World Cup game in Stuttgart. We also saw Michelangelo's David today, along with his unfinished Prisoners. It was awe inspiring for me. The Prisoners are some of my favorite sculptures. I can imagine that if I had not studied art previously, I might have been slightly less inclined to be breathless. Thank you Mr. Betsch :)

Tomorrow Bill leaves to go back to the States, and Susan, Will, Allyn, Jenny and I travel to Siena. It's supposed to be very Tuscany and laid back.

Oh yes, and Venice.... I have mixed feelings about Venice. We first got there at night, and it was just breathtaking. Everything sparkled and people played music and San Marco's square was beautiful and there were pigeons and a couple got engaged and the gondola's had accordian players and there were people playing the violin in squares and I was with my boyfriend and it was very romantic and the bridges were lovely and it wasn't hot and the next morning...... I got very sick. Probably because I drank out of the tap water. So I spent a miserable hot day in bed. Then we left the next day. So go figure. The first night was lovely however.

Miss you all.

Sarah you-can-call-me-the-world-traveler Annette

I'm alive!!

This web page is all in German, so it's a little confusing :) Well here I am in Switerzland! It's a beautiful country, with happy people, lots of green, lots of water, cheese, chocolate, and cows. Haha. How is everyone else doing? Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who sent me some happy birthdayness. It was a lovely day - we went to the Botanical Gardens in Cambridge, which are very nice. We all (Nancy, Bill, Will, and Allyn) had a picnic under a tree, then they went and looked at the gardens while Will and I just laid around and relaxed in the shade. Then we went punting on the Cam River. It's very popular in England. It's a boat that has a place on the back for someone to stand and push the boat with a long wooden pole. It's actually really difficult, as Will discovered, although he didn't fall in. Then we went to a pub, had chips (french fries), and watched USA get killed playing Czech. They played really poorly. But overall it was a nice day and very relaxing, which many of our days haven't been for me :)

Then Tuesday morning we left early for our plane to Stuttgart, Germany. There we stowed our packs in the main station and went to the Stuttgart stadium to watch the Switzerland v France World Cup game. It was a great game, although no goals were scored. No worries. We decided to be Swiss fans for the day, and bought red and white face paint and painted our faces in the Swiss flag. I'll try to post pictures later. About 75% of the stadium was red for Switzerland, so we had a great time cheering and shouting chants we didn't really understand. Someone stopped Will and I on the way to the toilets to take our picture, which was fun. I am actually quite astonded about not being able to understand German (and now Swiss German)! It's not like I thought I knew German, but I've always been able to decipher Spanish, knowing at least key phrases like "como estas" "como se dice" and such. And so even in my earliest trips to Juarez I could some what communicate and the consonant constructions sounded familiar to me. Here, I have no idea what "the" is, no way to understand: it took me almost 5 minutes to understand and reproduce the number five "funf." So it's slightly frustrating. In a few days it'll be Italian, so maybe that'll be easier on my Spanish loving ears. And we'll be there for awhile.

After the game we took a train to Weinsberg, where some connections had been made through the principal of Rehoboth to let us stay overnight. Allyn and I stayed with the Schick family, who were very hospitable and lovely. They had a girl staying with them from northern Italy, Francesca. She is staying there for three weeks to improve her German more, and in August will be traveling to San Diego to study English more. Maybe we will connect then, as she was very nice and also wants to go to medical school (although the system is very different there). We were very grateful for their helpfulness and assistance.

From there we went to a little bit outside Bonn, where Maria lived, and stayed with her mother for two days. Maria was a spitting image of her, in both looks and personality. We visited her grave site, which was right next to her father's, Franz Josef. It was very moving and we sang "remember me Jesus, when I come into your kingdom" and Amazing Grace. We talked a little bit about her, and Allyn, Will, and I put rocks on her grave that we have been collecting from different places we've been traveling, as it was something she and her father used to do. We will continue doing that for the remainder of our trip, as we will be returning again later with Jenny and Susan. We also drove by her school and the church she used to attend. There are some Forget-Me-Nots on her grave that we picked to press, and some with seeds that we will plant at the Krzymowski house in Rico. There was also a barbeque the night before we left that many of the family, neighbors, friends, church members, and choir people that knew Maria attended. It was really nice to meet and converse with people that knew her and hear how much she enjoyed being with us and how she talked about the Krzymowskis and even me. Her brothers are very nice and I spent quite a bit of time talking to her cousin Sarah and her brother Kai. It was fulfilling and we are all so glad we were able to be there. We continue to think about Maria and I am grateful to have known her and have been a part of her experience in New Mexico.

We leave to Venice on Tuesday, and Susan and Jenny will join us Wednesday night. We are excited for them to be here! Please pray for us as Will and I are trying to plan hostel stays and times and dates and places and it's difficult as we don't have constant contact with Susan and different languages are difficult to cross.

Hope all is well in America!
Lots of love,
Sarah Annette

Lots of Pictures

Ladies and Gents,
It took me FOREVER to upload these, and I don't really like the blogger system of editing, so after forever trying to work with these, I don't feel like writing much and I think I'll just let you look at pictures and guess what they are. I'll tell you about them later. <3