My Grandpa Williams (my mom's dad) went to be with Jesus last night. It wasn't really unexpected, as he had been slowly deteriorating over the past few years from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. A few days ago we heard that he was near death.
Its weird to use the word death, because in reality that isn't what happened. My Grandpa left the earth and really began his true, eternal life with the Lord. This is the first death in my family in 17 years, needless to say when I was five I didn't really understand what was going on. But now, faced with the reality of my Grandpa's passing, I have a strange mixture of sadness, joy, and relief. Relief because now he isn't in pain, and he's not confused anymore. I can't imagine what it was like for him to emerge from sickness and old age into new life with Christ, like coming out of a dense, thick fog into a brilliant crisp, bright summer day. What a contrast!
A couple days before he passed, he told my grandma that he had seen Jesus. When she asked him if Jesus had said anything, my grandpa replied, "Glory". Now, in my grandpa's state, I don't know, but maybe Jesus really did show himself to Grandpa in preparation for his joining Him in Glory. Grandpa loved God so much, even through the loss of his memory and deterioration of his mind, he held on tight to Jesus.
David Williams, in this world, served in the Military in all branches except for the coast guard. He served as a Chaplain and was in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. In the US, he was a preacher. I can even remember going and hearing some of his sermons when I was younger.
He was always joking around, he had a really great, positive personality. He was always fun to be around. I'll miss him, but I am so excited for him as he really begins to live.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
I arrived at the Kansas City airport at 10 till 9pm last Friday night(May 29th). My whole family was there, plus Aunt Ramona and Uncle Paul, Kyle, and Jo. It was so cool to see all of them there! I was just smiling. It was an amazing conclusion to an absolutely hectic and frustrating 48 hours of travel.
I had gone to Paris with Sara, so I had to get a flight from Paris to Rome so that I could go to Orvieto to pick up some bags that I had left there. Then my flight back to the US was out of Rome the next day. The Paris metro got the better of me, and I ended up missing my flight to Rome by about 8 minutes. So I had to pay 50 euro and get on the flight later that day, 7 hours later. I finally got to Rome, got a bus to the train station, got on a train for Orvieto. I finally arrived there at 11pm. 2 amazing ladies from the church I had attended were waiting for me at the train station. One of the ladies let me stay at her house that night. She made me dinner that night, and breakfast the next morning. But I got to Rome and made my flight just fine. When we landed in Washington, DC, it immediately begin storming. They shut down the tarmac and nothing was operating. I finally got my bags and made it through customs. But by the time I made it through, my flight home to KC had already left. So I had missed 2 flights in about 30 hours. They put me on a flight a couple hours later, at no extra charge. (United was way nicer than EasyJet)
So, a kind of crazy ending to my travel. But it really wasn't completely bad. I had to stop and tell myself not to get frustrated, and to just talk to the Lord and be thankful for him for all of the blessings in my life, and not focus on the travel stuff.
But now that I'm back, it almost seems like the whole semester never happened. Its so strange, becuase I'm back here at home, doing normal home things like I was never gone. I'm not with anyone who was in Europe with me. I don't talk about things I did over there. I could probably convince myself that I never went. Its so strange. Last semester should impact me and change me. I should be a slightly different (hopefully better) person. I guess time will tell if that happens. I know I learned a lot last semester, but I think I need to stop and think and refect and realize what it was that I learned.
The last stop on our trip was Ronchamp, France to visit the chapel by Le Corbusier. It was beautiful.
So, its been a really long time since I've updated. I'm not in Italy anymore.. School ended for me on May 8th. After that I went to Copenhagen for a week as Sara wrapped up her school there. Copenhagen is such a cool city, it was really great to get to spend so much time there. It was also kind of sad to have to watch Sara say goodbye to her host family. They are really great. They really enjoyed having her there this semester. And they were so generous to me also, letting me stay there for so long.
So, we left Copenhagen and took a bus to Berlin. Berlin is a really amazing city. It was incredible to be somewhere with such recent history, things that shaped the world happened there less than 20 years ago. It was so surreal to see the Berlin wall, and places like Checkpoint Charlie.
After Berlin we went to Munich. What a great city. Beer halls and biergartens all over the place. They love beer so much. When you go to a beer hall, you can't even buy less than a liter of beer. ha. We also took a day trip from Munich to Neuschwanstein Castle. It was beautiful, located in the German Alps. Swan Lake (the place that inspired the classical music peice) was really close, so we went swimming there too.
And now we're in Zurich. I am very excited to see this city. I feel like i know so much more this time around than the last time I was here. Anyway, its Switzerland for the rest of this trip. OK, see ya!
I think my blog entries are usually pretty mechanical. I usually just tell you where I’ve been and the things about them, as if I’m teaching you. But really, you probably don’t really want to hear about the history of a 600 year old estate in central Italy. I’m guessing, if you’re looking at this page, that you want to hear about me. That’s pretty cool, and humbling to me, that people are interested enough in me to get on the internet and navigate on over to a page that I put up to keep people updated.
I want to paint a picture. Not with watercolors, as I have recently enjoyed, but with words. I don’t really know the significance or importance of describing this particular event in detail, it really has no consequence on my trip other than being a memorable experience. But I feel that I have been lacking in descriptions.
Last weekend, I went to Milan with 7 of my classmates and friends. We left on Friday night at 11:30 and took a night train to Milano Centrale. What an experience! As soon as we got on board the train, it smelled of tons of bodies, it was really musty and warm. We squeezed our way down the hallway that was full of people. Some were trying to sleep, some had given up on that futile endeavor and were just standing and staring at the wall in front of them. Our seats were full of people as well. We showed them our tickets and they made their way out of the compartment. It was a 6 person compartment, and two more of us were in a separate compartment. So, my friend and I made our way to that other compartment.
There were people in those seats as well. We showed them our tickets and, after examining them, they said that they also had the same tickets. They didn’t move. So, in desperation we went back to the compartment with our six friends inside. I said, ”We’re piling in!” So that’s how we spent the night, eight of us in a six person compartment on the six hour trip to Milan. Whenever one person had to move and change position, it affected everybody else, so sleep was far from undisturbed. But, I surprised myself and actually slept for four hours, which made me exceedingly happy, as I didn’t feel exhausted when we arrived in Milan at 7:05am.
It was now Saturday. We figured out the metro system and made our way to the Duomo at the center of the city. We walked inside of it, and I found out that it looks exactly like the Mines of Moria on the interior. (that’s for you Lord of the Rings fans) We then climbed the stairs to the roof of the Duomo. The entire surface of roof is walkable, I’ve never been to another cathedral like that.
We did some various other things around that area of town before we decided to go to a park. This park was awesome. Giardini Publici is what it was called. It is an enormous park, it reminded me of the public parks in London. (large, international, wealthy, business-centered cities must take great pride in their parks) We stayed there for hours, the entire afternoon. Everyone else but me fell asleep. I got out a book and started reading it, a book by Kurt Vonnegut called the Sirens of Titan. I’ve never had so much fun reading a book. (I read the 325 page book in 4 days, a new record for me)
Anyway, that night we didn’t have a hostel reserved in Milan because there had been none available on account of the design fair. We stayed in the small, beautiful town of Como, about thirty minutes north of Milan by train. It is situated at the end of an arm of a beautiful lake in the foothills of the alps, only a few kilometers from the Swiss border. The air was so fresh and crisp! We ate dinner in an open air restaurant on the waterfront as the sun set. Beautiful. I really mean that. The next day we got up early and went to the Saloni, Milan’s enormous convention complex. The international design fair was there, and that day was the only day it was open to the general public. There were about 20 enormous halls completely full of exhibitions displaying the latest designs. There was furniture, lighting, and some student exhibitions too, along with some up-and-coming designers trying to make a name for themselves. Sometimes I felt as if I was seeing the same thing over and over again. After I saw about 50 modern sofas in one exhibit, I went and saw 50 more in the next exhibit. Then I stopped and realized that the 50 sofas I had just seen looked remarkably like the first 50 sofas. There’s only so much you can do with a modern sofa I guess. And I got to see all of it. Sometimes I had to move to different areas of the exhibition to keep myself entertained. After an hour in the sofas, time to go see some lighting, then off to the chairs, and so on.
Seeing so much design stuff was cool, I suppose. But why? So much energy is spent on making different sofas that most people in the world can't afford anyway. So many of the exhibits were so exclusive and expensive looking that I felt uncomfortable going into them. I did not feel "at home" in them, which is what I want when I'm sitting down on a sofa. But I know I want my house to look cool someday, and It’ll probably have things in it that look similar to things that I saw at the exhibition.
Milan is such a design-oriented city. Its almost overwhelming. There are galleries everywhere. Most of it seems to be furniture design. We went to a “design district” of the city and parused a few of the galleries. There were also some product design galleries. After the last dose of design, we hopped on the subway and went to the central train station. We found our train and began our 5 hour train ride back to Orvieto.
And that was my weekend.
Only eight more days remain of my time here in Orvieto.
From the sketchbook... This past weekend we went to Tivoli. It is about 25 kilometers east/southeast of Rome. The first place we visited is called Villa D'Este. It was constructed in the 15th century by a Cardinal who had been rejected in his attempts to be Pope. It is built on a hillside, and has many amazing fountains. It is probably the most famous Italian formal garden. I really enjoyed it, and it is amazing to think of it being built in the 1400's, without the technology of today. It was a huge undertaking, I'm sure.
This is the largest fountain in the garden, it is probably 5 stories tall.
This view is looking towards the fish pond from the top of the big fountain.
Then we went to Hadrian's Villa. It is an enormous comlex of ruins, the size of an ancient town. This watercolor is of the end of the Canopus, a long slender pool that is one of the most famous parts of the villa.
Our last stop of the day was the Jubilee Church designed by Richard Meier. It's located in the outskirts of Rome. It seems sort of out of place, because it is in an area of Rome that is dominated by nondescript apartment buildings. But I think the church itself is amazing.
So, I've been enjoying watercoloring the past few days, if you hadn't noticed.
Only a few more weeks of being in Italy. Its hard to believe.
This past weekend was Easter weekend. In Italy, Easter is the biggest holiday of the year. (as it is in most of Europe) My classmates and I got Friday and Monday off from school. Orvieto has been completely packed with people all weekend, I’ve never seen so many people here! And not just foreign tourists, most of the people in town over the weekend were Italians. As I walked through the streets over the weekend, I would hear many wishes of “Buona Pasqua!” (Happy Easter!) Most businesses were closed over Sunday and Monday. The Monday after Pasqua is always a national holiday in Italy, called Pasqualetta. Which, when translated literally means “little Easter”.
All weekend, the church bells would suddenly erupt at seemingly random times. Espeically on Easter Sunday, it was as if they were announcing to the town that Jesus has risen! At least that’s how I took it.
For me the weekend was extremely relaxing. Three of my roommates went skiing in Switzerland, so it was just me and Aaron at the apartment. We just sat around and sketched and watercolored and watched Arrested Development on DVD. And slept at least 10 hours a night. It was amazing.
Last Wednesday evening, some friends and I hiked out to La Rocca, a large rock outcropping around 7 or 8 kilometers from Orvieto. The view of the city from La Rocca is great, Orvieto looks so small from there
We also had some fun making cool Karate poses.
Sara and I on top of the Torre del Moro, the tallest tower in Orvieto, the Duomo is in the background.
A couple weeks ago, Sara came to Italy for a week! I had a great time travelling with her. I met her and Ally in Rome. As we were on the bus into town from the airport, we were driving past ancient Roman ruins and aquaducts, things that I am completely used to by now. Sara and Ally were completly fascinated by it and exclaimed, "Oh wow! Old stuff!" Its interesting because they've only been seing modern architecture in Denmark, and I am completely saturated with historic and ancient things. What different experiences we're having. Anyway, we spent a couple days in Rome, then they came to Orvieto for a few days. After a nice chilled-out time in Orvieto, Sara and Ally came with us on our class trip to Siena. Siena is a really neat city. It is preserved in basically the same condition it was in the middle ages. It’s a beautiful town.
This is me in front of the Duomo of Siena. It’s façade is very similar to the façade of Orvieto’s Duomo. Though the interior is much more elaborate.
The next day, we went and visited our buddies in Castiglion Fiorentino at Santa Chiara. Then we went to Florence for a couple days. Then Sara and Ally left for Milan and I went back to Orvieto. It was really cool to get to spend time with Sara last week.
It is hard for me to believe that I only have one more month until I am finished with school here in Orvieto. My program is over on May 8th. I’m sure that date will be here before I know it. In the first month of being in Italy, time seemed to pass very slowly, but ever since the middle of March, time has been flying by.
I want to let everybody know that I am fine. Day before yesterday (Monday morning the 6th) there was a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, about 100 kilometers east southeast of Orvieto. I was in Florence at the time of the quake, and I didn't feel anything.
Some of my classmates in Orvieto said they noticed some shaking, but it wasn't very significant. It's really weird to think of this tragedy happening this close to me. Italian tv keeps showing video and images from L'Aquila, revealing the destruction and showing the search for survivors. Last I heard the death toll was 209 with around 20 people still missing.
Thanks for your concern for me, please keep the victims and their families in your prayers.
The last stop on our trip was Ronchamp, France to visit the chapel by Le Corbusier. It was beautiful.
