Happy Birthday, Kara

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Shane

School has started

This is the first time since I can remember that college has started before public schools. I know it's not the case everywhere, but here at Baylor we started on Monday. I didn't even realize we were starting this early until a few weeks ago and so I have been frantically scrambling to put together syllabi, assignments, and readings. It's been a crazy few weeks in terms of school, that's for sure!

I'm teaching on Tues/Thur this semester, which I absolutely LOVE--not because of the two day a week schedule (although that's nice, too), but because the hour and a half classes fit writing courses much better than the 50 minute ones. I'm teaching two courses, which I taught last year, and so this go-around hasn't been as difficult since I've already taught them at least once. So, we're off to a good start.

Elizabeth is as sweet as ever. She has started talking to herself in third person, and it is really cute. The other day she was sitting in the chair at my desk coloring and was bending over to get a crayon and almost fell out of the chair. At the same time, she says, "Whoa, Whee-Biz." (Note that "Elizabeth" is a very hard word for young toddlers to say and so she has commenced to calling herself "Whee-Biz." When we call her "Whee-Biz," she replies, "No, I'm Whee-Biz." :)

Lately, Elizabeth has wanted to "cook dinner" (no matter what time of day or what meal we're about to eat!). She loves to help out and be useful. She will pull one of the kitchen chairs over to the counter and do whatever needs to be done. She also loves to help bring in the groceries and put them where they go. She even wants to help with the laundry. She hasn't quite gotten the picking up thing down, but I don't think that's too far off (we have to do better at it first!!).

Things with the church plant are coming along nicely. We are still in Gatesville until December and then we move to Waco. So, that means that this is my last semester of commuting to Baylor. Yippee!! It really hasn't been too bad. I have a lot of time to get ready for the transition from home to work or work to home, whichever the case may be. I listen to books on tape or to the radio, which is nice. And I really like driving. Growing up, many of you know that we lived about 30 minutes from our school and our church--30 minutes without traffic, that is! Most of the time it took between 45 minutes to one hour, except on Sundays when the traffic was pretty light. So, the driving part hasn't been as bad as I thought (and for the fact that I only come in 3 days a week!).

Well, we had a nice, enjoyable summer. I enjoyed being home (even though I had a sabbatical and had to research/write a lot). We got to spend a lot of time together and do some fun things. I'm actually very tan right now, mainly from our trip to Italy, but I haven't seen my arms this brown in years (I look like so many of the college students around here who are so very dark!). Except I was actually in the sun. Ha! So, now I'm ready for a new school year and all that this year will bring. Hope you're having a fantastic day!

Rome: A few other interesting pictures

I haven't really posted yet about the Italian culture and other things, so this post is going to be dedicated to that, along with a few pictures of our visit to the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain.

Here are some observations I had:
1. When you order a pizza at a restaurant, bring your own pizza cutter. Italians don't cut their pizzas into slices. Most people eat it with a fork and knife.

2. There are more tourists in Italy than anywhere else I have seen in my entire life.

3. Toilets in Italy are different from ours in two ways: most of them do not have a toilet lid, like the one pictured below, and there are two "flushes," one big and one small. I think you can figure out when you are supposed to use each flush!


4. There are a lot of modes of transportation in Italy: train, foot, car, subway, bicycle. But the most popular one, by far, is the scooter. You have to watch out for the scooters, too, because they weave in and out and don't really pay too much attention to pedestrians. Florence was the scariest place with the scooter-drivers.

5. Air conditioning in Italy is not at all what we think of here. In most places, it's actually cooler outside than inside!!

6. Most people drink water "with gas" in Italy, rather than regular old bottled water like I drink.

7. Whenever I had difficulty speaking to an Italian in English, I would speak to them in Spanish instead, and we would have a rather pleasant conversation. I guess Spanish and Italian are so closely related that they could understand it and speak it easier than English, which we all know is a very crazy language full of all sorts of grammatical exceptions!

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there are others, and I'll post them when I remember them!

Here we are in front of the Trevi Fountain. It's a terrible picture (we are virtually white, and you can barely see the fountain), but when you ask others to take a picture for you, you have to know that you may not get much!!

Here's a better picture of the fountain. Once again, there were soooo many people at the fountain. Most people were sitting around eating gelato and listening to the water.

Here's a pretty courtyard we found just outside a church.
This is Bernini's elephant sculpture. I find this picture quite humorous because there I am at the very bottom of the stature. Did you even notice I was there?!!
Shane with St. Peter's in the background.

I had to get a picture in front of the famous Spanish Steps.

Rome: Vatican City

We carved out one full day to visit Vatican City, on the west side of town. We visited the Vatican Museums (after we waited in line for two long, hot hours), St. Peter's Basilica, and St. Mark's Square. This place was massive! We didn't get to visit the gardens behind the Basilica because you have to reserve like 6 months in advance.

Here is a picture of St. Peter's Basilica taken from the castle. You can see it from all over the city.

Here is the long line we waited in. We got there really early but still had to wait awhile. At least there were a few trees to keep us shaded.
Here is my cute husband. This was taken from a courtyard inside the museum.
The museum was full of statues and sculptures of popes and other religious icons. It's a tradition for Shane to take a picture like this whenever we see a sculpture. You should see the one he has with Abe Lincoln!

More sculptures. This hallway was beautiful.
We went through the "Map Room," which was filled with wall-to-wall map tapestries. I think it was my favorite room in all the Vatican (besides the Sistine Chapel of course!).

We saw the Sistine Chapel, which is in the Vatican Museum, NOT in St. Peter's Basilica. It was a huge room. What surprised us most was that it was full of people. Literally, we were all standing there shoulder to shoulder looking up at the ceiling that Michelangelo painted. No photography was allowed, and neither was talking, except for the man who kept "shooing" everyone!

After the museums, we took a shortcut over to St. Peter's Basilica. It was the one thing that was free, and it was amazing. The place it HUGE! And not just the round portico that everyone thinks of when you see it on TV. Massive! And beautiful, of course. Here is Shane right when we walked in.

And here's me.

Here is the round portico. Look how high up it is!
Here we are in front of the Basilica with our backs to St. Mark's Square.
This is the front side of St. Peter's Basilica. You can't see the basilica from this angle. If I were further back you would be able to see it.
I couldn't get all of St. Mark's Square in one picture, unfortunately, because the symmetry of it is absolutely amazing. An obelisk is in the center of the square.
We enjoyed our day at the Vatican, but we were looking forward to leaving Rome and relaxing on the train ride to Venice. See you in Venezio!

Rome: Piazza Navona and Castel Sant'Angelo

Piazza Navona was one of our favorite places in Rome. There are three neat fountains here, although Bernini's Four Rivers fountain was under construction so we didn't get to see most of it. We also walked around and looked at all the beautiful art. I bought some pieces here. There are no cars allowed in here, only people on foot. We also found a place to refill our water since it was so hot everywhere we went. Here's a picture of Shane at one end of the Piazza.

Someone trying to sell the artwork.

Right outside the Piazza was some of the best pizza we had in Italy. It was realy thick and had a great variety of ingredients on it. The two we bought were unique: one had red and yellow bell peppers and the other had spinach and potatoes. Yum-yum!

From the Piazza Navona, we walked about a mile to the Castel Sant'Angelo, a castle and fortress built by Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for his family. Later, it became a fortress for the popes. An underground tunnel leads from the Vatican to the castle, and they would bring a pope here when his life was in danger. Today, it is a museum.

The castle is massive, but it is set down in a valley, so you can't see it from too many spots in the city, not like you can the Vatican and other big monuments.

This is the walking bridge to the castle. The bridge goes over the Tiber River.

To get to the top of the castle, first you walk up a 360 degrees circle, and then you come across a ramp that splices the castle in half. It's all very planned out and cool. The ramp Shane is standing on is the one that splices the castle in half.

Our first picture together: This was taken in the castle. The Tiber River is in the backgound. Sorry it's so dark. I guess the flash didn't go off!

We walked to the very top of the castle, and found this scuplture. You could see a lot of the city from up here at the top.

Rome: Churches, churches, and more churches

While in Italy, I think we visited at least 50 churches. We loved going into them and taking in the environment, the art, and the sculptures. When I went to France a few years ago, I loved the churches there, too, and they were pretty, just really different. Most of the churches in France had beautiful stained-glass windows, which made them unique, ornate, and beautiful. In Italy, however, there weren't many with stained-glass windows. Instead, most of them were painted with beautiful art and contained ornate sculptures. Italians sure do know how to create art.

This was the first church we went into, and we sort-of just stumbled into it after we went to the Coliseum. The outside doesn't do justice to the inside of this church, as you can see from some of the pictures below.

We also went to the Pantheon and several churches in the area. The Pantheon was originally built as a temple to the Roman gods in 125 A.D. Later, it became a Christian church, which it still is today. The architecture of this place is absolutely amazing. The tomb of Raphael is also located here. The picture below is the outside of the Pantheon. The columns are huge!

The top of the round portico was replicated by Italian architects in later designs.

This is a view looking from the Pantheon outside into the piazza.

Rome: Imperial Forum, Coliseum, and Palatine Hill

I am sorry this has taken me sooo long! I've been busy with work (it starts a week earlier than I had originally thought!! Yikes!) and it took me a little longer to overcome the jet lag. Anyway, I'm going to upload these in batches so that I can organize them easier, and so that you can learn about the places we visited.

Shane in front of the Imperial Forum, the ruins from Ancient Rome

More Imperial Forum. I can't believe how many ruins still exist after all this time.

A view of the Coliseum from the road.
Here is a picture of the inside of the Coliseum. It wasn't exactly what I expected. I had thought it would be a lot bigger than it was, and I thought that there were still a few seats still in existence. There are no seats at all, and the stadium is much smaller than the Astrodome and other stadiums we have here in the U.S. In the middle, you can see remnants of the two underground levels where they kept the prisoners. It sure was amazing.

Behind the Imperial Forum is Palatine Hill. Palatine Hill is the place where, according to Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus were founded by the she-wolf that kept them alive. This is where Romulus decided to build Rome. It was really, really high and long and beautiful.

Behind the Palatine is the "Circus Maximus," which was used for entertainment and public games. You can't really tell from this picture, but there is a big "lap," sort of like at a track where people ran races. Christians were also killed here for sport. Other Christians were brought here before they went to the Coliseum to be killed.