Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Week 3: Norderney & Rome

Week 3 was jam-packed with traveling! We began with a study trip to the German island of Norderney, and I then travelled to Rome for a long weekend. This week was marked by immense trust in God as well as hilarious memories of joy.


Norderney

Norderney was such a fun trip. We travelled by bus and ferry to the quaint island, where wind and cool temperatures awaited. It is exactly what you would expect from a German island- German architecture near the beach! We went on bike rides around the island to observe the nature, a mud flat hike to examine sea organisms, and sunrise training excursions to the beach accompanied with a jump into the frigid North Sea! Near the end of our trip, we spend an afternoon at the baderhaus (spa). This was my favorite part of our trip. The baderhaus consisted of several types of pools with seawater ranging from hot to cold. We spent time in each pool and even got to have a mud treatment for skin health. It was so relaxing and peaceful. Trinity and I also got to attend mass in a cute church near our hostel. It was good fun.



Traveling to Rome 

This is when the chaos began. Our travel itinerary to get to Rome had close to eight different connections. We knew the plans would fall through at some point.. just not as soon as the first stop! The DB “fell asleep” for unknown reasons, causing us to miss our bus connection. Trinity and I frantically scrambled to figure out our next move. We asked a bus driver if the bus stopped near our next connection, and a kind man spoke to us in English and told us he could help. We followed him to the next stop in which we got on a train. This man helped us plan our next moves and had lovely conversation with us. His name was Bastian, and he was a tall Dutch man with piercing blue eyes. We kept joking that he was our hippie Jesus that led the way for us. 4 trains, a plane, and a taxi later, we arrived in Rome. Thank you Lord for guiding us!



Rome!

Rome was incredible. I have always wanted to travel to Italy, so it felt so surreal to finally make it there. Our room was lovely and had a beautiful terrace. We spent three days wandering around the city seeing ruins, the Pantheon, the Vatican!!!, the Sistine chapel, and countless other museums. We had soooo much gelato, pasta, pizza, and espresso. On our last night, Trinity and I went to a cooking class at an Italian woman’s home in which we made pasta and chocolate espresso truffles. We were meeting up with some friends afterwards, so we took an electric scooter to their location. Well.. we tried to. Long story short, we got lost, ended up on a highway, got back on the sidewalk near our friends destination, and hit a MASSIVE pothole and face planted on the ground. Trin took a worse hit than me because she was driving and chipped her tooth. All was well and nothing was broken.. but it was pretty hilarious! Her mouth was bleeding so she used my long skirt as a bandage to apply pressure. We looked pretty pathetic hahaha. We will never take another scooter ever again 🤣🤣🫶🏻







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