FREE TRAVEL!

What can i say about free travel. It was unpredictable, incredible and exciting. the group i traveled with was Me, Preston, Paul (FHU), Jonathan Edwards, Genevieve(FHU), Brittany(FHU), TIffany(FU), Brent(FU), Jessi(FHU). We started off taking an overnight train to munich. I loved staying in the six person sleeper cars. I felt like i was in my own little clubhouse. When we got to munich that morning we took another train to Fussen and then a bus to neuschwanstein to see a sweet castle. It was actually the castle that the sleeping beauty castle is modeled after. We walked around that and ended up climbing down a moutain into in a dry creek bed near the castle. It was pretty cool b/c there were no tourists, no attractions and little sign of human activity. It was us and the german wilderness and it was awesome. We drank the water straight out of the mountain stream, explored some and took a picture near a sweet waterfall. We found our way back to fussen, ate some incredible sausage. We got back to munich that night, and took an overnight train to venice.(that overnight train was easily the worst night of my life). In the span of a few hours in the morning i went from being able to lay down on a seat, getting some great rest, to being yelled at by the conductor on more that one occasion for latching the door closed, and i lost all my extra empty seats to a group of large african women. Needless to say i was only very little sleep when we got to venice. but the city was really cool, and i was just in a good mood to get off the train once we got there. I expected venice to be all gondolas and romantic singers driving the boats, but it was not like that at all. It was literally like a city, that had water instead of streets. Everything around it functioned with the water just like we would with streets. No big deal at all. We walked all over venice(and i picked up a few presents for folks) Later that day we went to lake Como. There we stayed with a woman jonathan had met last year and she let us stay in her yard(incredibly nice house built into the mountains, overlooking the lake) Her name was greta and she had a daughter named gretchen and a son named paulo. We went into her house, she served us coffee/coke and we hung out some. We also sang "lord be there" for her and she was amazed. This sprung into a conversation about religion with her and also about us americans(because we did not fit the obnoxous american stereotype) As jonathan was talking to her about our faith in italian it was literally like watching a seed get planted right in her heart. It was really cool to be a part of something, especially when someone is genuinely interested in us and our faith. So we camped in her yard over the night and headed to florence the next day.That night we say florence(fiorentina) play genoa in soccer. WOW. All i can say is wow. The energy at a regular season european soccer game is incredible. Imagine how the crowd sounded when memphis took the floor last year v tennessee in basketball. Now take that noise, put it outside, take away any sophisticated PA system and the jumbotron and you start to get a feel of how the whole game sounded like..and this was just a regular season game of a non-rival soccer club. the othe teams fans sat in a caged off section of the arena, surrounded by guards and they are required to be escorted in on a special train and into the stadium by police before florences fan show up, and they have to wait for the stadium to be completly cleared before they are allowed to be escorted out of the city. The whole stadium was packed. When a player did something good(or bad for that matter) the whole stadium cheered or booed him for encouragement(and it worked). Everyone joined in on the chants. Everyone was wearing something with their team colors on it. There is nothing like it. All this happenned before the game even started. Once it got started the game flew by. 45 minute halves. NO commercial breaks or stoppage in the action(unless serious injury occured). No "powerade starting lineups" No movies, fireworks(except for the few fans with flares), no bumping rap music, no gimmicks during timeouts(there were no timeouts). The fans sat in the seats because the game was on, and only left during half time. The game starts and it goes. Ten minute break in between halves. This is easily the most pure sport still left in professional sports. Florence won 1-0, and i got the goal on video tape. I have NEVER heard a roar so load, as when florence scored. Grizzlies playoffs, Tyson v Lewis, 1 v 2, nothing compares to it. And i saw something most sports lacks in America(unless your team in incredible)--Pride. Pride throughout the whole stadium. Florence is not at the top of the league, they are just ok. But to an american who had never been to anything like this, i felt like THIS game was the biggest game of the season. I got it in my blood and i cant wait to go back again. On sunday we went to Pisa for a little while. Besides the leaning tower and a couple of buildings Pisa was pretty basic. But it was cool to see and i got some sweet pictures. And that my first free travel. Im glad to be back in Citerna, and i am looking forward to Going to greece very very soon(more info on that later)