First effort

at finally getting caught up on blogging. :) Oh, boy. I have a lot to get caught up on. For all you hardcore blog readers, well, check back in the next couple of days, and I'll post blogs for the Rome trip, probably in chronological order, so check older entries. :)

Swift thrift: Today was good and restful. Went to nearby Bellinzona, pretty Swiss town with three castles, and walked around in the biggest castle for a while then sat and ate lunch and talked for three hours with Justin. Came back and ate dinner with everybody, and had a great time of chatting with several people. Briefly visited a mad Mexican bar with several people from here to celebrate the birthday of the other Christian on the trip, Robin, and left after a bench with three people dancing on it broke and a speaker fell on a classmate's head. :) We are fine.

Tonight's feature: There are several bars in this town. I mean seriously, the town is so small that you can see across it; however, the Tech students really provide a good clientele. There's the Mexican bar, the Mini-bar, the Bar Ticino, Osteria San Giorgio, Bar Lido, and I think maybe some others. I have only been to San Giorgio (more like a family restaurant) and tonight, the Mexican bar, which as I mentioned, was madness.

Well, if you read the Swift Thrift, then you know most of my day already. But in more detail... headed out to Bellinzona after a nice leisurely breakfast this morning. Bellinzona is a little less than an hour away by train. It's a very nice little clean town with three castles, small (the highest), medium (medium height), and large (the lowest). We went to the largest, lowest one. We didn't really spend much time inside any original buildings, but mostly within the castle walls or up in the tower, outside. The castle was extremely clean cut and kept up, with nicely built, squared off walls and clean stonework. There were several large grassy areas, where they must have brought up the dirt from below, because the castle was high on a mound of what appeared to be rock. It's sort of hard to explain. There is a big rock, big enough to put a castle on. The castle, as a result, is very high above the regular ground level of the valley, and appears to rise out of pure rock. Once you get inside, it isn't all rock or cobbles, but there are also large smooth grassy areas, some of which even have trees growing. On one of these smooth grassy places, Justin and I had lunch and talked for three hours. There. :) Then we came back to Riva, ate dinner with everyone (very good), and chatted with several people. I am really excited about having more real, worthwhile conversations with the people here. It can be hard to carry on meaningful conversation with people you don't know well, but God has really blessed over the past week and both Justin and I have been having much more worthwhile conversations with other people. Then I cut Justin's hair, which, from start to cleanup, took 3 hours.... yeah. Then we visited briefly with everyone at the bar, and now I'm blogging. Heehee. I just decided what tomorrow night's feature will be. :) Whhooo's undressed, and whhooo's in bed, and whooo's asleep?

posted by LizC @ 2/12/2005 05:52:00 PM