On the move!

I left Perugia on the 19th to head to Ravenna on the coast, so I said goodbye to my newly acquired friends. The journey took me via Arezzo, Firenze and Bologna. Despite first impressions from the train station, Ravenna turned out to be a nice, peaceful town. It was the western most point of the Byzantine empire and the 5th/6th century mosaics in some of the churches were really impressive and I liked the pictures of Jesus looking happy and friendly, instead of gaunt and sad as I'd seen in other places.
Since Ravenna is on the Adriatic, I went for a swim in the sea. It was about 8pm (when it was much cooler) and I was about the only one in the water. It was very warm and pleasant, but as I was about to get out I was stung by a jellyfish (I think). An area of my arm started to blister so I went to a nearby bar and explained what had happened (in a mixture of Italian, French and English!) and they poured some ammonium on my arm and after about half an ohur the sting was mostly gone and I've had no other ill-effects.
The temperature had been hot for quite a while and so I had been steadily moving north. Now I had to decide whether or not to leave Italy, which I was reluctant to do because I like Italy so much. Eventually I decided to go to Slovenia, so I travelled by train to Ferrara, Venezia and then to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Ljubljana is a small, pretty city and is especially quaint at night. It was also very different from Italy, particularly because it seems everyone speaks English, unlike Ravenna where the most common languages I heard were French, German, Italian and English in that order!
In Ljubljana I met a nice Irish couple and we spent quite a number of hours together. They told me they were Catholics but asked me a lot of questions about the Bible and why God created everything and whether salvation came by doing good things or by faith, so I was able to explain to them some of what the Bible teaches about being able to have a relationship with God through faith and also what had happened in my own life. They didn't normally go to church and were very interested in what I was saying. When we finally said goodbye to each other I gave them a copy of "Why Jesus?" by Nicky Gumble, which they were pleased to get. I hope to keep in touch with them. I could see that God was speaking to them which was a joy to me.
Ljubljana started out being as hot as Italy, but after an impressive thunder and lightning storm, the temperature dropped significantly. I'm now up in the mountains at a place called Bled. It's a lot like Switzerland here and is very beautiful. It also has lots of people travelling by themselves, so I have been able to socialise more and went on a day trip to another lake yesterday with two others.

Caldissimo

Stayed quite a bit longer in Perugia. It is a nice town, with quite a lot of life, especially with the Jazz festival. I made a number of good friends, especially with the English family and with Piera from YWAM.
On Sunday (18th) I went to church (in Italian!) and was told that there was a trip to a lake to go swimming. I didn't have time to return to where I was staying, but as it happened I had packed some shorts for church that I could swim in. However, I didn't have any food for lunch and very little money on me, but I said I'd go and that God would provide. Well, I was given a bag of food that they had at the church and was also lent a towel! I know it may seem a little thing, but I've had a few occurrences of things like this where I've been given just what I needed when I needed it and it shown that God is looking after me.

Umbria Jazz - Nice!

Since my last update, I have spent a night sleeping on the floor of a Columbian student in Siena! I met him in the square with some otherstudents and ended up staying there so that I could spend longer in the centre of town - the youth hostel had a "curfew" of midnight and the previous night I had ended up running the 3 km back to the hostel, barefoot as well because my sandals were not good for running in!
After Siena I went to Perugia in Umbria. One of the people I had made friends with in Cadegliano was in Perugia and I have ended up staying with some people her that she knows. They are also with YWAM. I've been herefor 5 nights already. I knew very little about Perugia, but I turned up on the first day of the Umbria Jazz festival, which was great as I love Jazz. Since the people have been very welcoming, I have ended up staying here a while.

Burnt Siena

I stayed in Rome a couple of days but decided to leave as it was not as
cheap to stay there as I had become accustomed. So, after a bit of
consultation I headed for Siena. I am so glad that I did. It is a truly
beautiful city. It has beaten Verona as my favourite Italian town and I
would recommend it to anyone. The architecture is magnificent, and I have
managed to avoid paying to see anything by just walking around the streets
and seeing the outside of buildings. There are rambilng streets with great
construction, overhangs, passage ways arches etc. And much of it is from the
mediaeval era and is still fully intact. The main pizza, Il Campo, has a
beautiful gothic tower and is surrounded by buildings up to 9 stories high,
most of which are in various shades of "burnt Siena". Outside I can hear the
swifts flying around, very much a feature of Siena.
I have got a hostel for under 14 euro, sharing with only 2 others in the
room, which is better than 6 in a room in Rome.
A couple of other details - travelling alone as I have been the last few
days can be more challenging and more rewarding. I met a couple of English
girls in Rome and during the course of conversation started talking about
God and about knowing His guidance. It was a great opportunity to share with
them something of God's character, how He is personal and loves to look
after us. And here in Siena I met a Vietnamese guy and we spent the
afternoon together. He told me he was an atheist, but we had a very
interesting converation about God. We talked about the intellectual aspects
of God, and philosophy, and I sometimes have felt frustrated by that sort of
thing because I don't feel as eloquent as I'd like, or always seem to have
good answers. However, I prayed and simply said what I believe and also told
him about how I became a Christian and he was listening to that. I'd love
for everyone to have a close relationship with God, whether they previously
believed in Him or not.

I have at least one more night in Siena. Not sure where next. I have thought
of going north, as it is very hot here and maybe getting hotter. It's 21.15
and still it is so hot I'm sweating. Not that I'm complaining!

"All roads lead to Rome"

Finally struck out completely by myself. I said goodbye to the Norwegian
girls and have got a hostel room in Rome. I had arranged to meet up with a
friend at the central station but after waiting for 2 hours I left!
A little story about the accomodation we had for the last couple of nights.
We had turned up in a little town north of Rome (1 hour by train). We asked
at a bar if they knew of anywhere we could stay and a girl there said that
her uncle ran the only B+B in that town! She phoned him for us and he said a
certain price (30 euros each), which we all thought was too expensive (since
we could get a place for 15 euros in Rome itself). One of the girls haggled
him down to 20 euros each. In the evening we went to the place and
discovered it was lovely! We had got an excellent deal as I think he
sometimes charges 50 euros! We had prayed early about accomodation on that
day and it certainly worked out well. The owner spoke Italian and German -
both of the Norwegians speak German so were able to communicate well. In
fact, between us we could get by in 5 languages (one of them knew 4 of
them!).

Italian, Pizza and Rome

I finally left the YWAM base on Monday after staying there for over two and
a half weeks. They were so welcoming. I had intended to leave the week
before, but I was sad at saying goodbye to people. I went to my room and
said I would spend 10 minutes simply listening to God to see what he was
saying, and 2 minutes in He said something like "Why not stay another day?".
That hit the nail on the head, because I realised I didn't want to stay
because I didn't want to get too close to people. Anyway, I allowed myself
to, and I stayed even longer than 1 more day! I was able to be at the
graduation ceremony for the students and was even invited to the party
afterwards (where we had pizza - the first time I had it since coming to
Italy!).
Having stayed in Italy so long, I decided I really ought to start learning
Italian. It's been great and

I've a number of opportunites to use it as the people are very willing to
let you speak in Italian (as many don't speak English!) and seem to be
forgiving of mistakes. One of the YWAMers has leant me a book.

The people I met at YWAM were so great and welcoming, I had become quite
reluctant to leave. Anyway, the DTS students finished on Monday, so I
decided to leave then. In fact, on the Sunday evening, a couple of girls
from Norway dropped into the base, looking for somewhere to stay, and I got
talking to them. It turned out they were travelling to Rome, so I asked if I
could go with them! They were happy to have me go along with them, so it
made leaving the YWAM base much easier as I had nice company.

We decided to go to Florence first, and we tried phoning up for a place to
stay, but without success. I was unable to book anything on the internet.
Then one of the staff at YWAM phoned a friend and arrange for us to stay
with him. When we arrived in Florence he met us at drove on ahead for us to
follow him. His driving was amazing! But we managed to just about keep up
with him! He didn't speak lots of English but he offered for us to stay at
his church and that's what we did for 2 nights! Thankfully they had a shower
there!

The weather was v hot in Florence. We went to the Uffizi Gallery which has
many great pieces of art. Next morning we went to San Gimignano in Tuscany,
via a rather circuitous mountain route. In evening we tried to find
accomodation which took about 2 and a half hours! We nearly stayed at a
wonderful mansion, but by the time we decided to pay the price (110 Euros
for 3 of us) the proprietors had gone! Eventually we managed to get a room
above a restaurant for half the price. God is always faithful, and looked
after us again.

Today we drove to a village outside Rome, found a B&B, and then took the
train into Rome. I'm currently just down the road from the Trevi Fountain.
We say the Colloseum early and I'm thinking of seeing the Villa Borghese
after this.