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.