God's Signs

June 3, 2011 – hot and sunny, rainy in evening

So I often think that the only way I would ever know a sign from God was if he came down and said it to my face; well, I think he’s on his way down as I write. Anna and I have had four distinct signs that we are not supposed to go on this trip to Italy. Add a fifth, it just started thunder storming. Number 1: our return train was booked. Number 2: it is supposed to be horrible weather pretty much the whole time we will be there. Number 3: All hotels and hostels within price range are booked. Number 4: Our strict attendance oriented professors are not pleased with us. And yet, even with all these signs we are still going… like I said, God will have to come down and say it to my face for me to actually understand.

Today was the first day of the new session. My class seems like it’s going to be really interesting and a lot less work and my religion class that I took last session. My favorite part is that out of all our class days only 5 will be spent solely in the classroom. However, she did stress the attendance policy and all I could think about was how I needed to tell her that I would be absent the following class day.

After class, Anna and I grabbed a quick lunch consisting of a chicken kabob (from the market) and then scoured the internet trying to find a reasonably priced hostel with minimum luck. The best priced ones that were not full were off the island which would be a very long walk, which we didn’t want to have to do, especially having to cross the bridge by foot was a slightly scary idea. We ended up selecting the Youth Hostel which has a great location but has dorm room living quarters. This sounds fine till you read on and find out that there are four beds to a room and all will be occupied, whether by people you are traveling with or not. So, Anna and I will most likely have two other occupants, which could be male or female since there was only one remaining in the all female dorm. So I had a minor freak out before finally saying let’s just do it. Right after our confirmation I called mom, since she still hadn’t responded to my e-mail and it was after 8, on my new cell phone that I had purchased off Anne. Thank goodness I got one since who know what all this Venice stuff will yield to…

I noticed today that my bangs were starting to wing out again (getting to long) and so I gave myself a simple bang trim but scared myself tremendously when I brought the scissors up to my own hair. Then figured the worst thing that could happen is I cut it to short or too straight and I end up not liking it so I just did little cuts, nothing too big and tried to cut them like I had seen Aunt Mary do so many times before.

I am fully packed, with everything in my backpack. I have one pair of shorts (my black adidas pair), my black swimsuit (without a towel, which occupied too much space), two t-shirts and a tank top. I will be wearing a pair of jeans, and my shirt which is dueling for tomorrow along with my black sweater and rain jacket. I am wearing my running shoes and bringing a pair of flip flops. So besides my bathroom necessities, that’s everything I’m bringing. Woah. I’ve never packed this lightly in my life.

Well anyway, I’ll write more on the trip but I am off to make a sandwich before I have to head out to the train station. Our train leaves at 8:30 but we don’t actually know how early to get there so we’re going an hour early since our international-flight needs two hours. Speaking of flights, session one people will be arriving back in Detroit in three hours and forty-five minutes.