My life at Agape

Even though many of you were able to see my photos and hear stories of my village while I was home changing my visa I thought it a good idea to post a few of my favorites for all to see and to be immortalized on the interweb. So here we go. Here's a brief photo journal of what happens in a day at Agape.

In the morning I wake up to a view that looks something like this. I generally take a few minutes pinching myself to be sure that I really live in that place. After I've convinced myself that it's real I Happily walk down to enjoy breakfast with the other residents, campolovoro, and campisti

After breakfast we all get to work...

There's always alot of work to be done at the center sometimes there is cleaning...

Sometimes there is work to be done on the center itself...

But always there is cooking to be done.

After cooking is finished and on the days that there is no camp all of the workers head outside to enjoy a nice lunch al fresco.

After lunch we all take a long break from all of the work and it usually looks a little like this...

After we have a nice nap in the sun it's back to work for the afternoon.

And we do the whole thing again for dinner.

It's a good life I have in Italy

A long over due update

I'm so sorry for the lack of posting, I promise I will be better about it this time around. As I'm sure most of you know I was offered a residency position for a year at Agape which I gladly accepted. I'm headed back to Europe for a year and couldn't be more excited. This time around I will spend 10 days in London visiting some friends and hopefully taking a trip to visit my family castle. You can see more info about the castle here http://www.btinternet.com/~whittington.castle/ I'm really looking forward to this trip. I'll be the first person in my family in at least 3 generations to have visited the castle. Not only will it be amazing to see this piece of family history but I'll also be able to cross of one of the items on my life to do list. It makes me feel quite accomplished. I'll be sure to post photos after the trip as I'm sure all of you will be anxous to see them. Please continue to send me news from home as I won't be making it back to the States until at least mid June of next year.

Que Rara!!!
I hope everyone's Friday night was as intersting as mine. Last night I spent the evening doing traditional Italian dance wiht some women from Slovakia, the US, and men and women from Italy, while a friend of mine from Agape played the accordian. After dancing we decided to head outside to build some human towers with the help of a boy here who used to be a clown and is soon heading to France to study theatre. After several hours of dancing we all decided to head outside to put up some lights and play a game of volleyball in the dark. It was quite the eveing. Needless to say, I'm having a great time, I miss you all dearly and still love to hear of news from home. Please keep sending me e-mails about all of your exciting lives back in the States.
All my love!

Its been so long

Sorry its been so long everyone, the internet has been down in my village for a couple of weeks. In case you havent heard from some one already I have safely made it to my village in Italy. I am loving every second of it! The villiage is beautiful and I am making friends with an amazing group of young people from all over the world. Unfortunately my internet connection is rather slow so the photo upload will be a bit lacking. But for all of you dying to see pictures you can go to photobucket.com and view photos posted by people from my program in Spain the usename is LaAlberca335 and the password is fireman. Hope you all enjoy the photos of my antics in Spain. love and miss you all!

Estoy in España

Just wanted to let you all know that I have safely arrived in Spain. I´m currently in Salamanca at the Pueblo Ingles program and truly enjoying myself. I have met some really lovely people from all over the English speaking world as well as spaniards from all of Spain, but mostly from Madrid. The first day was a bit overwhelming trying to get to know everyone and at least make a connection with everyone here. Tomorrow we begin the normal schedule of the program...4 hours of one on one sessions, one english speaker with one spaniard and then a few hours of group programs in the afternoon and then 2 more hours of one on one conversations in the evening. The program is surely intense for the English speakers I can only imagine how difficult it must be for the Spaniards learning English. I am having a fabulous time, the Europeans certainly know how to make a girl feel welcome and exist much more on my time schedule...lots of late evenings with chatting and drinks and long meals where everyone has a chance to get to talk and no one is in much of a rush. I can´t wait to find out more about those in the program. I´ll keep you all updated as the week progresses. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I love you all.

And I'm off

The day has finally come. I've got all my Euros and my giant pack all checked in and I'm just waiting on my plane. All those months of prep for a day that felt like it would never be here, and now here it is. This time tomorrow I will be in beautiful Madrid, eating tapas with all the other crazies who decided a trip like this was a good idea, and watching flemenco dancing! How exciting my life has become. Thank you to all of you for all your support, prayers, well wishes, and help to get to this place. I would have never had the courage to embark on a journey like this without all of your support (and even those who aren't so sure that what I'm doing is a good idea, you've encouraged me to prove you wrong!). I love you all deeply and will miss you all more than I can imagine I'm sure. So...please continue to keep me in your prayers, send good thoughts to me and keep faith that the universe will protect me in order to carry out all the wonderful adventures I am planning for this phase in my life.

Salamanca

Well yesterday morning I received a lovely and long awaited e-mail from Pueblo Ingles. I have been accepted into their volunteer program so I will be hanging out in La Alberca chatting with a bunches of Spaniards and some other crazy Anglos for 8 days in June. My official date of departure is now June 11th, giving me a day or so to run around Madrid. June 13th I'll head out of the city with the other 15 volunteers and drive 4 hours to La Alberca which is located in Salamanca. La Alberca is a small and historic village with beautiful rolling hills and historical sites. Although I won't have much time to amble about the village it will be a fantastic setting for me to get to know all of these incredibly brave souls who are embarking on an intense immersion program. I'm unbelievably excited! After I finish in La Alberca I'll head back to Madrid for the night and then early the next morning start my journey to the Italian Alps to spend the rest of my summer.
Here is a news story about the program I'm participating in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLzF0QjnuEo

and for all of those who think you might like to participate in the program here is the website
http://www.puebloingles.com