"Return to me," declares the Lord Almighty, "and I will return to you."
-Zechariah 1:3

Then I looked up--and there before me was a man with a measuring line in his hand! I asked, "Where are you going?" He answered me, "To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is." Then the angel who was speaking to me left and another angel came to meet him and said to him: "Run, tell that young man, 'Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of men and livestock in it. And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,' declaries the Lord, 'and I will be its glory within.'"
-Zechariah 2:1-5

"I myself will be a wall of fire around it and I will be its glory within."

God, too often I'm like the man with the measuring line. I try to measure my own walls to guard my heart. I try to take control.
I want You to have control of my life. Guard my heart. Put up your walls of fire around it. Help me to glorify You. Control my heart again.

Goodbye Italy.

I'm so ready to go home.

Goodbye Venice.

We took a train to Rome today... which was actually a really really cool train ride. But I don't really wanna go into details. Except that the Australian couple sharing a seat area thing with my parents were the cutest couple I think I've ever met! Ahhh they were great. But anyway.

So yeah, we haven't seen much of Rome yet, but it's the complete opposite of Venice. Rome is kind of like an Italian version of D.C., NYC, or London while Venice is more a relaxed, really beautiful place. Both are amazing... for completely different reasons. In Venice, there aren't cars. There are water taxis and gondolas and hundreds of different alleys and a bunch of different squares to walk. It's really awesome. In Rome, you walk too obviously (in both cities you find yourself walking like 10 miles each day if you really do stuff), and there are definitely cars... the drivers here are way more aggresive than DC or NYC in my opinion... there are the small European smartcars and the big double decker buses, things like that, so it's like a city with a ton of history behind it and lots of things to see and do. They're just complete opposties. So today was my adjusting day I guess?

Two more days left... =)

I won't be able to blog tomorrow, we have this limo tour of the city that's literally all day. (With tons of walking.) Can you say a major leg workout? Haha. So true though...

Ok. I need to rant.

My family really knows how to make me mad and upset. They're constantly not taking what I say seriously, making fun of me, criticizing me, pointing out every last thing I say or do that's wrong or something they don't agree with, etc. And I mean, I love Europe. I wanna spend a summer traveling it with a friend or a few friends or something. I think that'd be amazing. But my family makes me wanna go home.

Yesterday was pretty bad, but this morning was worse. This morning was awful. It got to the point where I threw my stuff down, said I had to go to the bathroom, and ran off for about 20 minutes. I'm pretty sure they got the point after that for a little while but it didn't last long. I love Europe. And so far Italy is beautiful. And at times my family can be a lot of fun and we'll find ourselves laughing really hard. But I just can't handle this. And I wanna go home.

My trip so far...

so we left home at around 1:30ish in the afternoon on saturday and got to italy at around 12 or 1 in the afternoon on sunday (its about a 5-6 hour time difference so about 7ish VA time). the plane was amazing! i sat in the middle isle (it was one of those really big ones with the usual 2 sides of seats and a whole 'nother set of seats in the middle... and TVs on the back of every seat!! and they would either speak french or italian to tell us to put our seat belts on, etc. oh oh and i got raviolli on the plane! it was really good). but yeah.. that was cool... slept for like 3 hours and read and watched a movie and stuff. then we had a layover in Paris for about 3 hours... it was 2 am in my head but about 7 am there. it was really cool! we talked to this french guy for a while when we ate breakfast. i wanted to stay in Paris for the whole trip, but after a few hours we left for italy... i slept that whole plane ride... it was really weird 'cause saturday basically never ended for me. haha, it just kinda blurred into sunday.

but yeah. we finally got to italy and it's been great. well for the most part. me and my sister are in an executive room and my parents have a junior suite... it's really nice. i had a real italian pizza, my sister got asked on a date by an italian guy, stuff like that. we had a gondola ride today... it was my favorite part of the trip so far!
except for that my family's really getting on my nerves, it's really really cool so far. we fed birds that attacked us, went up the bell tower, toured a few famous places, got lost in the city (apparently one of the things you have to do before leaving Venice because it's the only way to discover the city), went to one of the islands around Venice (there are like 118 or something like that), saw glass being made, stuff like that. tomorrow we're gunna see the Bridge of Sighes or something like that.

but yeah... we leave for Rome in a few days. apparently we're taking a train there?

so that's a really really vague sense of what we've done so far. and this European keyboard is really confusing. but yeah...