Three years, six months, and eighteen days later...

I'M ENGAGED!

Jacob and I have been dating for quite some time now, and on Friday, June 3, 2011, the love of my life asked me to marry him!!! Luckily, my parents were there to capture the incredible moments of the proposal on film. Let me just say, I have the most indescribably amazing fiancé and an indescribably amazing engagement story to go along with it. Now for the part you've all been anxiously waiting to hear...

On Friday morning, I took my Fashion Marketing final and then met up with my parents and Janet and Gloria to grab lunch and go to Piazza Michelangelo. When we got to lunch, my mom told me that she had made us an appointment to get our nails done and we could go to the piazza after that. After the nails, we all got gelato at one of my favorite shops and then walked up the monstrous hill to get to the top of the piazza. The walk to the top is pretty brutal, but the piazza is one of my favorite spots in all of Florence. It overlooks all of the city and is so high up, you can even see past the center to the rolling Tuscan hills all around. Once we got to the top, we took pictures and admired the view for a few minutes before walking over to a more secluded area.

When we had gotten away from some of the crowds, Janet gave me a letter from Jacob and told me that he wanted me to be looking out over the city when I read it. At the end of the sweet letter were the words "turn around". I turned around, and there he was. In Italy. Where he flew from THAILAND to surprise me. On the top of a mountain overlooking the entire city. Wearing a plaid shirt and a five o'clock shadow (two of the most attractive things to me!!!). Needless to say, it was all too perfect and romantic for me to keep from crying!

Not only did I not know Jacob was in Italy, I thought he was still in Thailand! It was literally the perfect moment to surprise me... The thought that he might be there had never even crossed my mind!

We hugged and kissed and then Jacob mentioned that we should go to a more private area and get some pictures of just the two of us. I may have looked like a mess that day, but it WAS the perfect moment to capture some great pictures!

We spent a minute or two taking pictures, and after taking some of us from behind, overlooking the city, I turned around to find him getting down on one knee!

I was so excited, he didn't even get a chance to ask me before I said yes! :)

We kissed.

We hugged.

I cried.

I squealed.

And my mom, Janet, and Gloria caught the whole thing on camera!

The engagement was perfect and the ring is GORGEOUS!

So gorgeous, in fact, that the girl sitting next to me in the lab as I type this just asked me if it was real! I told her yes and that I just got engaged and she said it was the prettiest ring she had ever seen! :)

The couple who took this picture was actually a couple from Birmingham on a trip to Italy for their 5th anniversary!

In my wildest dreams, I never imagined such a romantic, amazing, magical proposal. It was truly a fairy tale moment and I still get chill bumps just thinking about it. I have dreamt about this day and my future husband since I was a little girl and I can say with full confidence that every moment we have spent together has far surpassed the things I imagined. God has blessed me so, so richly in more ways than I could ever try to explain. Jacob's passion for life and people, his drive and conviction, his charming ways and good looks... Seriously, I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with him!

Thank you to my family, Janet, and Gloria for helping him make the day so special for me. I am so thankful that you were there to share the moment! Also, thank you to everyone for all of the warm wishes and congratulations on facebook. Your comments are so sweet!

Looking forward to seeing y'all and celebrating in person in a few weeks!

Love you!

Halfway over already?!

Hey y’all!

Sorry it has taken me so long to post pictures and details about Florence… I can’t believe I have already been living here for more than two weeks! The time has been FLYING by and I am so sad that today marks the halfway point of my trip. There are a million and one stories to tell about the last two weeks, but for now I’ll just hit the high points.

My Fashion Marketing class has been so great. The professor is fantastic; she is really passionate about eco-sustainable fashion and cause-related marketing, which are the areas of fashion I love as well. It has been such a blessing to have conversations with her after class and God is continuing to show me how I can make a difference for Him and live my passions (even in the crazy fashion industry!). When I’m not in class, my friends and I explore, shop, and eat our way through Florence. It is a beautiful city with so much to see, and I have loved learning my way around the city and discovering all of my favorite spots.

Skype has been awesome! Seeing my sweet parents’ face always makes my day.

Picture of the Ponte Vecchio taken from the bridge right by my apartment. Gorgeous!

This is the church in Piazza Santa Croce right by my school. One of the many beautiful buildings I pass everyday when I walk to class.

Wax seals at my favorite paperie! Yeah, I pretty much died the first time I saw it. :)

Pizza so delicious not even an awful hair day can ruin it!

Elizabeth, Kenedie and I went to see Pirates 4 in a beautiful theater built in the 1800’s. Loved the movie and the venue.

Oh, Jersey Shore… For those of you that haven’t heard, they are filming the 4^th season of their show right now in Florence and have been causing quite the stir. I have seen them four times so far but only got pictures once (which just so happened to be the time I was farthest from them). One day, we saw two ridiculous looking guys with TV crews on the bridge near our apartment. No one I was with had ever seen the show, so we weren’t sure if it was Jersey Shore or not and didn’t bother taking any pictures. Lo and behold, the photo above was one main pictures on people.com the next day! The two other times I saw them were in the same night when the girls and guys had apparently split up to go do whatever it is they do. Snookie passed me on the sidewalk and was so close I had to turn to the side to avoid bumping into her, and later in the night the Situation walked right past me in a bar. Both times, I didn’t get a picture but was close enough to kiss ‘em!

I met my parents in Rome on Saturday and spent the weekend exploring the city with them and seeing some of the sights I missed the first time I was there. It was so nice to see them and live the ballin’ life for a few days! Let me just say, hotel with a hot tub + functioning air conditioning + gourmet meals = living the high life!

Here’s me and my Daddy on the rooftop of their hotel. The view was fantastic! You could see the Forum, Colosseum, Vatican, and tons of other famous sites.

Is it just me or does he look just like Nick Saban in this picture?... RTR!

My cute parents on the Spanish Steps.

Last Sunday, we attempted to go to Pisa but weren’t able to make it because of a train worker strike. Fortunately, we got the chance to go on Monday after class and I loved it! There is nothing to see there besides the tower and the Duomo, but it was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon with two of my best friends in Florence. One of the best parts of the whole experience was watching everyone around us take the obligatory “holding up the tower” picture. So funny!

The Tower! And yes, I did get a picture of myself holding it up.

 Here’s a pic of the Duomo, conveniently located just a few hundred feet from the Leaning Tower. It was so beautiful, both inside and out.

You know me and my big rings!

Kenedie and many of my other friends will be leaving this Saturday. It will be extremely sad to see them go, but I am so grateful that God has blessed me with such wonderful friends during my time here. Luckily for me, my parents, Janet, and Gloria will be getting here at the end of the week. I can’t wait to show them around the city and take them to all of my favorite gelato places!

Thank you again for supporting me and reading my silly little blog. I promise it won’t be as long before I post again.

xoxo

Home Sweet Firenze

It is Tuesday morning in Florence (Italian name: Firenze) and I have been in the city for just over 48 hours. I have moved into my apartment (very cute! pictures to come soon...) and attended my first class. It has been a fun, slightly hectic two days, and I am falling more in love with the city every minute. I have not gotten many pictures here yet, but I will take more today and try to do a post with pictures in the next day or two. After the business of last week, it has been great to slow down a little and spend some time exploring on my own.

Since I don't have any pictures to post (my favorite part of every blog), I'll share a few interesting things I have learned since being here that you might not be aware of...

1. Italians love their sparkling water! When you are served water at a restaurant, they bring sparkling (gassato) and regular (naturale) water. They even have both in all of the vending machines.
2. Chicken alfredo doesn't exist here! It was invented by someone in Los Angeles and is no where to be found anywhere in Italy.
3. It is completely acceptable for salesmen from the street to walk into a restaurant and around to every table to try and sell you things. Roses are the main thing I've seen, but they also sell toys, souvenirs, etc. They don't say anything, but they get right beside you and hold out dozens of roses in hopes that you will buy one.
4. Italians ONLY drink cappuccino in the morning. If you try to order one in the afternoon, they will oblige because you're obviously a tourist and they want your money. But a real Italian would never order a cappuccino in the afternoon. They would order an espresso (served in a tiny cup and saucer), add a packet of sugar, swallow it in two or three sips, and then leave it on the counter and continue on with their day.
5. Right now is peak tourist season in Florence and there are currently more visitors here than there are residents.
6. Breakfast is the LEAST important meal of the day. Italians generally drink a cappuccino and eat something very light (melba toast, biscotti cookies, etc.) and then eat a large lunch and dinner.
7. A pre-dinner "aperitivo" is very common in Italy, particularly in Florence. People go to a restaurant for pre-dinner drinks and snacks, and then go to a different restaurant for dinner. Certain drinks are acceptable as pre-dinner (mimosa, mojito, and bellini, to name a few you might know), and others are acceptable after dinner as a "digestive" (espresso and limoncello, among others).
8. It is quite common to eat a four course meal for dinner (antipasti, pasta, meat dish with a side, dessert). With all this and a huge lunch, I have no idea how these people stay so thin! They walk a lot more than Americans, but it still blows my mind.
9. Many women in Italy (particularly in the Southern regions) do not work, and the country as a whole has a very high unemployment rate. Naples, for example, has 60% unemployment!
10. After 8th grade, students must choose a "major" for high school that will determine what school they will go to, and ultimately, what they will do for the rest of their life. The choices are art, classics, sciences, and a few others.

Those are just a few of the things I have learned... I hope this post wasn't too terribly boring! I promise to post pictures of Florence and more tales of all my adventures very soon.

Love y'all.

Sicily Summary!

Hello all! Sorry it has taken me so long to be able to do another post, but this is the first time I’ve been on the internet since I left Rome last week. This week in Sicily has been so indescribably amazing, my brief recap could never do it justice. From tasting cannolis in the town where they were first created to hiking to the largest volcano in Europe (less than 24 hours after an eruption!) to swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, every single part of the week could not have been more perfect.

On Monday, we visited the Colosseum and Forum, and took a sightseeing bus tour around the city. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day…

Colosseum.

This is my new friend Kenedie, the girl from UA who ventured all over Rome with me on Sunday. One of the Italian men wanting to sell us something tried to flatter us by yelling “Shakira and Beyonce! I make you very good deal!”. We didn’t buy anything from him, but boy did we get a good chuckle out of his selling tactics!

After an overnight train ride from Rome, we arrived in Taormina, a coastal town on the northeast side of Sicily. We were met by a 70-year-old man named Salvador (Salvo for short), who was our tour guide for the rest of the week. Let me just take a moment to say that Salvo was the cutest, funniest, most stereotypical old Italian man I have ever met. Although he hardly spoke a word of English, he felt like our long lost best friend by the end of the week! I can’t wait to get back to the States and do some Salvo impersonations! :) He gave us a walking tour of the city, where we got to see a ton of old buildings, churches, fountains, and even a Greek theater. Because the town is on the side of the mountain, the view was incredible. The beach and mountains went as far as you could see, and the ocean provided a constant breeze!

 Me and the other two girls in our group, Lindsay and Liza, trying our very first authentic cannoli! They filled it for us just be for we ate it, and so far it was my favorite thing I’ve eaten in Italy. The filling is a sheep’s milk ricotta (nothing like the stuff we have in America), a pinch of sugar, and fresh pistachios, piped into a freshly fried shell. So simple, yet so divine!

Orchids growing out of a little window box outside of a 1000+ year old church! So beautiful!

 

This was the view pretty much everywhere we went in Sicily! It was so surreal to be surrounded by such beauty everywhere.

Salvo!

 

After Taormina, we drove to Siracua (Syracuse) where the hotel we would stay in for the rest of the week was located. Wednesday, we visited several archaeological sites in Siracusa, the walked to Ortigia (a nearby island) to visit a local market and take a historic walking tour of the city. After lunch, we took a boat ride through the Mediterranean!

Outside of the catacombs in Siracusa. This is the second largest and most famous catacombs in the world, behind the one in Rome. And yes, you can be jealous of how blue the sky is here!

Fresh cheese at the seaside market in Ortigia. Did I mention that they let you sample as much as you want?

This is the Duomo in Ortigia, one of my favorite buildings I’ve seen so far. I am continually amazed by the beauty of the churches here and how much pride the Italians take in preserving historical sites. This was directly across from the café where we ate lunch.

Boat tour!

 

It’s the Italian version of my Koda! Seeing him was such a blessing to me that day.

On Thursday, we drove to Pachino to visit a pomodoro di Pachino (cherry tomato) consortium and a vineyard called Farma Deluca. We got to pick the organic tomatoes right off the vine and eat them, and after visiting the vineyard we had a wine tasting! The tomatoes were the best I’ve ever eaten, no contest! If only I could take some back to America for my tomato-lovin’ Momma and boyfriend to try!

Interesting fact: Pachino is further south than the northernmost point of Africa!

In the afternoon, we traveled to a tiny beach town called Avola where we spent the afternoon relaxing and swimming in the gorgeous, crystal clear, FREEZING Mediterranean!

As if all of that weren’t enough, on Friday we visited the largest volcano in all of Europe, Mount Etna. It had just erupted on Thursday night and was still steaming when we got to the top!

Etna!

This was one of the steam vents near the volcano and the path we hiked (click on the image to see it bigger).

Me posing with one of the many mounds of snow around the volcano! The ground looked black, but it was actually just ash-covered snow because of the recent eruption. Not only that, but we had a view of all the mountains and beach!

On the way back to the hotel, I got a piece of Nutella pie (YUM!) AND got to see a fox on the side of the road! We stopped on the side of the road (in a huge van. on the side of a mountain. on a one and a half lane road. yes, it was totally safe. why do you ask?) and honked and revved the engine, and out the little fox came! He comes to the sound of buses because he lives off of scraps from humans! We waited for about a minute, and out he came. I'm pretty sure that falls into the category of wicked awesome, if I do say so myself.

That night, we had our farewell dinner at a restaurant in Oritgia and went out as a group to the Sicilian pub Salvo had been telling us about all week. On Saturday, we were on our own, so we went back to the market, got lunch, and did a little shopping before getting on the train for a 15 hour ride to Florence.

My time in Sicily was better than I ever imagined it could be. The Lord used every aspect of my trip as a blessing to me and to glorify His name in a way that only He can. Our God is so awesome, and already in just one week of being in Italy, He has opened my eyes to so many things not only about the world around me, but about Him and who I am in Him.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my blog and post comments. It is such an encouragement to me to hear from all of you. Thank you to everyone who wrote me letters to read; more than a few have made me cry! Last but certainly not least, thank you to my parents for forking over the time and money it took to make all of this possible; I love you to the moon and back.

Roma!

It is almost 11:00 PM (4:00 PM Central) of my first day in Italy, and it was absolutely incredible! When I arrived around 9:00 AM, someone from my study abroad program was at the airport to greet me and take me to my hotel in downtown Rome. There were two other students who arrived around the same time as me; a girl from UA (who I'd never met and had no idea was coming) and a guy from West Palm Beach. When we got to the hotel, we met with Francesca (another lady with study abroad) and found out that our rooms wouldn't be ready for a few more hours. And what a blessing it turned out to be! She gave us each a map of Rome, told us what we should visit, explained the extremely easy train system, and sent us on our way. By the end of the day, we had seen over a dozen major sites and had the time of our lives! Here are a few of the almost 200 pictures I took today...

Fountain in the middle of the Piazza della Repubblica, a breathtaking plaza of buildings very near our hotel. One of the many dozens of gorgeous plazas throughout Rome.

Spanish steps with the Trinita dei Monti in the background. If you look closely, there is a guy dressed up like a Spartan standing near the top of the steps. :)

My first slice hunk of real Italian pizza! It had prosciutto, spinach, and fresh parmigiano reggiano - divine! They cut it and then fold it in half before serving it. Oh, and I have no idea what in the world is going on with my upper lip in this picture...

Entrance to the Piazza del Popolo. Believe it or not, there are buildings like this everywhere! I honestly had no idea until today every building in Rome is so ornate. There are ZERO skyscrapers, and every street and alley I've seen has been beautiful.

Fontana del Tritone.

The Trevi Fountain was our final planned stop, and we definitely saved the best for last. Not only was this the most beautiful thing we saw, it was also where I stood while eating my first cup of Italian gelato! See those tiny people on the bottom right? Those are adults. Yup, it's that huge.

I never imagined I would be able to see all of that in one day, but I am so, so thankful that I did. Already, the Lord has provided for me in so many ways, and I know he will continue to do so. Thank you for your prayers and letters, they have been such an encouragement. Please pray for me as I finish exploring Rome tomorrow and make the 12-hour journey by train to Sicily. I promise to update y'all again soon!