The island at the bottom of Italy that is its own country

So, there is an island chain in the Mediterranean Ocean at the bottom of Italy (no, it's not Sicily) that really is its own nation. Comprised of several islands, only three of which are inhabited, it is very small and charming and full of historical, religious and architectural charm and importance. I especially enjoyed seeing friends there and spending some time in a place where time seems to have slowed a bit.


A masterpiece of Baroque architecture, with a dash of Arabian influence and the most pristine waters in the Med, Malta is gorgeous. Here are a few glimpses:








More ceilings which produces a crick in your neck as you stare upwards for several minutes at a time without pausing.







The floor in the Cathedral in Valleta where marble epitaphs in Latin cover the floor and pay homage to a rich and colorful past complete with the Maltese knights.








The walls of this church are covered with this beautiful carving complete with Maltese crosses. I've seen ornamental churches, but this one wins the prize.














They're everywhere! I can't escape them...

But only in Malta would there be a McDonalds in the bottom level of a 17th century Baroque bulding.

The walls of the citadel in Valletta, where the Maltese held off the invasion of the Ottoman-Turks in the 16th century.

One of the many ports in this tiny island nation.

Malta has a rich cinematic history, whihc includes the filmings of Troy, and the Count of Monte Cristo. The not so rich history includes the filming of Popeye The Movie, starring Robin Williams. It was filmed in this little village, constructed especially for the film.

This scene makes me want to live here.

More outdoor art in the walled city of Mdina.

Mdina is a beautiful walled city on top of a hill surrounded by the original walls. The streets are cobbled with large flat stones and driving is limited to the residents so as to preserve the city. It's like wandering through a set for the filming of a 16th century movie. I love the red raspberry colored door and windows.

One of the views from Mdina, looking at the dome in the next town over.

Another glimpse... and a bright navy blue door.

Okay, someday I want a house with an upstairs terrace where I too can grow oranges.

Another reason to look up.

14th Century fresco in the prison where the shipwrecked Saint Paul was imprisoned for several months.

More outdoor art--these particular pieces are everywhere and very beautiful.

The Azure Window one of the natural wonders of the world; maybe not officially, but it is.

One of the beautiful views on the island of Gozo.

Another beautiful glimpse of raspberry red.

Looking Up

Basilica di San Pietro, the Catholic Mecca, is truly a place where you feel the power of the Catholic Church. Not only do you feel it, but you see it as well. The huge square outside is one of the few places in the world where I've stood and felt very small. It's easy to see how millions can come here to be inspired.

My friend Jen and I climbed to the top of the cupola, 551 stairs. Yes, that's right--talk about the ultimate stair stepper workout. Basically, when you travel anywhere in Europe forget about wearing heels or boots, buy the cutest, trendiest pair of walking shoes you can find and wear those, 'cause you're gonna be hiking everywhere you go.

So, here's the photo tour...

Piazza di San Pietro. See, I really am small standing there.

La Pieta', one of Michealangelo's master pieces. It's just inside one of the main doors and it's breath taking in its detail and composition. It's one of my favorites. More info at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_(Michelangelo)

This is the dome. It's massive and has the most beautiful detail. One interesting thing about the basilica is that other cathedrals from throughout the world are much smaller than this one. There are plaques in the floor showing the sizes of other cathedrals such as St. Paul's in London or the National Cathedral in DC (at least they were there 7 years ago, I didn't find them this time).

Looking down from about halfway up. The mosaics are amazing and it's not the just the ceiling that that is ornamented but the floor as well in a marble mosaic of symmetry.

The view from the top, looking out over Piazza di San Pietro towards the Tiber River. It was a cold, rainy January day, but it was still very beautiful.

I noticed that I spent a lot of time looking up here. Seems they want you be looking up and contemplating the grandeur of God or the Church. I look up anyway, because ceilings here are just the beginning.

The Inauguration

So, I was in DC to finish out processing off active duty (I am now officially a civilian as of 16 Jan, woohoo!), pack for my month long vacation and attend the inauguration. Some of the photos from that day.


The 3rd Street tunnel was closed to traffic, but not human traffic as you can see. It was amazing to hearing the singing and cheering as people came up out of the tunnel. It's normally about 3-4 lanes of vehicle traffic.


My ring side seat view of the inauguration from inside the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences on 6th and E NW. They had a big screen in the main hall and filled it with as many people as wouldn't violate the fire code. There were people out in the foyer as well. It was so cool.

This was the crowd we watched the inauguration with. Everyone was pretty excited and there seemed to be a great sense of reverence for the historical-ness of the moment. It was pretty cool to be a part of it in the same city.

So, even if you don't agree with the politics of the current administration, it was still very cool. It was a day that set an example of democracy at its finest and truest to the rest of the world. It was a fine day to be in DC.

Really, I'm a Princess!

So, I spent a few days in the great state of Washington visiting nieces and nephews. It was great fun spent sledding, watching Enchanted and episodes of He-man with the nephews. One of the highlights was playing dress up. Here's the photo.


Okay, so I was the queen that day complete with homemade crown made to fit. It was great fun.

I love snow

In December it was homecoming time. It was great to be back in DC for a few days and then head off to Utah to see family and a few friends. It was fun to see siblings and nieces and nephews, oh, and parents too.

Plus it snowed a lot and I love snow. Some fun snow photos of northern Utah.

The family dogs enjoying the snow.


Me, walking through all almost 3 feet of snow. I'm kicking my leg out to show how deep the snow is. Plus, it's kind of hard to walk through that much snow.



I love snowy scenes with animals.


A beautiful snowy day looking towards the mountains to the east of my parents' house. It was so pretty that day. I loved it.

Okay, enough of the boring stuff--on to the next adventure!

My apologies

First of all, my apologies for not having written anything for a while. I had two laptops that died while in Afghanistan. I sent the newest one still covered by the warranty back and was waiting for the check to come in order to buy a new one. Then I traveled for a month to Italy, Malta and Kenya, so I was completely out of the loop.

Now, I'm in a place where there is great internet and a brand new Sony laptop (Boo on the two HP laptops that died), and I'm now able to update the blog. So, I will share a bit more of Afghanistan and then my trip to Utah to see family and then my month long travel through Italy, Malta and Kenya. There will be multiple posts today covering different aspects of my life over the past few months. I hope you enjoy.

P.S. My Mom is doing much better. She is recovering from having a plate inserted on her clavicle so it will heal correctly and from everything else. Thanks for the prayers and support.

Home

It finally happened. I arrived back in the U.S. on Wednesday evening. Baltimore International Aiport never looked so good. After an excruciatingly long flight from Kuwait to Germany and then BWI, complete with delays and the wickedest turbulence I've ever been in, we arrived exhausted and probably a little bit smelly after traveling for close to 20 hours.

The volunteers from the USO are great and were just outside customs with smiles, handshakes, thank-yous and a little goody bag. It was humbling to have my hand shook by several people as I pushed my bags along and to feel that I was finally home.

I hopped on a plane for a 20 minute flight to Philadelphia and then hopped on another plane for an hour flight to Norfolk, where I am now. My east coast mom and dad, my cousins Jay and Sue, were waiting for me at the airport and helped me get settled in. It was so good to have family waiting for me at the airport, to get hugs and have someone else carry MY bags for a change. It was even better to finally take a shower without shoes on and use all the hot water I wanted. I didn't turn off the water to shave my legs either... Heaven.

The next morning I started the admin process for coming off active duty and returning to my real life as a civilian and a reservist once a month. I finally got to the go the dentist to check on a tooth that had been annoying me for about three months. I ended up spending the afternoon reclining in the dentist's chair getting a root canal. Not my idea of a fun way to spend my first day of freedom, but my tooth is not bugging me anymore and it was the least painful root canal I've had thus far.

I can now walk barefoot across the floor to the bathroom. I am sleeping in a comfortable bed. I can walk anywhere I want to and walk for more than two minutes before I'm at my destination. I saw one of my best friends. This is my first weekend off I've had in close to 10 months. I'm in a real home with my cousins, eating home cooked meals and sitting on a real couch. I went shopping and bought a new dress. I drank water from the tap without fear of getting some horrible waterborne parasite.

This morning after breakfast in my pjs (luxury), I sat and watched the birds and squirrels feeding in the backyard. The bird bath had ice on it and I watched a robin trying to break the ice. I watched squirrels chasing each other across the yard and up and down trees. I saw a bright orangeish-red cardinal bouncing along on the ground scooping up seeds. Heaven.

The highlight of today was raking leaves for about an hour outside this morning. It was great listening to the sound of leaves being piled up on one another, it's one of my favorite sounds. It was beautiful just being able to rake leaves.

While it's great to be home, it is a bit of an adjustment. My heart hurt last night as we drove through a shopping area and I compared it to what I left behind. We have so much and they have so little. I hope I don't start to take it for granted. I hope I remember frequently how much I am blessed with.

Life is good and the simple things in life provide the biggest pleasures. Home!

Heading Home

It's difficult to believe that a year has come and gone, however it must have because I'm sitting in Kuwait on my way home from Afghanistan. I thought last year's Thanksgiving would be the weirdest ever--Safeway's turkey dinner from a cardboard box with my parents, the ward missionaries and a couple of friends in my empty apartment that I had moved into storage the weekend before--but I think Thanksgiving in Kuwait is one for the books. Dinner was good twice, both for lunch and supper. And then three of us women traveling together played pool in MWR for an hour and afterwards watched a Cary Grant movie. Ah, Thanksgiving will never be the same again, thankfully.

A lot has happened this past year, some of it I can talk about and other parts I can't or don't really want to remember, but over all I'm really glad that I had this experience. I learned so much about myself, other people and a new place in the world. I'm sure that I will be using my experiences and learning from this past year for the rest of my life. My biggest hope coming into this was that I would help to make a difference in the world and I feel that I have.

Everyone has a role to play and even the person in the back corner of the stage must play their role well in order for the whole production to succeed, at least that's what every play director says to their cast. It may seem cliche but it's true. I was not the one out in front making decisions or going outside the wire everyday, but I supported the people who did those things and tried to make sure they had less to worry about.

I think our team did make a difference. The Farah Provincial Governor Ahmin said this a few weeks ago, "Peace doesn't have feet. It's up to us to bring it here. Peace doesn't have a voice. It's up to us to speak for it." He summed up our purpose for the past year and our ultimate goals in Afghanistan beautifully. We are hoping for peace, working for peace and in some cases giving up everything for peace.

One day while at lunch we were eating bananas, a rare treat in Farah. One of our intrepeters told us that during Taliban times bananas were not allowed in some places. We asked why. He said, because in order to eat a banana you must take its skin off, making it naked. We laughed thinking he was joking and then realized he was serious. Think about that the next time you peel a banana.

The steps to peace are small in Afghanistan, but not insignificant. There is hope and peace will one day have a strong, supported voice there.

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P.S. Okay, totally off subject: My mom fell down a flight of stairs at home a few days ago and broke her collar bone, some bones in her face and cracked a couple ribs. Thankfully, no brain damage and so far no surgery is needed because all the bones stayed together and didn't separate. However, as you can imagine she is in a lot of pain. Hopefully, she was able to leave the hospital on Wednesday. Please keep her in your prayers as she recovers. Thanks.

See you all soon at home in the U.S. Much love, Christine