Culture Differences and Our Trip to IKEA

First, I just wanted to say this post is just to some things about Italian culture that are just different than ours. (The pictures all have to do with alcohol, but that was not really intended to happen). The second part of it was about our trip to IKEA in Naples to get some items for our apartment in Salerno.

These pictures were all taken at an Italian mall.  As you can see the drink in the bottom left is a Virgin Mary not a Bloody Mary

This is a Burger King meal.  Yes they have beer on tap at Burger King, I had to get it because of how ridiculous it is.

This is a bar/restaurant but in the back of the picture is the playplace that you would find at McDonalds or Burger King.  They had plenty of room in the restaurant but decided to put it there.

In Salerno, it is not common to see some public displays of affection.  I did not attach any pictures because I feel that would cross the line :)  In the U.S. people would get so many stares and it is so culturally insensitive it would not happen too much.  It is just people hugging and kissing on the sidewalk or on a bench.  If you are not Italian it will surprise you every time.

In the U.S., Sunday night is a night of getting stuff together for your week, relaxing, resting before the week starts.  In Salerno, Sunday night is one of the busiest nights to go out.  You will see people the most people walking around at 1am or 2am.  I think for this reason Monday morning many stores are closed and do not follow there normal hours.

This brings me to my next point.  Stores close at all different hours here.  Sometimes stores are closed and the hours on their door say otherwise.  These are not just "mom and pop" stores in the city but chain stores outside of downtown.  When you travel to the store, be prepared.  You could travel 30 minutes and the store could be closed and have no sign of opening soon.

The culture here is so laid back.  Servers at restaurants are extremely slow.  Not in a bad way of course:) but in the way that they want you to enjoy your experience.  After a 2 to 3 hour meal, they will ask if there is anything you need.  You say, "No I am done", then you sit there for about 10 minutes, and you are like where's the check, I do not want anything else?  You have to ask, its not assumed you want to leave.

Coffee is a short shot of expresso not a relaxing drink to sit down and enjoy.  It is meant to help with digestion, give you a pick me up for the day, or give you a chance to do something with a friend.

Driving is absolutely crazy. There are no real lines in the road in the city. So even though there is enough room for two lanes of traffic, people weave in and out in cars and mopeds. This brings us to the story of us driving to IKEA to get some small furniture and things for our already furnished place.  We rented a car to go about an hour north to Naples where the IKEA is.  So after praying a prayer of safety, we started on our way.  For all the guys out there, driving here is driving how you always wanted to in the U.S. but never had the ability to.  Its like have 5 of the most aggressive drivers you have ever experienced on all sides of you at all times including the weaving moped component. We only had one person back up on the highway because he missed his exit :) Once we reached the area that the IKEA was at in Naples getting to it was another story.  There were a series of signs that look like the one below and there was no continuity between signs so you follow a few of them for a while taking turns off what looks like interstate off-ramps and then after like 5 IKEA signs you stop seeing them for the next few off-ramps.  These off-ramps are coming every 1000 feet so its rapid fire signage.  Lets just say it took 20 minutes to get to the IKEA we could see from the interstate :)

   

We finished and headed home.  The road names are small and only the to and from cities are listed.  When you traveling in a small area, two roads could go to the same place but just take a different route, so it made it difficult but we made it. I pulled into the small streets of the historic center of Salerno where we live and unloaded the stuff as quick as possible so that I would block anyone because I was double parked.  

I went uphill to get the car out of this area which was a bad idea.  I should have just gone the wrong way one-way (which I have seen Italians do so many times).  There are two cars behind me as I go uphill with mopeds coming at me with about one foot of space on each side and I had to pull the emergency brake, rev it up, and drop it to risk from stalling out and going backwards down this 60 degree incline.  I spun out a little since the street was wet from rain in front of a store with about 5 Italians watching me on the street.  This by far is expert driving, beating my advanced driving I learned in Miami a few months prior.  I do not want to do this for a very long time!

Below are some pics of the car filled to the brim of stuff we needed from IKEA and Carrefour (the Italian version of Wal-Mart).

Follow Up to Last Post

As I said in the last post, we are trying to meet a lot of students that our American students have become friends with so we can keep them connected with Agape Italia.  One unique thing that I forgot to mention in my last post is that Amanda and I got to go over to another city to meet Dylan and Chevas's friends.  We ate dinner at Raffaele's house.  We got to meet his family and friends.  They were so nice and hospitable. They picked us up at the train station and drove us to the house where we had a great time talking and singing before they took us home.  We ate fresh Mozzarella di Bufala and hot dogs with special sauces specially designed by Raffaele.  It was a great time where we got to know some the parents of Raffele and get to have Amanda and I's first home experience in Italy.

The other amazing thing that has been happening that I forgot to mention is Amanda has really gotten to connect with a lot of girls on project.  They really look up to her as an older sister.  She has really gotten to have an impact in her small group Bible study.  Small groups, discipleship and Bible study are things that she loves to do and it has been a great asset to our team this summer.  She has connected with a lot of the girls in a way that she will get to have a special connection for years to come.  Every night, the girls beg for "Storytime with Amanda"  where she gets to tell a funny or meaningful story about her life.  A lot of the things she has gone through make the girls laugh or point them to Jesus because of how he has changed her life.

Chevas, Chiara, Sasha, Dylan, Rodney and Amanda at Raffele's house.

As Summer Project Continues

Girls talking some girls and a guy they met on campus.

Playing poker with some Italian friends

At the beach with some Italian friends 

America versus Italy soccer match.  We were losing bad until some Italians switched to our team.

Kevin, one of the Americans, doing some of his magic tricks

So it has been two more weeks.  It has really flown by.  This week is our last week on campus and we are really trying to get all the friends we have met to be friends with all the people that will be on STINT next year or people that are on the long term team here.  The above pictures are just a few representations of our time here.  It is hard to always have a camera on campus or remember to use it to take pictures of all our friends.  A lot of the summer project students have tagged me in pictures on facebook also.

I have met many friends in the last few weeks.  We have gotten to share a lot of our lives with them.  It is exciting to know that I will have more time here in Italy with them.  My friend Pasquale had to go back to Algeria to work.  I was very excited to give him my Bible since he did not have one and it has been hard on him to be there.  I am excited to get to spend more time with him when he comes back next month since he works one month and then is off for a month.  He is very honest and that is what I appreciate about him.  We hope to discuss more of the Bible and life when he returns.

I have gotten to become friends with two  guys named Davide who are friends.  They have been so nice to us and invited us to play soccer and to the beach as you can see in the above pictures.  Their hospitality is very encouraging.  They were really excited to talk deeper things of life and we got to share the central message of the Bible with them.  They had never really read the Bible before so were excited to hear about it and were glad we talked about it.  They said sometimes we talk about unimportant things so much it was good to talk about something important.  They are also very transparent.  Being here in Italy, I have learned more to appreciate being open and wanting to sacrifice my own needs for others.  I love how genuine the people are here.  They are open and I enjoy being open with them.

Amanda and I have gotten to encourage and be a leader to all the students this project also.  It has been great getting to know them and being there while they have grown in their faith.  It has been good getting to see them share their testimony about what God has done in their life and just the good news of Jesus Christ and how his gospel changes our lives when we trust his sacrifice and live for Him and not the world.

Please pray for the group that we can continue to spread the good news of Jesus and what he did for all of us on the cross.  Pray that we would get our friends connected with Americans that are staying in Italy longer.  Pray for Amanda that she has energy and pray for both of us to not frustrated some things that have not worked out to what we thought.  

The First Week Or So

The guys of summer project on our day off

The Girls of summer project on our day off

Its hard to believe that it has already been a week and a half here in Italy.  Today, we get a little free time because of the Italian independence holiday.  We have been on campus now for about a week.  We as a summer project have gotten to share the gospel many times with students.  We had a lot of students go to our barbecue on this past Thursday also.  I did not have the best time on campus this week.  I was pretty sick on last Tuesday and slept for like 4 hours and fought that off.  Also we missed part of Wednesday because we had to turn this document into the post office requesting to live in Salerno.  Those things coupled with the language barrier equalled a frustrating time on campus.  The language barrier is pushing me to study more Italian even before we start formal language learning with our class or tutor. For now LiveMocha will have to do.  Its awesome, free, and like Rosetta Stone.  

Since the first six weeks our primary goal is the summer project, we have to try to find English learners as they do.  The great thing about the summer project is we are really learning how to be servant leaders and getting to help them in sharing their faith, some for the first time.  I have to remember I am here for the long haul and to have patience with building relationships with Italians.  I did get to spend time with Pepe who has known the STINTers (11-month interns) since September.  I am excited to get to be his friend in the future. I did get to have some good time on Friday playing basketball with Davide who I met at the barbecue and has known the STINTers for 2 months..  That was definitely the highlight of last week.  I hope to continue to hang out with him, as he spoils us because he speaks great English.  

I hope to update you every week during this season.  Its tough because we have a full schedule. 

Pictures Finally

Us in Atlanta

Our Plane

1st night in Salerno

Training

Campus

We are here!

We have arrived in Salerno! After leaving at 6pm eastern time from Atlanta on 5/18 and we got to Salerno after taking two planes and a 3 hour bus ride at 5pm the next day.  Salerno is 6 hours ahead so there was about 17 hours of total travel time!  All of our 11 bags got to Salerno okay along with all the students bags which is a total answer to prayer.  We did not have to pay any for extra bags because the 7 other men other than me on the summer project we came with totally served us by checking in one of the bags and being responsible for moving the bags to Salerno. We have been pretty much been settling in since then and do a lot of training with the summer team that the year long interns have been doing.  

We got to witness an outreach that one of the churches that partners with the ministry and the other Christian ministry on campus put on at the hotel the project stays in last night.  Students were not the main focus so there were not many english speakers there for our students for summer project to talk with.  I did get to meet Pastor Antonio who is the other pastor we will work with other than Pastor Dominico.  

Today was our first day on campus.  We got to do about 2 hours of prayer walking as well as learn about where everything is.  One of the things that we do not want neglect this summer is prayer.  We are calling God to act and preparing our hearts for ministry when we pray.  It is a necessary part of ministry.

We have some pictures that we will post at a later time.  We have currently misplaced our camera cord in all our bags!

5 More Days To Italy!!!!

We are counting down the days.  There are 3 full days until we leave Saturday morning and 5 until we leave for Italy.  We are packing, getting bank accounts set up, planning for babies in Italy, trying to finish our New Testament Survey class, and trying to adequately spend time with all our family.  Between those things and all the ones in between, we are busy.  There is so much you have to think about before you leave the country, let alone move to another one. 

We have been eating at a lot of places that we really like that we will not get to eat in Italy.  I am a huge fan of Pei Wei so we got to eat there with my family a few weeks ago.  We have gotten our share of Five Guys Burgers and Fries and Jason's Deli's Ranchero Wrap with no jalapenos of course, right Amanda ;).  The one that got me was Jeremiah's Italian Ice.  Its only in Orlando area.  The "gelato" they have is good, but it knocks the real gelato of Italy.  I like Jeremiah's but does not compare to the real gelato of Italy.  Amanda is going to miss it though.  She will just have to get used to the real thing;)

There has been errand nightmares.  When I say errand nightmares it means store clerks not knowing what the heck they need to do.  I had to go back to a T-mobile store because the store's way of switching from post-paid cell phone plan(regular) to pre-paid(pay as you go) was different than customer service.  After much arguing they took back my extra SIM card that I bought :).  RadioShack is supposed to know everything about everything and help you buy the right product.  I found that was not true when I bought a European Power Adapter.  As soon as I got home, I found it does not work in Italy!  We bought the right ones online, but had to take the other ones back.

We found out that our financial support goal is going to go up by 10% so our goal is going to be about $8300 give or take.  That in some ways has been hard to take because as soon as we reached 100% we have to raise more for the new Walton.  In a lot of ways, we trust that the Lord has brought us this far, He is going to do the rest.  In a few others, thats easier said than done.  We are just ready to do what we have said we want to do for the last 8-9 months.  In a lot of ways we feel like we are starting the first day of school going to Italy.  We feel excited to go but there is a lot of nervousness about everything working out and about doing ministry. I am learning daily to give everything over to the Lord, everyday.  Well, need to go and pack some more suitcases.  I look forward to keep you updated.