verona. (6/4/11)

At breakfast, I met a group of Texas Tech students (yay Texas!) who were studying architecture in Verona/other parts of Italy, so that was kind of cool. Since I didn't have too much planned for the day, I started off climbing uphill for a bit for a pretty good view of Verona before heading down to the city center. At Juliet's house/balcony, there were a lot of tourists taking pictures while rubbing the breast of her statue (awkward, but supposedly it brings you true love?...). There was also a crazy amount of graffiti on the walls leading to the balcony...it was kind of cool-looking, actually. At the nearby Piazza Erbe/Piazza Fruta, I munched on some strawberries, saw a statue of Dante, and then headed down Via Mazzini, the main shopping street.
For a little while, I went into the Disney store and lost myself for a bit. It's funny--it made me feel like I had been transported back home, I guess to the Galleria, and I momentarily forgot I was in Verona until I left the store again, haha.
At Piazza Bra (where there was a mini-Colosseum of sorts, haha), I just sat for a while in the park and people-watched. I forgot how fun and relaxing it can be, haha. I ended up near this building (a church?) next to the park, and I guess it was the place in town to get married: in the course of an hour or so, I saw 7 or 8 brides (no joke). Crazy, right?! I've never seen so many different newlyweds celebrating and taking pictures in the vicinity of each other, haha. Some of their wedding cars were even the same...haha. Also, their dresses were pretty interesting; some just looked like prom dresses and were black, magenta, or red instead of the ordinary white.
As I sat there, I fell into a very reflective mood...seeing the brides reminded me of Chris Rice's "Smile (Just Wanna Be With You)," which talks about yearning for the day when we finally get to be with Jesus forever. Another thought that came to mind was what the speaker at this year's Epic Anthology said about God waiting excitedly for us on that day, looking at us with such love and adoration, the way a groom looks at his bride on their wedding day. I can't wait :) I also reflected on my whole trip thus far as I rested there. With my mind filled with so many thoughts, I really wanted to journal but didn't have any paper on me at the time. Lame! For lunch, I had some scrumptious pumpkin ravioli, and then I wandered over to the Arsenale and Castelvecchio (Old Castle), where there was a bridge spanning the river, and it felt really nice to just sit there for a while.
I did some more people watching back in Piazza Bra, mostly because my legs were tired. Man, I thought the smokers were bad in Argentina last year...but it's even worse here in Europe. It seems like EVERYONE smokes, and they start really young, too! I saw some kids who looked around 12 or 13 years of age who were smoking together, and it just made me sad. It seems impossible to break that cycle when smoking is so embedded in their culture...gross. Something random: I also saw a TON of Hard Rock Cafe shirts that day in Verona from a decent number of cities/places...like Barcelona, California, Russia, England, etc. I also saw Anna from my Padova hostel, which was totally unexpected. It reminded me of when Michelle and I saw the "headphones girl" (a girl we saw on the train to Versailles) when we were in Venice. What are the chances, right?
That afternoon in the piazza, there was some sort of event where people with disabilities had the chance to perform music in small groups. It reminded me of the MI kids at Rogers, as well as Best Buddies at Bellaire. It'd been a while since I'd seen people like that, and just seeing them tugged at my heartstrings.
Back at the hostel, I got ahold of a bit of Internet, and then I was going to go back to Piazza Erbe for a concert that night, but we got rained in, so I don't even know if the concert happened. Either way, I stayed in my room and met a few new girls: Daphne from the Netherlands and Natalie and Francesca from Germany. Daphne was really talkative, haha, but it was fun to get to know them a bit before heading to sleep.