One week down, countless to go.

So it’s been one week in Firenze Italia, and already I’m wondering why I never took the time to care about this place before.

My feet are covered in blisters, my legs in mosquito bites, I’m exhausted, sweaty, and sore, and yet I am the happiest girl that could have ever lived.

What can I say about Florence, what can I put into words to describe the sights, history, culture, and just immense beauty of this city that I am now to call my home?

St. Faustina said it best: “Can pen write down that for which many a time there are no words? But you give order to write, O God; That is good enough for me.”

I have found myself now in the midst of not only a strange city that seems to foreign, but also amongst people who are also foreign to me. Amongst all the preparations, the paperwork, the meetings, and the lists of information, there is one thing they forget to tell you.

You will feel completely and utterly alone.

It’s a difficult thing to travel 5,000 miles and end up on the other side in a beautiful place completely void of everything and everyone that you are familiar with. I was scared… no I was terrified. As emotional and stressful as this first week has been, I had to find comfort in the fact that I was surrounded by beauty in a place full of history, and distracted myself with learning and appreciating all of it. What I should have been doing is distracting myself with prayer.

In such a Catholicism centered city I was too preoccupied with appreciating it that I forgot to actually be a Catholic. So when everything started to fall apart I thought I knew why, I wanted to hit myself over the head for being stupid enough to think that I could get through any of this without the only person who could follow me around the world whenever and wherever I decided to go.

But that’s when, after calling my mom mid breakdown, she emailed me saying that she was still praying for me, and to not give up hope because everything would work out.

And that’s when I realized that I wasn’t actually alone. Things started to fall back into place. I found a perfect apartment at a great price, I found friends that won’t abandon me, other Catholics that appreciate what I appreciate in this incredible city, and so much more. And after every little thing I thanked God for being there for me even when I wasn’t for him.

And the reason why is that I’m not the only one praying for myself. I have an entire community of people back at home, lifting up their prayers, taking time out of their day, to ask God to help me out. That kind of love overwhelms and humbles me, and makes me wonder why I never thought about or noticed it before.

I know that I am never alone, because God is always with me, but I am also never alone because his love will not only follow me, but will also stay right at home, and it will never abandon me.

That’s what I learned this first week in Italia, and I’m sure there are many more lessons to come.

Ciao, A presto

Felicity