Bari

Here I am finally blogging about our trip to Italy and let me tell you it was incredible. I'm so grateful that Jared and I were able to go. I'll try and keep the writing to a minimum and just give you a picture overload. We spent the first 4 days of our trip in Bari, Italy which is one of the cities where Jared served his mission. It took us forever to finally get there because we had a few mishaps on the way to Italy but once we finally made it, it was all worth it. Let me preface that Bari is not the most beautiful city. There is trash all over the ground, dog poop all over the side walks and it's definitely not a touristy area so people look at you extremely weird. Even though it was not the most beautiful or glamorous, Bari was probably my favorite city that we visited. We stayed with a family that was in Jared's old ward and we basically lived like Italians for a few days. I got to experience the real Italy, not the touristy Italy. We slept, ate, and did what they do on a daily basis. It was just so much fun to actually be in the home of an Italian. It just made me appreciate the rest of the trip so much more. Here is Bari...(All of the pictures are not edited so sorry but you get the rough version of them)

I wish I had a dollar for every time we saw someone making out. They really have no problem showing affection in public.

In America we have basketball courts...in Italy they have soccer fields. So cool. Oh..and notice that tiny blue car down at the bottom parked right next to the green car? Yah that is completely normal over there. And notice how the cars are parked facing different directions? It doesn't matter how you park because if someone doesn't like it, all they do is come outside, get in the car, and lay on the horn until you come out and move your car.

There are churches everywhere. You turn the corner and boom....church.

Now we enter into a city called Trani which is really close to Bari. Ettore, the husband of the family that we stayed with took us here and it was so cool. Lots of castles and churches right along the sea.

And now we go to Polignano. I have never seen bluer water. This is the epitome of Italy right here. This place was seriously incredible. You are just walking down this tiny street and then you walk onto this bridge and this is the view you get. This place was amazing. We actually hiked down to the water and skipped rocks for a bit.

One of the last days we were there, we got to go to Valeria's school concert. She is the daughter of the family that we stayed with. She and her little brother Marco are hilarious. This concert was so funny. They all sang Christmas songs in English which made me feel very much at home.

This is the lovely Marco. This kid cracked me up. I couldn't understand what he was talking about half the time but he made me laugh on a daily basis.

This is Bari the morning we were leaving to go to Naples. It was so sad to leave but I was definitely excited to experience the tourist side of Italy.

This is a presepe which is basically a nativity. The Italians go ALL OUT with their nativities. They are all over the cities as well...in the train stations, bus stations, malls, stores, food places... They were all gorgeous. The cool thing about the nativity is that the manger is always empty. They don't put the baby Jesus in the manger until the night before Christmas.

So that is a little bit of Bari for you. I completely forgot to take a picture of Jared and I with the Valentini's, the family that we stayed with but they were so incredibly nice. I can't wait to go back and visit them again.