resting and exploring

We have been doing a lot of this...

And missing family...

And leaning a lot about the rich culture and adjusting to the differences....that's a whole other post to come later.
We also got to take a trip to our soon to be Home Town on Monday. It was absolutely beautiful driving up through the mountains and through a few quaint, old, old villages. It is only about 55 miles but it takes 2 hours from where we are staying with our supervisors in Ajaccio because of the mountains. It is a uphill, windy, narrow trip. Our apartment is on the 3rd floor with no elevator but it isn't to far from downtown and has beautiful view of the mountains. We were introduced to a few people, one if which owns a pottery store and they had amazing stuff. Hopefully Matt caught on to all my birthday hints....well hopefully he remembers my birthday this year. :)
Today the girls did some walking through downtown, down around the school and the churches. Corsican's are strong in their catholic Faith and have many, many Saints that they worship, with Mary leading the way. They believe that she lived a sinless life and will interced for you to the father.
They also dedicated the town to Mary for protection and have days set aside where they will put hundreds of candles in front of this statue in old town square.

In most of the buildings there is a statue of St. Mary or like in the picture below, St. Peter. St. Peter is holding the keys to heaven since they believe that he was the first one to enter. They put these sculptures in the buildings for protection and mercy.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born here and there are festivals that revolve around him as well as many Statues of him around town.


And just for fun a few from around town: