In the very spot we are standing, lava used to shoot out of the crater! You can tell it has been dormant for awhile because of the plants growing on the sides. There was also a family of ladybugs on the rocks near where we are standing. This is where I almost died! Notice how the clouds had completely covered the view behind me. This is our friend Stefano. He is from Catania. You can see the different deposits from different eruptions because of their varying colors based...

We got to experience our first earthquake last night. It was nothing too spectacular. It was about 1 in the morning; we had just gotten into bed from a birthday party we went to. Amanda and I were both very tired and almost instantly went to sleep. It was during that period between being asleep and being awake that we felt the earthquake. I recognized it immediately as an earthquake, most likely due to the fact that there had been talk earlier in the day of an earthquake that happened night b...

Today we went up on Mount Etna. It was absolutely breathtaking, both literally and figuratively. It is about 40 kilometers from Cantania. We went up with Stefano. We left in the morning, with pullovers in hand, to see what God had in store for us to see. We stopped in a little town on the way there to get some breakfast. One of the workers there wanted to know were we where from, I told him Texas and he automatically likened me to Walker, Texas Ranger. He said that he shows up and throws ever...