marie antoinette the porcupine

I may have mentioned that this weekend was a pretty major holiday for Perugia but now that it's over and I found out a bit more than just "hey there's free cake!" I can tell you what I now know.
It was the patron saint of Perugia's holiday, and Perugia has 4 patron saints. The
one being celebrated on the 29th was Constantius. He was the first bishop of Perugia, Italy at age 30. He evangelized his people, cared for the poor, and lived a simple life that shamed the ruling classes. Imprisoned, tortured and martyred with many of his flock in the persecution of Marcus Aurelius. He was beheaded in 170. (thanks for the info Aunt Pat!)
Anyway, over the weekend while I was busy city hopping from Orvieto to Pisa, Perugia was bustling with an antique market, and tables set up all over town with various goods. Then yesterday was the big day where every bakery in town makes their version of the holiday's specialty cake, which is a round bread with fruits and nuts in it. So on the way to class (keep in mind, Monday's are my worst days ever with 5 classes straight through from 11am-5pm) I see this giant white tent with swarms of Perugians gathering around. Young and old Italians were out with their families and friends, because apparently everything is closed due to the holiday. Most food stores were open though, lucky for me since all I had was bread and nutella after the weekend. So anyway, under the tent were each of the bakery's entries of the cake, and everyone could go in, taste and take free pieces home, and then judge them. Too bad I had to run to class and could only get a good glimpse of the little kids with their giant balloons and old women with their fur coats and crazy heeled shoes.
A few of my friends went to the one church where the custom for the holiday is to take the sweet bread and lay it at the feet of the patron saint's statue. If you do this, he will find you a husband. I love all the little religious traditions!
Last night we went to see Marie Antoinette in the old opera house and I absolutely loved it. The costumes were gorgeous and the music was fantastic... it was pretty much a crazy rock video of her life. After the movie we went to my friend Meg's apartment to eat a chocolate porcupine that they had bought earlier in the day at one of the bakeries. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever and I named it Marie Antoinette because we proceeded to chop it's head off and eat it. Apparently it cost 20euros but it was absolutely delicious so oh well.
how cute.
That's all I really had for you, just wanted to share in the cuteness of the porcupine. This week is pretty low key, my friends and I are all taking turns cooking for each other and hopefully we will be going to either Sienna, Spoleto, or Gubbio this weekend.
Hope all you Elon kids have a great start to the semester!
Miss you!

pisa and orvieto

It has been one of those weekends that you would normally associate with a student studying abroad. A random city in one day, another city in another. A few train or bus layovers. Maybe even a few fines. Although, I think we could have done without the fines.
So yesterday, Liz, Jackie, and I went to Pisa, one of those places that you just have to go to if you are in Italy. I mean, everyone knows about the leaning tower of Pisa. Not only is it one of the 7 wonders of the world, its just something you can bring up in conversation and everyone will know what you are talking about. Not quite like "hey I went to Orvieto last weekend" (but we'll get to that later).
So after a bus and train ride, a quick break and Baci (the perugina chocolate) McFlurry (no I did not buy one) at the train station, and another, what felt like billion-hour ride, to Pisa--- we made it! Pisa was really quiet and not very crowded since we went on a Friday, which was much nicer. The river was gorgeous, especially with the buildings along the side, and a very small church at the one intersection. It reminded me of the incredibly small church in Sevilla (maybe the smallest church in the world? I can't remember).
So we made our way to the tower, following the incredibly touristy signs with a picture of a leaning tower (ha) and a little person with an arrow. It was probably one of the most touristy things ever, but what could you expect. It was pretty incredible to see, although in most of my pictures, the leaning tower really doesn't look like it is leaning and I'm not sure how that happened.
The duomo next to the tower, as well as the baptistery (which we didn't go in) were also beautiful. I feel like in a month or so I will probably not want to look at another duomo again, but they are all so distinct that so far it has been a unique experience for all of them. Plus, the stories behind the construction, frescoes, patron saints, or what have you, are all quite interesting.
So then, since it took us so long to get there, we realized we had to do things, and do them fast since all the buildings closed at 5:30... eeks! Luckily, there is honestly not much to do in Pisa besides what was in the Duomo piazza... which includes climbing the leaning tower, of course. So, we proceeded to the ticket booth, bought a ticket for the tower (15E! oy) and entrance ticket to the statue cemetery which was really neat. The men at the ticket booth/baggage claim were probably the funniest Italian museum workers we have met so far. Since we are all students, we pay for our tickets separately and this must be annoying for them because they always ring things up together. The man at the booth asked if we were americano, and then told us that he knew because (we had been speaking as much italian as we could) americans never pay together "always separate!! italians always pay together, friends go out, we pay together!" which I had also heard about when italians go to restaurants, someone always covers the bill- no separate checks here! He kept joking with us, and then the man who checked Liz and Jackie's bag was also quite funny.
But anyway, we then proceeded to climb the tower, which honestly, is a must do. The view from the top was incredible, and even climbing it was a unique experience. You could feel the tower leaning as you climbed up to the top, it made me really dizzy, and even when you get to the top the whole surface was leaning and it was kind of awkward (and scary!) to walk around.
So after climbing the tower, we went to the statue cemetery, which was incredibly quiet (there were sooooo few people there in Pisa in general, it was great) and walked around. The cemetery and museum area had actually been ruined during WWII, and the frescoes on the wall had been pretty much ripped off and destroyed due to fires and instead of seeing the usual vibrant colors and designs, you could only see the original tracings and bare minimum paint. It was actually really cool to see, especially after learning how frescoes are created step-by-step in my italian renaissance art class!
After that we figured that we should just head back to Florence (which was where we had stopped to switch trains back at the beginning of our journey) for dinner. So in following Frommer's guide, we found two closed restaurants (one due to health problems... hm, thanks Frommer's!) and instead, found our own cute little trattoria which was amazing (I swear I have not had one bad meal since I've gotten here!) and not expensive by Florence standards. After eating we went back to catch the train and ended up on an inter-city train (or over night train-- less stops, much nicer seats) and then had to pay a stupid fine of 10E because we were on the wrong one. Just when you think you have the public transportation down, they throw something confusing in there- and trust me, it's hard enough to ask the train people how to get to where you want to go, let alone any other type of question.
The train was still headed toward Perugia, but we had to pay the difference of an "ordinario" train and the fancy pants one. But looking back, if we hadn't taken that train, we may not have gotten back-- I think it was the last one to Perugia. The train also had some weird problem where all the lights went out and I saw one of the green vested train workers run down the side aisle with a flashlight... but that's another story. Anyway, we got back to Perugia and then no buses were running! They were done for the night :\ so we had to take a taxi (almost as scary as riding in one in NYC) and made it home safely.
.........................
Only to wake up at 6 am this morning to go to Orvieto!!! A city that I thought was maybe an hour or so away from us... yeah right. Try two and a half. Not to mention a few more transportation mix ups. This morning, since we were at the bus station so early, we couldn't buy tickets (the office was closed) so we rode black (without paying) and three of us got fined by the APS people, who I couldn't understand at all, and I'm pretty sure threatened to send us to jail because we tried walking away without our stupid receipt... but we had to catch the train! 30 stupid euros, oh Italy, it's a love-hate relationship. So frustrating!!! But I guess we've all learned our lessons... somehow buy tickets when you can't buy them? For the rest of the trip we were thinking up ways in which the Italian government could "fine" us. Don't step on that curb, 10E fine. Don't climb that tree, 15E fine. Spitting? that's jail right there.
Mishaps aside, Orvieto was absolutely gorgeous and worth the trip.
When finally we got to the Orvieto train station (after a few train layovers that we were trying to avoid by leaving at 6am in the first place, a missing backpack, and a few other issues) we took the funicoulare (see picture below) up the hill to where the main sights were.

The city was basically what I think of when someone mentions Italy to me. Up in the mountains, Umbria region of course, beautiful views, cute buildings and restaurants, etc. Nothing like Pisa, the ultimate tourist trap... although Pisa was also very beautiful, everyone goes there for one reason- the leaning tower. Orvieto was so much more, just a peaceful and lively city. There were so many fun little shops with masks or swords or confetti for us to throw in the street (most cities in the region had confetti because of holidays or celebrations)...

We found a park, and overlook (see above), which was so worth all the transportation problems and maybe even the stupid 30E bus fine. We took tons of pictures, some of us climbed a tree (I stayed close to the ground...), and admired the beautiful views. There was even a monastery out in the distance!
I love Italy, the simplest things are the most beautiful.
Then we went on to see the duomo, which was gorgeous, and believe it or not, on the cover of my art renaissance book which was pretty exciting to see (I had no idea.. we turned the corner, and there was my textbook!).
Then we went on an underground tour of the city. The Etruscans had built an underground part of the city in order to get fresh well water (see picture below), as well as several other uses such as cement, water purification (an ancient brita filter!) military protection... the underground part goes all throughout the city and now citizens of Orvieto use it for their wine cellars and many parts of it are privately owned now.

(old Etruscan well... the slots on the side were stairs at one point-- they would take planks of wood and slowly climb down, one at a time)

I posted a few random pictures here, but you can find even more pictures from my day trips to Pisa and Orvieto all on my yahoo photos page. The link to that is on the left side of this page under links. You may also see that I have added links to my two friends, Evan and Todd who are also studying abroad this semester, in Japan and Egypt. Feel free to visit their blogs and read up on their incredible stories and adventures as well!
I hope you enjoyed this latest installment, sorry it was so long... I can't believe I still have all day tomorrow (can't wait to sleep in and lounge around... and do homework of course). I miss everyone at home, I hope you all had a great January (I can't believe it's going to be over so soon). If any of you have a chance, I haven't heard from a lot of you and I'd love to hear from you even if it's just a quick hello... I miss you all so much!
Buona Notte!

snow!!!

This is unrelated to anything Italian but... it's snowing!!!
here are some pictures I took from our porch, because I didn't want to go any further:



I know it's just snow, but I'm in Italy and everything is ten times prettier here!
Although, now it is also ten times slippier (is that a word... ten times more slippery?) so I'm going to basically slide all the way to my test tomorrow-- although it is uphill so that should be interesting. Boo test. I think it's funny that every italian class here has their tests planned out so that we all take them on the exact same day.
The free pizza last night was delicious (we got a whole pizza each- like personal sized ones) and my friends and I spent a good 2 hours at the restaurant telling bad jokes and drinking lots of free coca cola (which is really expensive here).
This weekend I'm planning on staying around Perugia except for taking the train to Pisa with Liz and Jackie on Friday so that should be fun. We'll see the leaning tower... and yeah that's all I know about Pisa so far, but don't worry I'll consult some travel books first.
Apparently this weekend is a big celebration here in Perugia because it's the patron saint (I should look up who that is) of Perugia's holiday? So there is a giant open market on Saturday with lots of free food (supposedly) and the best thing is on Monday all the pasticcerias (bakeries) are closed because they have a giant baking competition where everyone goes to taste the cakes and vote on which bakery makes the best cake. Whether all this is true or not is based on how well my roommate translated her italian professor in class so for all we know it could be in Rome and cost 100E a person, but if she heard right and there's free cake, I'm totally there! :D But apparently monday is a holiday and the Umbra Institute (where I go to school if you haven't already figured that out) is the only place open... so go us.
Now I should get back to studying. I'll update with highlights from Pisa and the (hopefully) free cakes and food sometime this weekend.
Buona notte!

back from Florence

This weekend was the first of many upcoming trips to Florence. Going there with the knowledge that I would be back not only with my parents but with my art history class, I didn't really stress the need to see many famous sights like David or the Ufizi (art museum). Instead, my friends and I consulted a guidebook and saw other sights that were equally interesting (and probably less crowded).
We arrived in the city around noon and immediately got lost trying to find our hostel. Other friends were staying at the same one so they gave us directions and after a quick lunch stop, we found the hostel- had a little misunderstanding and had to go to an internet cafe to print the reservation that I had received only a few hours before.
Finally we checked in and the hostel wasn't what I was expecting at all. I had pictured something like the bedroom in Annie with thousands of beds in a giant white washed room with no sheets or character or anything. Instead we were in a small but comfortable room for 6 people, each with many blankets on our beds. The hostel was clean and nice and overall safe- no problems. And it was about 15E a night, so not too bad, considering we booked it the night before we left!
On Friday we went straight to the Duomo and wandered around inside before going up the top of the tower to see the great view of the city. Florence is very different from Perugia, not only because it is a larger city, but because of the architecture and set up of the buildings, piazzas, and streets. After spending only a few days there, I realized how glad I am to be here in Perugia with the medeival architecture and wall around us. We are far less croweded, less expensive, and even after a few weeks I am feeling very comfortable living here. Florence was a different story.

(view from the top of the tower)

We kept getting lost even though I had a map... eventually we got the hang of it, but not really until Sunday. Luckily, our hostel was in a good location, at least 5 minutes from the Duomo so that was really handy.
After seeing the Duomo we reserved tickets for a "secret routes" tour of the Palacio Vecchio- the old palace- for the next day. The tour was really neat because we got to go through all the secret passageways and see the prince's secret rooms. The best part of the tour was when we went above the ceiling of the great hall, and if you know anything about italian architecture, the walls and ceilings are always covered with large paintings. Well I never gave it that much thought how they hold the paintings up on the ceiling, but we saw the lever and pulley type system from up above and it was really incredible.
We also went to a smaller church, Carmine, to see a famous fresco; went to the Boboli gardens which were quite beautiful and also saw the porcelain and fashion exhibit. Walking around Florence was an attraction in itself, as the bridges across the water were probably my favorite part. Apparently Perugia is near some type of lake (which I may have seen from the train) but other than that we're not near any water. The one famous bridge, Ponte Vecchio (see below), was like a giant shopping mall over water-- there were mainly jewlery, gold, stores and several vendors selling things from purses to dolls to postcards- so many things!
We also went to the open air market which was HUGE and I look forward to going back during my next trip. Unfortunately, we went on Sunday and the food stands were not open- apparently you can get traditional Tuscan specialties for a good price.
Everything in Florence is so expensive and so touristy-- the people in the shops only speak english to you when they realize that you're not Italian... it's frustrating. We found a few good places to eat that were decently priced... I finally had some lasagna it was good :) We also found a really good homemade (key word there) gelato place that was reasonably priced. I had caffe and chocolate mousse the first time and raspberry and a dark chocolate the second time- it tasted just like dark chocolate raspberry jellies... mmmmm.
Now I'm back here in Perugia and happy to be back despite being about 100E less and extremely tired. This week is going to be spent around here only, this weekend I want to go to the Perugina chocolate factory (Perugia's own chocolate factory) and posibbly the art museums... Starting tonight I have to go watch movies for my italian cinema class at 7pm.. I also want to go back to the opera/movie house to see Marie Antoinette. The first free pizza night sponsered by the Umbra Institute is tomorrow, so I'm definetely going to that!
I'll post if anything interesting or exciting comes up. Hope everyone else had a great weekend, hope to talk to you all soon!
Ciao!

quick update before florence!

I realize I haven't posted during any of the days this week, which is strange since I was on such a roll posting nearly every day.
Well, it's probably because classes are in full swing and since I am taking 5 classes, I have been slightly overwhelmed by the amount of work (and heavy books I've had to carry up and down hills on my back). There has also been nothing of real note to post about.
Sure there are daily things, interesting things of note, but nothing that require a full entry to talk about. So instead, I will try to sum up all of the "juicy" things that have happened in the past few days in this one entry.
The last thing on note in this blog is my journey to Assisi. Since then I have gone on a small tour of Perugia led by Zach, one of the student associate workers in the Umbra Institute. He studied here a few years back and now works for the institution- he knows EVERYTHING about perugia. He is the one that writes the little guidebooks for us... he even has his own vineyard and makes (crappy) wine. His tour was really interesting and we learned about why Italians in the Umbrian region don't put salt in their bread (salt wars against the pope) and other small little stories about famous writers and politicians who travelled through or lived in this region.
As I mentioned, classes started and after a little difficulty, and being placed on the waiting list (luckily I was the first name on it) for the cinema class, I was placed into the class by tuesday. My Art Renaissance teacher seems interesting, I am always trying to place her accent- german perhaps? My psychology professor is incredibly nice and interesting- she is irish and I love her accent. And finally, my food cultures professor is undoubtedly german and he won't let us forget it. I love that class. A few of my classes have field trips built in to the classes and for the Art class we are going to Florence for the weekend to see many art museums and architecture which should be amazing. And the food class includes a day trip to tuscany and we are going to learn how to make a traditional tuscan feast. However, the class is not a cooking class- we learn primarily about the functions and histories of many different foods- so far it is extremely interesting. We've learned a lot about salt (actually a lot about salt in every tour I've been on so far) and how the term "salary" comes from salt, because it's such an important commodity.
Classes aside, there have been a lot of fun experiences with food. My friend Anthony is an amazing cook and we have all (a group ranging from 3-5 sometimes) been meeting at different apartments and cooking up different pasta dishes. We made homemade sauce the other night and it was absolutely amazing.
We went to the cinema in town on Monday- they show movies in english with italian subtitles (which is great to practice italian-- and I hate dubbing so this is much better!) every monday and this week's film was The Devil Wears Prada. Next week I'm going to see Marie Antoinette :) The ticket price is only 4euro and it's in an old opera house. We sat on the third level in one of those private boxes-- it was gorgeous and absolutely worth the 4euro!
I will be seeing many movies here since my cinema class meets every monday to watch a mandatory movie. They look like really interesting movies- the class is not quite what I expected since we are learning primarily about the culture and history of Italy THROUGH films produced during different time periods- but I think it is really interesting so far, and I really like the professor, who is also my Italian professor- he's a great teacher and I feel like I'm really picking up the language, which really comes in handy since I am *ahem* in Italy. Especially for getting around the city and everything.
On a travel note, I am posting this whole garbled mess before I leave bright and early tomorrow morning with a few friends for Florence! We are staying over for two nights, I booked a hostel online but who knows how that works out. I have some back ups and I'm sure we'll be fine. I'm really excited except I am trying to write down all the possible things we can do. Since I'll be back with my art class and probably my parents I won't stress seeing everything.
My friends and I are also booking some sort of cabin/camping situation for Venice in February which is during Carnevale- a major celebration similar to Mardi Gras. Everything books up really fast and is much more expensive which is why we're going with the cabin if nothing else. It should be fun as long as we get to go. I plan on trying to go to Venice at least twice since I want to visit Murano island and see glass blowers and maybe even take a class (is that even possible?)
We are all trying to preplan our trips as much as possible to get cheap rates and figure out what weekends are best for everyone's schedule. As for pre-planned trips, I signed up for the Amalfi Coast trip through the institute, and made the list! Hooray! Capri, Pompeii, Naples, and gorgeous blue water here I come!
But first, on to Florence! I'll update you all on my weekend when I return. Have a fantastic weekend everyone! :)
Ciao!

Hiking in Assisi

After a good night's sleep I am ready to write about the events of yesterday. This will probably be a bit of a long entry just because it is one of the first "trips" I have taken so far in Italy and (while it will not be the last) it was definitely an amazing experience.
The trip really began when Jackie told me that a few people we know were planning to go to Assisi and hiking up the mountains. They had extended the invitation so we decided to go as well.
We met at Piazza Italiano around 7:45am yesterday morning in order to catch the bus to the train station. We missed the train by mere seconds and sat around the train station for a little over a half an hour, drinking cappuccinos, and having a pretty good time.
The public transportation in Italy (at least in Umbra) is so much cleaner and nicer than it is in the US, the train was really comfortable and spacious-- we weren't even sure that we were on second class. The train ride was barely 25 minutes and soon we were in Assisi. We were looking for a particular Piazza because that is where we could find the start of the trail we were planning to hike. This is a famous hiking trail because it has the "best views" and brings you to a small nearby city called Spello. The trail was a total of 10 miles... and we were pretty pumped about it. However, we got a little lost trying to find the actual main city of Assisi. When getting off the train, we could have just taken a bus but we decided to walk (which turned out to be a much nicer time) through a maze of fields and random hostels in the countryside. There was a lot of fog in the morning which gave everything an eerie look. So that was fun, yelling "macchina!" (car) every five seconds, gazing at the landscapes and playing with the soil, which in our region is soooo fertile and amazing to touch and make little animals out of (like unicorns).

So we finally found the town of Assisi, following in a little group of bicyclists and the numerous statues of Francis of Assisi. The town is so different from Perugia, even though we are basically neighbors. It's as if everything is dedicated to Saint Francis, birds on wires over your heads. Statues everywhere regarding his miracles and life. It was a fun trip because we had a biology major, Margaux, (pointing out the types of trees and flowers- I finally found out the name for those tall green trees that I really like: cypress trees) and a history major, Dan, who was telling us all about the town and about Saint Francis.
Once we found the main town we wandered around for a little bit taking tons of pictures and looking in a bunch of the little religious shops at all the tiny monk statuettes and crosses. The town of Assisi is definitely not a one time thing, and I am totally going back to see the frescos and several other main towns in the city.

After a delicious quick lunch of Torta al Testo (which is a very thin toasted bread- not quite like those you'd eat with a panini) we were off on the trail! We finally found where it started and began climbing, and climbing, and climbing. I am so out of shape, but most of us were moving along slowly. Mainly because of the nonstop bikers that kept coming down the mountain, which must have been incredibly exhilarating (also something that I would never ever do). The fog kept clearing and by the time we made it to one point, we turned around and there in front of us was Assisi. It was absolutely incredible, no picture that I could ever take would portray how amazing everything looked.
We then continued to hike only to find a strange little home that had an underground trail, we went in but we only had one flashlight between the 7 of us and it was really tight and creepy so I ran out... but the others said it led to an underground well. It was incredible to see so many things built up into the mountain and even in the town of Assisi and think about how old everything is in Italy. In the town, there were little dated blocks on the walls, one of which said 1739... amazing!
After crawling out of the underground well path, we realized that we weren't making great time (and after missing the train and getting a little lost) we were not going to be able to hike the full 10 miles before darkness. We decided to call it quits and find our way back to Assisi, when we came across some Italian Boy Scouts (!) outside of one of St. Francis' hermitages called "Eremo di San Francesco". They looked like US boy scouts except their uniforms were a lot neater and they seemed to be of all ages. One boy in our group was an eagle scout, and we thought this was a funny coincidence. The boy scouts showed us the way to Assisi and we decided to go inside the hermitage. I think there are at least three in the city of Assisi, and this was a smaller one in the mountains. We had to be absolutely quiet when wandering through the little building and prayer areas. It was a very surreal experience and hard to explain. The statues of St Francis were incredible and it was interesting to read all the tablets within the hermitage. There were even people parasailing over the hermitage, which we all decided we wanted to do at one point :)
After spending some time there, we decided to move on to town. While walking down the road, we saw a Franciscan monk that we had seen back at the hermitage. He had been showing a man around and telling him things in Italian like "this is where we eat... pray.. etc." so we thought that the other man was interested in joining the monks. When we caught up to them, the monk, whose name was Fernando, told us about a "corta?" or short cut... so we ended up following/chasing after the monk and his brother-- as we found out, down the hill.
The brothers were so nice, asking us where we were from and what we were doing in Italy. One of our group members has taken a lot of Italian so she was good at translating what we wanted to tell them and what they were saying to us. The non-monk was visiting his brother in the monastery and told us that he was the "rebel" of the family. They led us back to the Piazza where we began our journey... we were tired, sweaty (smelly)- but we had an amazing and unforgettable day. I posted tons of pictures on my photos page so please go visit them, although most of them do NOT do the scenery justice.
There were many signs throughout the city of Assisi (and even in Perugia) that said Romeo and Juliet was playing in a theatre in Assisi, which we eventually found (it was near the train station). We may go tonight, Margaux is supposed to call to find out how much it costs and if there are tickets left.
Last night after we returned to Perugia, we had decided to move our cooking night to that very night so we all met at Kristen's apartment, which is very nice, and made a giant frittata with potatoes, proscuitto (ham), and fresh mozzarella. Anthony (who is an amazing cook) made sliced zucchini with several herbs and spices which we placed on top of our sliced bread. Jackie brought her frother and we made cappuccinos for dessert (which is a no no, since Italians only drink them for breakfast.. oh well!) Then we played some pictionary and I came back home and pretty much passed out-- I am still incredibly tired... maybe the play isn't such a great idea.
Today I have a "nooks and crannies" tour led by one of the student associate people at the Umbra Institute- Zach. He's american but works for the institute, he's really cool and knows so many interesting things- he led most of the workshops that I had previously mentioned. I am also currently trying out the washer.
My battery charger (for my digital camera) made a weird popping noise while charging batteries and basically exploded. I'll have to look around town for an Italian charger (?)... maybe I'll ask Zach when on the tour. Hopefully I'll find out several interesting places to go to eat/shop while on this tour, as well as learn several history facts... there is also a history tour sometime next week :)
I am going to make some pasta for lunch and read up on the news since people were talking about how the Greek embassy got hit by a rocket? Time for some NPR and CNN.com :\
That's all I have for you. If you read through this entire entry, congratulations!
Ciao!

Great day

So let's see, today was yet another great day. But of another kind.
I re-met (because I keep meeting people but not really spending time with them) some people and realized that they are the type of people I want to be hanging out with. There are so many fun and nice people on this program but I know the types of people that I can truly be happy around, and be myself with.
So tomorrow we (the collective group I suppose) are waking up early, taking a bus/train to Assisi and then hiking 10 miles (oy!) to some city (I'll add the name later). It's going to be quite a day but I am so excited! Then for Sunday night we are having our first team taught dinner and scrabble night (extra points for Italian words!) I love us.
We even rode the ferris wheel tonight (check my yahoo photos)!
Well, I will post more tomorrow when I return from our grand adventure.
Buona notte!

P.S for those who have been leaving me comments, make sure you do it by clicking on where it says _ comments and not where it says send post to e-mail, that is messing up my e-mail box and it's better to leave comments directly on the page... thanks! :)
P.P.S for those who already forgot my picture page, it's listed on the left hand side on this page under links!

buon giorno

I hope you all enjoyed my last post consisting only of pictures. Don't worry, I have not slacked off! I just decided to give it a rest for a bit. I'm trying to only post those things that were incredibly interesting, not writing about boring little things.
So in the past few days, I learned about the origins of coffee and ceramics. We get these neat little workshop things... we still have food and opera left! So if you didn't know, cappuccino is named after the cappucci monks who pretty much created the drink and named it after themselves because they wear all brown and have a bare head so the drinks look like little cappucci monks- cute! We also learned about ceramics and watched someone paint and design a bowl. There is a ceramics market on tuesdays so I am definetely going next week to pick out some things :)
We also had a housing meeting where we did silly ice breakers, except the workshop was run by an Irish professor, who happens to be the psychology professor here! She's really neat and very nice :) I love her accent!
In the past few days my friends and I have been trying to find all the good restaurants and shopping places. The Umbra gave us a guide book which we pretty much read cover to cover and am now checking off the places one by one as we go to them. The secret restaurant was amazing, probably one of my favorites so far: it was a nice environment-- everything here is so slow! (it was like a 3 hour meal). I had fettuccine shrimp with mushrooms and everyones' dishes looked amazing. We also finally ate at Parma, for panini (sandwiches) and they were delicious. Last night we ate at the Mediterenerrea (probably spelled wrong) which was fantastic! The service was so fast, in less like 5 minutes these giant pizzas came out. We also had really good tiramisu (which means "pick me up" in italian because of the caffe in it) and nutella pizza which was basically like melted nutella ALL over a GIANT pizza... amazing!
After spending a bit too much money out... (however, I have yet to take money out of the ATM yet!) it's going to be a day of cooking in! I'm planning on making a frittatta with all the ingredients I bought, the book they gave us even has a recipe in it so I can check to make sure I don't mess it up!
So far intensive Italian is going wonderfully, my professor's name is Francesco B (because there are two) and he is very nice and funny (and cute of course). He's really easy to understand so I'm really enjoying the class. I feel like I'm getting a lot more out of Italian just by being here in Italy. This weekend Jackie (basically my best friend here- she's amazing) and I are planning on going to the museum, figuring out the bus system, and going to Assisi for the day (it's only a 20 minute train ride!) We wanted to go to the chocolate factory but it is closed on the weekends :(
Well it's time to be getting ready for my class!
Ciao!

P.S. For all those who wanted to see the hot police officer:
Not exactly the best picture of him- he was great. He was not accessorizing at this point... borrowing girls' purses and demonstrating how we should walk along sketchy streets. He also scared the crap out of every single girl at that meeting and now we are all incredibly paranoid and refer to his stories about "drugga," "italy's favorite sport: women bothering" (or did he say battering) and "they will bash your face in!"

our apartment! or house actually :)

View from my room

View of my roommate's desk and our bedroom

our kitchen!

my bed

my roommates and others before going to the secret restaurant!

hooray!

Coop... or is it Co-op?

So today we went shopping. Well we tried to at least. This morning we took our placement exams and after going to the wrong building the first time (oops!) we finally found where we were supposed to be. The test was okay, I actually understood a lot of words but that doesn't really mean anything since the test was multiple choice. I could have gotten a 100, I could have failed. The head of the italian classes (who I think is also going to be my professor) told me that it doesn't matter how you do this week because we just take full immersion italian for the week to get us prepared, then we meet with him to discuss how we are feeling about our placement (based on the test) and whether we should move up or down in class.
I'm pretty excited about the classes, I want to learn how to speak Italian really well so I can feel less silly when trying to talk to people. However, most Italians we've actually talked to have been really nice. The man in the organic fruit market gave us free clementines and introduced us to his son (ha). Italians are so used to having the Umbra (American) students here in town that they expect us. They don't speak english perfectly well, but that's good because we can switch back and forth. I'm learning lots of good vocab words and I think by the time I come home I may be close to fluent (I hope).
So today we went to shopping street which is where the less expensive stores are. The stores all have saldi (sales) because the holiday is over and like in America, everything goes on sale! I didn't buy anything because I know I will be here for 4 months so I want to make sure I absolutely want something when I buy it. Plus, it's not like it's going to go anywhere or I am going to go anywhere. I haven't gotten to the fair trade store yet (it rained today) but I will soon. Today we went grocery shopping and that was quite an experience.
First we went to the open air market which is basically on a cliff. When I describe where I am now, you have to just picture an entire city on a hill. Perugia has stairs and steep walkways and you are constantly walking up and downhill. So the open air market was on several floors that you could just walk up and down. They had clothes and lots of other random things, fruits and vegetables, dead animals (ew), cheese, wine, you name it. However, I wasn't sure what I wanted and ordering a giant cow was out of the question. So we went to Coop, which is like this tiny grocery store and they had EVERYTHING and it was CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. I bought proscuitto (which is like really thin sliced ham, kind of like bacon almost), fresh mozzerella, bread, yogurt, eggs, nutella (of course), farfelle (bowtie pasta), and organic carrots. All of which came to a little under 12E. Amazing. The food here is delicious AND cheap. And it's all so fresh. Everything is delivered in the mornings and you can see all the trucks on the street. Everything in the little pastry shops is made fresh every day and you can see them setting it all out in the morning.
After shopping and eating my food, I wandered around with my friend Jackie and we found the Etruscan arch (which is right by my house--it's a house by the way) and the most amazing shortcut into town... that DOESN'T involve steps.. hooray!!
I am loving this experience so much. I cannot think of any other place that I would have rather studied abroad. Italy is just perfect for me, their attitudes, way of life... everything!
Tonight we are going to dinner at "the secret restaurant" which EVERYONE keeps talking to us about because it's right by where we live and apparently it's amazing. It's "secret" because it doesn't have a sign, apparently it looks like a house and you would just walk by it if you didn't know it was there. The people that work at the Umbra told us about it right away when they found out we lived on Luppatelli since we are a) so far away from the center of town and b) the only ones living on this street (there are people on the street parallel to us though).
Tomorrow begins our full immersion classes so I'm looking forward to that. So far I've been really cheap with money, but it's not like I haven't been buying anything. The Arcadia people bought us dinner a few times and everything else I've been doing has been cheap.
Well that's plenty of information for now. Hope you enjoyed this latest installment, and don't worry, I will find some more police officers and take pictures of them for all those who requested it!
Buona sera! (Goodnight!)

quick midnight thoughts

• Police officers here in Italy wear incredible uniforms, speak adorable broken english, are actually fit and muscular, and are quite handsome. Compared to the Elon police, oy... this is definetely something America needs to pick up on
• I don't think it's possible to not like anything I will eat here
• Getting lost is starting to become a daily event and even kind of fun
• Shopping street is really cheap and if I don't watch out my money is going to fly away... :o
• There's an organic market the first sunday of every month (amazing) and a fair trade store which I will hopefully find tomorrow. Apparently they have stuff from Chiapas... so excited for that!
• I must be immune to time change because the only thing I'm having trouble with is eating at 8 pm at night... urg I'm such a grandma

and to add to that list:

• I should not drink espresso after 10pm or I can't sleep for another 4 hours...
• Food shopping is so much fun, and a lot less expensive than I thought it was going to be
• I truly am the most indecisive person in the world
• Looking at all the pictures of friends and family on my wall make me slightly homesick and perhaps I shouldn't have done that
• The fact that the Umbra institute pays for 100% more electricity than normal Italians use just so that we can be somewhat comfortable in our apartments makes me feel sick inside. Why can't Americans just accept what they have and live with it? Why does everything always have to be in excess? Why do we take SO MUCH FOR GRANTED?
• Leaving is going to be really really hard

p.s. thank you to everyone who has been leaving me comments! I really appreciate it and love reading what you have to say! feel free to comment on anything you read about or have questions about or just let me know how your lives are! :)

my first full day

Sorry for the slightly limited posting yesterday. I said I would try to keep this as up to date as possible, and thanks to our FREE wireless internet in the apartment (thank you god), I think that you will be able to hear about all my adventures quickly and effortlessly. Yesterday was quite a frenzy, and the whole cell phone thing really upset me because I could hear my mom but she couldn't hear me at all. But at least our internet at home is FINALLY working (note: verizon dsl is the devil) and my mom can communicate with me through that. Anyone who is home, please go over to my house and show my mom how to use AIM because she needs some help!
So today we woke up at the hotel after some much needed sleep. Had a really quick breakfast and rode vans over to our apartment. The driver dropped us off on a street and pointed up this really high narrow street and said "Luppatelli" so we just started walking. And walking. And walking. Then we found #42 and assumed it was our door. After weeks of thinking our apartment was going to be a hole in the wall with absolutely nothing up-to-date or anything like that, we walk up the stairs and into this little courtyard which leads to the actual door and lo and behold, our apartment is beautiful. We have a television, we have a washer, we have everything. The furniture is strangely from IKEA. We have internet. I mean, geez.
Oh and the views are gorgeous. All of them.
So we moved everything in and drew clothesline clips for the single room-- no I didn't get it, I am sharing a room with Alana who is from Northeastern University. All my roommates are nice and everyone that I have met from the program so far is very nice. I have met so many people and I can't remember anyone's names :\ and hopefully I will find some people that I click with well.
After moving in we went on a walking tour. To get to the walking tour, we left about 2 hours early because the paper said to meet "at the fountain" with absolutely no directions or streets at all. We got lost a few times and then found some girls that live on the street parallel to ours. Actually, there are a few apartments near ours so we will have to meet the girls over there-- we found them because one apartment's windows overlook ours and I heard American voices.. we were all waving and yelling out whose apartment has what. Everyone's apartments are different, some people don't have as nice places to live. Aparently the more people you live with the better it is, so hooray!
The walking tour was really helpful. We learned where all the buildings are for the school. We went around the basic circle of the town (where the fountain is) and where there are so many shops and restaurants. The tour guide pointed out which were cheap and which ones the italian students who are learning english hang out in and all kinds of useful information. He also told us where to buy bus tickets for getting around Perugia and getting out of Perugia. He also told us that Ryanair has plane tickets for 5 euro to London, so here I come! We also saw touristy things like the ferris wheel, carousel, and an overlook over the lower part of town. Perugia is basically in the hills and mountains and we are in the higher part of the town with the school. The picture above is me on the overlook, if you look over the hill to the left you can see Asissi and apparently the bus ride to that city is only 15 minutes!
The school gave us a welcome package with spagetti and sauce and cookies but I'm pretty sure we are going out for dinner. Tonight is a holiday and everything was pretty much closed earlier but now things should be opening up for dinner. I took a bunch of pictures today already but I want to get a few pictures of all the christmas lights before they take them down. I still need to sort out everything with my phone tomorrow, hopefully that will be easy, and then also buy a phone card and a converter for my computer. Luckily our apartment came with so many great things like a hair dryer, converters, so many things we don't have to buy!
I will try to update soon, but I also want to get out and explore the city. I opened up a photo page over on yahoophotos. The name there is also Ciaoelon and you can see the pictures here.
Let me know if the link doesn't work for you!
Love you all!

I'm here!

Well, I made it. After what seemed like the longest thursday ever, I have finally arrived in Perugia, Italy! Right now, we are staying in the very nice Gio hotel (just for tonight). Tomorrow we are getting our apartments and moving in which should be exciting. I've already met the girls I'm living with and they seem nice. All of the people I've met so far in the program are nice. I'm really excited to see the city since when we got here it was already dark and you can't really make much out of all the darkness and a few lights.
Italy is not exactly as I expected it. One girl and I decided it looked like a strange Florida/California combination, especially since the airport was very Orlando-like and there were even a few palm trees. The weather is lovely!
I'm so glad I don't have to fly a long flight for another 4 months. I don't think I could take it again. I probably got 1 hour of sleep for the whole day and so. Right now it is nearly 10pm and I should probably go to bed but I'm having a cell phone dilemna.
Upon calling my mother, I realized that I could only hear her and she couldn't hear me. We tried several times but nothing. So now they're trying to replace my phone. Ugh.
Oh well, at least I have all my luggage and everything is fine in that sense. I probably need to just go to bed and get some rest. We have a long weekend ahead of us. We got our class schedules and I'm not all that satisfied... I did get all of the ones I wanted except one and I'm not sure why not. I looked at the schedule and unless the class filled up, I should be able to take it without a problem-- we do have a registration day so at least I can drop the class they gave me and work around it.
Well, I know that was long winded and not all that organized but I should be going to bed and dealing with all these crazy e-mails. I can already tell how out of touch I am going to be with everyone and everything this semester!
Wish you all the best!