This week was absolutley crazy when it comes to the amount of things that we did. It pretty much started on Sunday, which I know I mentioned in my last post, but I accidentally forgot one of the coolest things about the weekend. I was walking out to go to the school around 9ish on Sunday morning, and on my way to the school I ran straight into an Italian organic market that is only open on the first Sunday of every month. There were tons of booths around all selling different things and it all looked and smelled really good. There was a table for fresh herbs, honey, different tapenads to put on bread (which Jess and I got 4 of and they are delicious!) and fresh produce as well. I got some fresh basil and green beans which were so fresh and delicious, and it was the first time I really saw fresh basil for sell here. Everything was really inexpensive too so it was nice to get a lot for our money.
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| Market by my house! |
We had our week of intensive Italian classes, which was not as bad as I expected. We had a 3 hour break every day to eat lunch and on Thursday Sarah and I used that time to get our Permisso di Sojourno from the post office. On Tuesday our class took the MiniMetro from town down to the large grocery store called the Coop that was next to the train station. The MiniMetro is really cool and we've probably used it almost every day that we've been here since learning about it. Its a Euro for 70 minutes of ride time which is pretty cheap. It takes us from the center of town down to the train station, and to the football field which we went to on Saturday for the market in the parking lot. The market was kind of a waste because there was not much to see there and it just looked like a bunch of junk that people collected, but I was happy to go and see it.
We basically did indoor things after that class, learning about how to order at a bar (or Caffe) and learning about how to travel in Italy. On Thursday after class, Phylicia, Katherine, and I booked our flights to Oktoberfest that were going to on September 24-26. We couldn't get a straight flight from Perugia to Munich, so after a lot of false starts and different websites, we decided to take a really cheap flight from Pisa at like 6:00am on Friday to Munich, but we have to get to Pisa the night before by taking a train from Perugia to Florence, and then Florence to Pisa. But we're going with a kid named Vin too so it will be a good group to travel with. We are all really happy that we are not going alone because it would have been really stressfull to do all of that traveling alone.
Friday morning, Jessica, Devon, Sarah, and I decided to go to Cortona for the day. I had looked up trains from Perugia to Cortona, and it seemed easy enough to get there, just one change over. However, that was not the case. The MiniMetro froze for about 10 minutes while we were on it, we could not figure out how to get a train ticket from Perugia to Cortona, and we did not realize that Cortona has two train stations to go to, and then you have to catch a bus up to the city itself. After we figured out how to get tickets out of the machine, the machine ate 20 euro of Sarah's money, so instead of every ticket being 6.50 round trip, it turned into 11.50 per person because we all split the 20 Euro she lost. We then didn't realize that the train station we got off at first had a bus that could take us from that station to the actual city, so we bought tickets to the next station. We then had to buy bus tickets from a tabaccheria (tabacco and state store) and then the bus showed up 30 minutes late as well. Once on the bus, the engine stopped working, so we had to wait for a new bus to come and pick us up. Luckily, each time we had a slight bump in our travels, there was a very friendly English couple who would start talking to us and who knew the area really well. The couple who was on the bus with us had a house in Cortona that they went to for a few weeks a year, and they told us the layout of the city and where to find food.
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| Spinaci Gnocci con Ricotta e Gorgonzola |
When we finally arrived in Cortona, we immediately went to find food because our hour long trip had turned into a 3 hour journey and we were starving.We found a Trattoria which looked good, and which turned out to be delicious. I ordered the spinach gnocchi with ricotta and gorgonzola sauce, which was rich but hit just the spot. Sarah ordered spinach ravioli with a truffle cream sauce, which she was in heaven over, and Jessica and Devon both got spaghetti with tomato sauce and mozarella which was really good.
After lunch, we walked around the town, but soon realized how small it really is. We walked up some really steep hills to find churches around the town, and went to St. Francis and some other ones that didn't have names displayed on them. They were really neat, but it amazed me that they had people treck up these hils every time they wanted to go to church. It was really cold and windy as well, and we were really unprepared with how cold we would get. It looked like it was going to rain the whole time, but we never got rained on which was a success. We then went to some museums and walked around for a little bit, and went shopping while we walked back to the bus station. We got an earlier bus back to Camucia which is the second train station that we went to, and hopped on a train home. It was a successful end to a day that started out really hectically.
Friday night we went out again to Dempsey's bar which is right next to the steps, and we saw our American Bartender friend. We seem to see him every time we go out, but hes really nice and makes us specialty drinks when we can't decide what to order. Then we ended up in Rock Castle which is the dance club next to Shamrocks bar that we went to the other night. I think the bouncer remembered us too because we told him we got our drinks at Dempseys, which they seem to have a connection with since the American Bartender works at both, and he just laughed and told us it was ok and we could just go on in. We did the exact same thing last time we went, so I think he found it humourous that we said the exact same things. Rock Castle was really busy that night, but it was really fun to watch people and meet some Italian men. They really are creepy here, and if you say hi they tend to follow you everywhere, even when you tell them to stop. But we had the 4 of us so we were able to block eachother from unwanted attention.
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| Deli Man Slicing Fresh Prosciutto |
Saturday we went to the market at the football field, and then after we went to the big Coop since its on the way home. I got tons of frozen veggies and things that I have wanted, and Sarah and I split a small rotissiery chicken from the deli area. The guy at the deli came up to us when I was getting olives and was like "Are you American girls? Where are you from?" so we told him and he just ooh'ed and ahh'ed at each one. I later went back to see him slicing fresh proscuitto from a pigs leg for a woman, and he let me take a picture of him doing it which was so neat. I will definatley have to get some freshly shaved prosciutto while I'm here!
We had a walking tour with Zach from Umbra at 5 that night, who took us around to all of these really cool places, and explained the history of the town in a really interesting way. I will definately have to go back to some places and look around and spend more time there. We didn't go out on Saturday night because we were all really tired from the past two days activities.
Sunday we went to Assisi with Umbra. It was really cool, and they took us to a vineyard for a big Italian lunch with tons of wine, pasta, meat, and dessert. They gave us port wine at the end of the dinner which was fabulous, and I am hoping to find it again somewhere and buy it. We then took a tour around Assisi which was given by one of the teachers at Umbra, and we went to a few churches including one for St. Clare, and the large St. Francis Cathedral at the bottom of Assisi. The town was really interesting in itself, because when we first got there we noticed that most of the walls were a pink color, which was made by the rocks that they used to build things, and there was a perfectly preserved Roman Temple in the center of town. Also, there was a procession of people dressed in medieval costumes who were going to a crossbow tournament in the center of town. All of the women in the procession were dressed like old Roman women, and the men were wearing tights and playing either the drums or the trumpets. Almost all of the little "Negozia's" or shops, were filled with religious relics and tons of pictures of St. Francis. After the tour of the town, we went back home and after doing some homework, promptly passed out from exhaustion.
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| S. Francesco Cathedral |
Today, Monday, we start our full class schedule. Mine starts with Italian at 9:20-10:40 every day, and then on Mondays and Wednesdays I have Italian Literature in Translation from 12-1:30, and then History of Early Christianity from 5:15-6:45. Tuesdays and Thursdays I just have Roman Empire History from 5:15-6:45. Not to bad of a schedule, but I do have to wake up early every morning for Italian!
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