Ciao!

Its been about four or so weeks since Ive written, but its mainly for the fact that I’ve been so busy with traveling and classes to write. Its amazing how many things there are to fit into a few weeks in another country, that there is batley any down time. However, I finally squeezed some in in order to write this!

The weekend of the 8^th to 10^th of October, I had a pretty relaxing time. The food class had a field trip in Florence for the day on Friday, so Sarah, Megan and I took that opportunity to go and meet up with some of Sarah’s friends from school who are studying in Florence for the semester. We went to an American Diner for brunch, but it wasn’t very good. I could tell that everything was frozen and then reheated, and the burger was not the best. For the rest of the afternoon we walked around the city, saw the famous Duomo from the outside, and went shopping. It was a lot different from Perugia, because there are really tall buildings there, and it is more of a city that Perugia is. There are also department stores, and chain stores that are popular in the US that we don’t have in Perugia, so it was really nice to be able to see a different part of Italy. Another main difference between Florence and Perugia was how flat Florence was. In order to get anywhere in Perugia, you have to walk up and down steep hills, which was not the same as in Florence.

We went to the leather marked that everyone who comes back from Florence talks about, but it was just a lot of the same stuff that each vendor was selling, so I didn’t end up getting anything. We did happen across a large covered food market but unfortunately it was closing by the time we got there. I did get a bag of sun-dried tomatoes, which I am excited to try eventually. After we walked around, we met up with Devon and Jessica who were done with their field trip, and after leaving Sarah with her friends for the night, we headed home and got Pizza Mediterranea for dinner. We planned on going out that night, but were to exhausted that Devon and I watched Batman Begins and went to sleep soon after.

On Saturday we didn’t do much, but Megan, Devon and I went shopping and exploring around Perugia for a bit. I did laundry after Megan and I got lunch at a restaurant in the middle of Courso Vanucci, which is the main street in Perugia. That night we went to Rock Castle, but it was a little to crowded for my liking. It was also the first time that we really experienced how aggressive Italian men are, especially this one guy who would not leave us alone on the dance floor. I held my arm out to get him away from us while we were dancing after repeatedly telling him that we didn’t want to dance with him, and he slapped my arm away. And then when I was leaving and going to Dempseys, he saw me walking up the hill, yelled “Biondo” (blonde in Italian) and grabbed me by the back of the head and yanked down on my hair. It was a little to much for me, since if anyone did that to someone in the States, it would not be tolerated. But in Italy, it seems to be the norm to grab people’s hair, since two guys did the same thing to Devon and Sarah while they were on the dance floor.

During the week, I had my cooking class where we made two different types of lasagna with fresh pasta; one was a red lasagna with meat in it, and the other was a white lasagna with tons of vegetables and a béchamel sauce. They were both delicious, and then we made crepes with nutella and cinnamon-sugar on them for dessert. I had my Italian midterm on Thursday, and then it was off to Paris!

Paris was unbelievable. We were only there for a day and a little bit, but we managed to get almost everything in that we possibly could. Sarah, Devon, Jessica, and I left Perugia Friday morning on a train to Rome, and from there took a flight to Paris. We had a slight delay, in our plane, but only about 50 minutes so it didn’t impede our travel too much. We got to Paris around 3, and headed straight to our hostel, which was really large and modern, and luckily right on the subway line. We had a private room for 4 people, two showers, and a private bathroom, which was really nice to have. After checking in, we decided to go to the Lourve, because we had heard it was free for students after 6pm on Fridays. We didn’t want to take the metro because of all the terrorist alerts that were going around, and the strikes that we had heard about, but after waiting for 20 minutes at what we thought was a taxi stop, we decided to give it a try. We didn’t have to wait in line at the Lourve for very long since it was later at night, and we did get in for free which was great. We didn’t spend a large amount of time there because it was late at night and we were meeting a friend of Jessicas for dinner. We did have enough time to see the DiVinci’s and the Mona Lisa, which was slightly disappointing since it was so small, but it was great to see it regardless. We also saw the old Greek and Egyptian statues and sculptures, and then headed out to dinner. We went to the old Jewish part of Paris, and got falafel kabob’s from King Falafel Palace which was really good.

The next day we went to see everything to see in Paris. We started out early and headed to Versailles, but because of the train strikes, our train stopped one station short of Versailles, but it was fine because it was a 10 minute, pretty walk to the palace anyway. The palace opened late as well because of the strikes, so instead of opening at 9 it opened at 10:30. When we finally got into the palace, I was really disappointed in it. We were only allowed to go into about 10 rooms, and each room had these large Japanese Anime structures in each room, which blocked a lot of the views. We also thought that our 15-euro ticket was including the gardens, but when we got to the garden entrance, they told us our tickets were not valid, and we would have to pay another 6 euro to go in. At that point we were tired of the whole ordeal, so we went to a quick lunch, and headed off to the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was really magnificent, even during the day, and nearby we got real French crepes, one with coconut and almonds, and the other with hot chocolate and whipped cream on it. They were so good and we scarfed them down in about tow minutes. Then of course we got baguettes, which we just walked around eating like we were French.

Then went to go see the Notre Dame Cathedral. Out of everything that we saw that weekend, I think the Cathedral was my favorite part. We walked around the whole thing, saw all of the reliquaries and jewels, and then just sat in the pews for half an hour just looking at everything. Sarah, who is an art history major, was telling me all about the Cathedral, and about how it was built in the shape of a cross, and that Notre Dame was the first gothic cathedral to use flying buttresses outside. We got hot chocolate at a restaurant nearby, and walked around the town for a bit. Then we headed to the Arc D’Triumph, which is Napoleon’s giant arch in the middle of the Champ Ellises. It was really neat to see because it was giant, and it was so decorated with his victories that it was really incredible. We then headed back to the Eiffel Tower for the second time that day, and took pictures of it at night. We thought that the sparkling effect that we had heard about was only for special occasions, but I guess we had our timing right because as we were walking back towards the metro, it started glittering.

Dinner that night was hamburgers and amazing wine at a little French bistro down the street from our hostel, and finished up with an apple tart and crème brule.

Sunday we had an early flight back to Rome, and then a three hour bus back into Perugia. We walked straight into Eurochocolate, which is a week long festival where chocolate vendors from around the world have tents and sell their goods, whether fresh and you get it in blocks, or prepackaged. There were large brands, like Toblerone, Milka, and Perugino, which makes Bachi balls, and a giant Milka Ferris wheel. There were also smaller vendors, like a family from Sicily who makes fresh Torrone, which is like a nougat with nuts in it. When we got back from Paris though, the festival was just starting and the streets were so packed we had trouble getting back to our house.

Throughout the week we had midterms, so it was a pretty boring week. Sarah and I got our noses pierced on Tuesday, and Devon got her cartilage pierced. Thursday was the last midterms, and then we officially started fall break.