Coming to a Close

I will be back in North Carolina on Wednesday and it is very strange to think that I have been here for 5 weeks. I have learned so much about the Italian culture and I have realized how fortunate I am to be given this opportunity. Also, I have made memories that will never be replaced with some of the coolest people that I have ever met. I slept until 11:57 today. I felt pretty good about waking up when it was still "morning", but I decided to go on a walk around Perugia before the institute opened at 2. It is now 2:15 so I am fresh off this walk. To be honest, I haven't walked around Perugia much. Oh I have been walking for sure, but usually just to school, or to the Minimetro (the above ground tram that takes us to the train station and grocery store. Think the monorail at Disney) or to the bus station, but I haven't explored. My explorations today introduced me to sights that I didn't even know existed and to architecture that was breath taking. Needless to say it was a good walk and a great way to close my trip here. Unfortunately, now I have to work on some final class blogs and study for my Italian final. Ciao for now!

Little Towns

Yesterday our class went to Urbino. It is a town with more college students than normal residents (kinda like a town I know in NC). Anyways, it was beautiful and mostly an uphill trek. The reason we went there was because, one of our readings The Courtier by Castiglione was written and set in Urbino.  Needless to say, it was super cool to be able to discuss a literary work in the palace that it was set.

Today, however, was less cultural. After a lot of phone calls we made a reservation at the Perugina Chocolate Factory. Other than seeing how and where they make the chocolate you can test some samples as well. I tested a little too much so I have a belly ache now. Luckily, I'm still hungry enough to eat some sweet-n-sour chicken. I'll be back stateside in one week! The time has flown by. Ciao!

In the Coffee Shop

I'm in my favorite coffee shop in town, Gelateria Veneta with an empty cappucciono cup. Meanwhile, bathroom flood, part 2 is currently going on in our apartment. Hopefully, it will be fixed by the time we get back tonight. I'm telling you toilet problems follow me whereever I go. Additionally, Samantha and I have to give our Italian presentation on how to throw a summer themed party, complete with homemadegelato cakes. Speaking of gelato. I have a new favorite place and flavor. It is convienently about two blocks away from our apartment. It is called Augusta Perugia; they give you more for your money than most places, and they have this gelato called pannacotta. Pannacotta is like carmel and sweet cream ice cream put together. It is AH-MAZE-ING! I really don't know what I will do when I get back to America and I cant eat gelato at any time of day. To be honest, I think that gelato has been my greatest expense here other than groceries. I hope everyone is doing well, and I can't wait to share my Italian stories with all of you in person.

Hooray Ritter Sport!

Last week when I was in Germany I got to go to the Ritter Sport chocolate factory. Ritter Sport is my favorite chocolate and what I found out today makes me like it even more. Turns out, Ritter Sport uses cocoa beans that are both organic and fair trade! They do this by supporting local farmers in Nicaragua. The best part is, you can purchase Ritter Sport chocolate in America.

The train issues, however, continued this weekend as well. the majority of our group decided to go to the beach on Friday. We all booked our train for 6:56 am, but only four of us made it on that train. We had to switch trains and the four of us only made it on that one, by Samantha's hulk-strength prying open the door. Once we got to Ancona, we wandered around for two hours before finding ourselves in a bird sanctuary looking a the ocean from the top of a cliff. We ended up taking the train back to the previous stop and enjoyed the beach in Falconara for about 3 hours.

The remainder of the weekend has been really relaxing. I've gotten to read my book and sleep in. We also went to the local market where I bought green Jasmine pants, yup like the movie Aladdin. They are all the rage in Italy along with wearing Jean on Jean ensembles. We have already seen jean jumpers, jean vests, jean shirts, jean Jasmine pants. jean shorts and even jean wedge heels. Don't worry I wont be bringing that trend back to North Carolina with me. P.S, Congrats to Chelsea Usher who now has a leader dog in training, Tucker! Chek him out @ http://trackintucker.blogspot.com

Rings and Things

Short blog today. Things have been relatively normal around here. We went shopping, I picked up my mom from the train station, and oh ya and she got engaged!!! Hopefully today I will get to show my mom and Joel around Perugia today. There first impression wasn't the best, but that is understandable due to being in a foreign country with crazy drivers and broken luggage. Anyways, they are going to Rome tomorrow morning so, this will be the last day that I will be able to hang out with them. I will also be gone tomorrow as I will be taking a day trip to the beach. We will see if Italian beaches can rival the majesty of the great Daytona Beach. I'll try to take a lot of pictures so you can be the judge.

Through Three Countries

So I'm having another sleepy Monday morning. One of these days I'm going to get enough sleep. Despite sleep depravity, Germany was awesome. The travel to and from Germany, not so awesome, but let's just call it an "adventure". So, let’s start from the top.

Stephanie and I let from Perugia and arrived in Florence just fine. We had some pasta and gelato and headed back to the train station. We didn't have reservations for the train to Munich (you couldn't reserve seats in Italy) and the train to Munich wasn't even listed. The only thing that we thought could be our train was headed to Wein. The problem is Wein is in western Austria, NOT Germany. We decided to chance it, but along the way met Mark from New Hampshire. It was Mark who told us that the train would split in Bologna and we just needed to be on the part of the train that would go to Munich.

Now that we had that information we just had to hop on the train, right. We didn't have reservations, but the Italian train man said we could just make the reservations on board. Well, he was wrong. We walked past a German train official who was yelling at people like us who didn't have reservations. Needless to say we didn't go into her car. We didn't get away from her though, Mark told us to come into his car because he had 2 extra couchettes. Sure enough, she was the one to check that car and we got yelled at and pushed to the reclining seats.

Along the way Jorg from Muster, Germany translated for us and Sara talked to the officials to see where we should go. We finally made it to some reclining seats when we met Paulo. Paulo talked to us for a while and calmed us down. He didn't have a reservation either, so he had to move in Verona where we also gained some unpleasant companions who moved and made a lot of noise during the night. Eventually, we made it to Munich and from Munich to Stuttgart where we met up with my family.

Steph and I had only eaten crackers, and nutella. Luckily, Germany has awesome pastries so I got an Apple Pastry and Steph got a chocolate croissant. On top of that we also had cheese pretzels. We did a little shopping in Stuttgart and went to Calw for some Spaghetti Eis. Later that night Anja, my cousin, cooked us an incredible meal filled with meat, bread, and cake.

On Saturday, we slept in until 9:30 which was well needed after the 3 hours of sleep that I got the night before. We ended up going to the Ritter Sport Museum/Factory and purchased a lot of chocolate, then to another town to shop, and back to Heimsheim (Anja and Norbert’s home) to have a cookout at their garden. This dinner was also filled with meat, bread and cake, but even more that the night before.

Out trip to Germany was way too short and before we knew it we were awake at 5:30 am on Sunday heading to Stuttgart. The train from Stuttgart to Munich was awesome. The train itself was nicer than an airplane, to be honest. We met even more characters on the rest of the journey though. This time we made reservations so when we got to Munich we found our car and met Bernie. Bernie seemed to know everything about, well, everything. So he told us everything about everything for 2 hours until he rejoined his family, but he continued to update us on our location and nearby sights about every hour on out 9 hour leg of the journey.

We arrived in Bologna about 20 minutes ahead of schedule (we should have had 15 minutes to make our next train) but out train to Arezzo ran 40 minutes late which caused us to miss our train to Perugia. We also had reservations for this 2 hour leg. However, when we went to out assigned seating the seats were full with a mother, her three children, and nuns (6 seats total). One of the nuns moved and some of the kids shared a seat as Steph and I crammed in. I talked to the nuns for a while, who were awesome! They practiced their English and I stumbled through my kindergarten level Italian. Meanwhile, Steph is wrangling the children who are having a mini-English lesson with her.

The nuns left and the kids got even crazier. They seemed to be everywhere, but at least we had enough seats, or so we thought. Two more women came in to replace the nuns and after while I sat in the hallway with Isabella, the oldest of the children. Arezzo came not a moment too late. Unfortunately in Arezzo we had an hour and a half wait until the next train to Perugia. We ended up getting to the Perugia train station at 10:20 pm and getting home by bus at 11pm. We were supposed to be home at 8:30. For those of you keeping count we traveled for around 18 hours.

We saw many beautiful things in Germany and through the train windows, but the best thing was spending time with family. I'm so happy I got to see my extended family and just live with them in their culture, even if it was just a couple days. Being back in Perugia is definitely not a bad thing. I'm ready to walk to where I need to go for a change. Till next time!

Something in the Water

Hello America!

Sorry it's been a while since I've blogged, but it's been extremely eventful none the less. So here's the rundown day by day.

Sunday Night: We almost caught our apartment on fire. We literally had a 3 foot flame coming off the Cheap Wine Chicken pan. That burner still makes sparks so we are trying to avoid it.

Monday Night: Caitlin's Birthday cake was a sloppy tower of Nutella, sponge cake, and gelato, but it tasted okay. I sang Don't Stop Believin' and If You Wanna Be My Lover at karaoke. We got back to our apartment fine, but our toilet was making the awful drilling noise that it always does. Ever thoughtful, Gibbs unplugged the toilet so we could talk. What we found out was that unplugging the toilet makes the toilet and bidet overflow so I walked into 1/4 inch of water in our bedroom. 4 umbrella holders, 2 pots, 2 mops buckets, and 5 towels later our floor was dry-ish. However, after many days laying out and time with a blow dryer, my book for class is still soaking wet.

Tuesday Night: We made inside out burgers (AHH-MAZE-INN) and our neighbors made faces as our washing machine simulated an earthquake.

Wednesday: Our train to Assisi was cancelled because of a four hour train strike, only in Umbria. So, we had to take the bus and we talked to Italian teenagers whose dreams were crushed when we told them the college is nothing like the American Pie movies. It rained all day, and we had to study for our Italian exam. Also, Samantha fell off her chair.

Thursday: (Today) We took our Italian test which I think I did okay on. Then we have our Renaissance class and Gibbs and I are leaving for Germany. Hopefully we will make all the trains, but truth be told I'm really nervous.

Hello....Kitty?

The hotel we stayed at had "internet". The quotations is because, even though I had full signal it took me half of eternity to send an email. In actuality it was two days, but it felt like Han Solo would have to take me into warp speed to ever get across the galaxy. Despite the internet problems, Florence (Firenze) was beautiful. They have a lot of marble nearby so what looked like pink, white and green paint was actually marble decorating the facade of the building. There is so much art, history, and beauty that it is overwhelming all of the time. We saw works from Michelangelo (YES THE DAVID!), Donatello, Giotto, Leonardo, Galileo, and even John the Baptist's finger in a reliquary.

On the uncultured side of things, within an hour of our arrival I saw J-Wow from the Jersey Shore cast. Later on Sunday our group decided we would eat at the Pizzeria they work at. When we saw that they weren't there about half of us left to find cheaper food (including me) while the others stayed. Turns out some of the cat members (Sammy, Pauli D, and Vinnie) came in right after we left, so my other friends got to see them.

We also shopped...a lot. They had an open market that took up about 4 streets, so needless to say I got my barter on. Consequently, all of my souvenir shopping is done and I pick myself up a new purse. My roommates also did some haggling of their own. I made the mistake of telling them that I like belt buckles, and as I mentioned before Italians have a strange obsession with Hello Kitty. So, of course I get an early birthday present, a Hello Kitty Belt buckle. Since they are so kind I'm sure I can find presents for all of them that will fill their hearts with as much joy as their present filled mine.

Pictures of Florence should be up on Facebook. Tonight we are doing Karaoke for Caitlin's birthday, so adventures in Perugia will indeed continue! Ciao

Food, still the best way to bond.

It's day three back in Perugia and things are normal here. I don't know how to explain it. Perugia has started to have a hometown kind of feel about it. A hometown where no one knows you and everyone speaks differently. Anyways I think the thing that makes it home-like is the family style dinners that we have at my apartment. So, far we have made some pretty awesome meals, in my opinion. In general, I'm head chef (dangerous I know), Samantha is appetizers and salads, Steph packs our lunches, and Hannah does clean up. It works out so nice and we spend a lot of time in the kitchen. That may be partially due to it being the only place where the four of us can sit down together.

Thus far our meals have been:

1. Tortelinni with cream sauce, salad and mozzarella basil tomatoes.

2. Cheap wine chicken which is chicken breast pan seared in cooking wine and onions which have been reduced in oil and vinegar. This was served with my (in) famous green beans.

3. Linguini with tomato sauce, salads, and mozzarella basil tomatoes.

4. Grilled cheese with pesto.

5. Sausage, pepper and onion skillet with roasted potatoes. (Samantha cooked this one and it was my favorite dinner of the trip)

It shouldn’t be forgotten that most nights end with gelato that we have started buying in bulk to cut the cost of going out. Tonight Steph is heading up kabobs and my mouth is already watering. I'll let you know how it goes tonight. Also, if anyone asks my Italian night name is Lucia and I'm from Alberta, Canada. Ciao!