Assisi & Perugia

Early Saturday morning (2/12/11) I woke up to catch our group bus to Assisi & Perugia. We had our first "Cultural Introduction to Italy" class field trip. We began after about a 3 hour bus ride to Assisi where we had a guided tour of the S. Francis's Basilica. The Basilica is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor, commonly known as the Franciscan Order, in Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis. Being the burial place of St. Francis himself, the basilica is one of the most important places of Christian pilgrimage in Italy. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside the basilica, but I have some of the outside. The basilica consisted of two churches one built upon the other. Both were beautiful, but extremely different with the under church dark and covered in frescos. The upper church was filled with light coming through stained glass, frescos depicting his life and high ceilings, unlike the lower church with low roman arches. After our tour we had free time to eat lunch and discover the rest of the small town of Assisi built upon a mountain.

On our way to Perugia we stopped about 10 min down from Assisi to look inside the church where St. Francis originally began preaching. After walking inside you are able to see that the current church is built around the original church that still stands. It felt almost as if we were walking back in time passing through the doors of the original church after learning about St. Francis and the history of his life and Order. On a side note our teacher kept getting yelled at by the volunteers throughout the church while she tried to tell us about everything. After finishing our mini tour with our teacher we got back on the bus to head to Perugia in the Umbria region of Italy.

After arriving in Perugia we were all checked into our hotel (just before 5). While two of my roommates (not my roommates from my apt. these girls are from my cultural class) went out and explored the town of Perugia my other roommate and I opted to take a short nap after the long day. After an hour and a half they came back and we decided to find a place to eat. Walking around the small city did not take long and so we came upon a restaurant that we ended up loving (but really how could any restaurant be bad in Italia - if it is Italian). My friend Mary and I shared made to order risotto (amazing) and a huge pizza who's edges were falling off the side of the plate. After dinner we walked through the main piazza, which was filled with young Italians (Perugia being known as a young college city). After finding gelato most of us retired to the room after the long day.

The next morning we again were guided by our teacher throughout the city of Perugia. We went to and  through all the main sites of Perugia including the monumental center, Piazza IV Novembre, the Fontana Maggiore, Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, and my favorite the underground Etruscan fortress "Rocca Paolina". Rocca Paolina was built in 1540 when Perugia (the last free city in Italy) was defeated in the Salt War. Pope Paul III commissioned the fortess by destroying over a hundred houses as well as churches and monasteries to be used as building materials. It showed the Roman papal power and was used to house the fryers. Perugia is also known for its famous confectionery company, which produces "Baci" chocolate "kisses" that are filled with hazelnut and then wrapped in a multilingual love note. Our teacher bought us all the famous chocolate after our walk through the city. After our tour we walked to our pre planned (part of the class) traditional Italian lunch.

The traditional Italian lunch was served family style to us at tables of 6 or more and consisted of vino rosso, antipasti (breads with tomato, cheese, and mushrooms), primi piatti (two kinds pasta 1. cream and sausage -more like a ground beef not actually sausage- penne (favorite) , 2. a fettucini with tomato sauce), secondi piatti (three kinds of meat 1. turkey 2. chicken (favorite) 3. lamb), and a salad which I am sure had more bread in it than lettuce. After we had dolce (dessert) a cake with a small shot glass of vino dolce. Overall I was very full and satisfied with the amazing food.

We then boarded the bus and headed to a wine tasting in Torgiano at the Cantine Lungarotti. Here we tried two the of Lungarotti wines (one bianco, one rosso). Along with the wine we learned about ages, grapes and even some paring tips. By the end I was ready to head back to Florence filled with food and wine I fell asleep on the ride 3 hour ride home.

Finding Florence

I just finished my second week of classes and I'm off to Assisi and Perugia this weekend. This past week I found the "oil shoppe", which is a local sandwich shop. Its extremely popular with american students studying in Florence, but not touristy which is great.  After receiving our to go sandwiches we went to one of the public libraries and sat in the sun on the terrace which had a great view of the Duomo. Another day, with a friend and one of my roommates, I went to the rooftop cafe, which overlooks the Plazza della Ropubblica as well as has views of the city including the Duomo. I also went to my the Florence ultimate frisbee team practice last night, which was definitely a new adventure. It was also a realization of how not going to practice or running since December can have a huge impact, I am currently pretty sore and hate walking up the three flights of stairs to our apartment. 

Siena!

I finally have internet in my apartment! (Well our own internet so we don't have to steal it from someone else anymore, even though we were never sure of where it was actually coming from)

This past Friday I got on a bus and went to Siena with two of the guys that live across the hall to visit my good friend Krissy who is studying there on the Lewis & Clark program. It took a little over an hour, but it was well worth it. After arriving I left my apartmentmates (one of them had studied in Siena last semester and had friends to see as well) to meet up with Krissy. Krissy still had a class field trip to the Palazzo Publico, so I joined her and her classmates to the museum. After we walked around the city of Siena in which she showed me all the major sites.

After walking she introduced me to Italian "happy hour". We went to her favorite go to for drinks. Italian happy hour not only has discounted drinks, but they also serve little appetizers that vary from place to place with your drink. We had a drink which was amazing, but I can't remember the name. It was made up of orange juice, peach juice, champagne and gin, I would say this is my new favorite drink. With it came little panini's, chips and peanuts.


After we walked around some more and then had dinner. After dinner we met back up with my apartmentmate at his friends apartment where we proceeded to meet people from all over the world. By the end of the night I had made three new Dutch friends.

The next morning Krissy and I headed back into the city of Florence. We took it easy, walked around, found the chocolate festival, ate gelato, climbed the Duomo, watched the sunset from the top of the Duomo, found frech fries, took a nap, went to dinner, learned dutch drinking games, and finished the night by going out dancing. After getting home at 4:30am we went to bed. This morning Krissy and I made an egg scramble for breakfast (eggs are very uncommon for breakfast here), which made us both really happy (I think). We hung out a for a little bit longer before she went back to her home in Siena.

I also figured out today that as much as I love our apartment our kitchen sink in the corner makes washing dishes very awkward and difficult. As well as how to use the blog

A Week

I have officially been in Florence for a week. We started classes on Monday. I have each class once a week and no classes on Friday's, which will hopefully make it easier to travel on the weekends. So far I been just walking around the city and haven't done too much "touristy stuff", but I did cross to the other side of the river and explored that side of Italy for a day. We have found that we live right behind one of the biggest fresh markets, which is open from 8am-2pm everyday except Sunday. Our current routine is to get up in the morning walk over and find what we want to eat for the day. Two of the guys that live next to us are in the cooking school so we have gotten in the habit of buying food and having them cook it for us.... So far its working out well. Also I have been eating a lot of gelato.