WHOA. Okay, I'm not even gonna lie to you. This post is gonna be long. Like, you thought the last one was long? Multiply that by 10, and then you and I will be on the same page. If you have a heart condition, could be pregnant, or are just faint-hearted, stop reading now 'cause this is gonna be one heck of a ride. So with that said, ladies and gentleman, without further ado, back by popular demand: my life in blog form!
I last left you all with my first week of real classes, and since then, lots and lots has happened. Last week was so busy that, as you know, I had zero time to update my blog, and unfortunately, I've probably forgotten some of the things I wanted to tell to you originally. Ah well, such is life. So last Thursday and Friday night I went out with a group of friends to explore the Italian night life more thoroughly. Safe to say, both nights were a complete success! Best discovery of the weekend and quite possibly my favorite food of Firenze (besides the Il Latini steak, of course)? Kabobs. Yeah, you read it right. No, don't judge me. KABOBS. You may think I'm crazy and that it's blasphemy to say your favorite food while you're living in Italy isn't even Italian, but trust me. These things are good. Just ask any of my friends, or even better yet, come to Florence and taste them yourselves. Anyway, I digress. If I spend this much time just talking about a kabob we could be here all night. When Saturday finally rolled around, my school group took a trip to the Chianti hills for an overnight stay at Il Corno. Needless to say, it was absolutely beautiful up there, and the estate was just as stunning. After we got our rooms, we had a long talk with our two staff members of the weekend. The lady was nice, but liked to stand on her soap box for a liiiittle too long if you ask me. The guy, Phil, was from London and is my new favorite person. Litcherally. No, but seriously, he said "litcherally" all the time, and I about DIED. It was fantastic. Hearing that takes me back to some good times in Austin...Anyway, we ate an amazing dinner cooked by the owner herself, and then headed to our rooms. I was staying with my homegurls Amanda, Sadie, Nicole, and Bree (or should I say Jordon, Blythe, and Devon?). Gotta love 'em. They're all fabulous. The next day we had a wonderful breakfast, got a tour of the winery, and with a delicious lunch to fill our tummies, we were on our way back home. A delightful time, if you ask me. Plus, now I can say I'm an expert at wines (I know how to tell the age and alcohol content just by looking at it and the proper way to smell and taste the wine). Monday was just a school day like any other. Tuesday was not bad, I guess, except for you know who. Return of the awkward art history teacher again. Except this time she wasn't so much awkward as she was boring as all get out. Have you ever had an art history teacher who reads a multiple page essay word for word to the class as her lecture? Yeah, me neither. I was litcherally (shout out: Phil!) doing everything I could to stay awake. I must have shifted positionslike 70 different times but to no avail. Finally, I just said screw it and rested my head on one hand while the other was moving a pen back and forth to look like I was taking notes. No joke. You can actually see in my notes where I fell asleep. HA! Priceless. Once I made it through that brutal torture it was on to the rest of the day. Italian-il solito (the usual). History of Tuscany-SO nerve wracking. We had to write a commentary on an article he had given us, and he sat there in front of the entire class and read each persons essay out loud. With additions of his own comments and critiques, of course. It was impossible to not feel like an idiot. Thank God I have more than half a brain and know how to spell correctly. I got by almost scotch free except for the omission of one comma where one was needed. After THAT form of torture was over, we had a pretty awesome class discussion full of the Count's riddles. See if you can figure them out:
Riddle One: Two people are walking along ice, and when they look down they notice a man and a woman in the ice. They say, "Look, it's Adam and Eve!" They know this to be completely true. How do they know?
Riddle Two: A man is hiking up a mountain, and when he gets to the top he sees 6 people seated in a cabin, all dead. He knows exactly how each one died. How does he know?
If you can figure out even one of the two, you're a smart cookie. After class, my friends had some questions for the Count. I stuck around to hear what he had to say, and when he finished about 5 minutes later he turns to us and says, "Do you have anything important to do right now?" Ummm, even if I had a meeting with the President of the United States I would still say no. He then told us to follow him, and like baby ducklings following their mother, the 5 of us blindly followed behind him in a row. He ended up taking us to a small cafe where he ordered a bottle of wine for the table. We all sat around and drank while we conversed with (I'm so mature) and listened to the Count. Found out some pretty interesting stuff about him. If you're really interested to know, ask me later. Then, Tuesday night I had one of the best nights of my semester thus far. There's a bar called Be Bop at which every Tuesday there's a Beatles cover band that performs. So of course I was there...I have to make my mother proud! (Paul McCartney wasn't as cute as the real one) A bunch of my friends and I went, and it was such a great time to be had by all. We ended up sitting at a table right next to the stage with this guy Massimo. He didn't speak any English, but knew every single word to every single song. Well, kinda. It's like when we try to sing songs in other languages, and you THINK you know the words, but really you're just screaming a bunch of mumbo jumbo that kinda sounds like the lyrics but actually doesn't make any sense. Either way, it was adorable. He's great friends with the band and goes every Tuesday without fail. He was so nice and ended up buying all of us drinks. Luckily for us, he goes every Tuesday without fail... if you catch my drift. It was nice sharing our love and admiration for the greatest band of all time. It really goes to show that music does transcend language, it's something you feel inside of you whether you completely understand it or not. Best song of the evening: Oh Darling-what a classic. Tuesday ended on a good note...litcherally (too cheesy?). Wednesday, la classe di italiano, and that was it. On Thursday, all of the Italian classes got together to watch La Vita E' Bella, one of my all time favorite movies. If you haven't seen it, watch it immediately. The second class ended, 3 friends and I rushed to the train station to catch our train to Perugia. Somehow we made it in record time, and after walking through about 10 train cars, we finally found one with 4 seats together. Next to the only broken window on the whole train...of course. But we didn't care because we were on our way to Perugia! The hostel was great, as was the city. So peaceful and SO quiet compared to the bustling Florence. We had a delicious dinner, and then headed to a pub to spend our evening. Met some crazy/annoying Italian guys, but hey, it was entertainment at least. The next day, 4 more friends joined us, and we explored the city. I caved and bought my first shopping purchase. And I was doing so well with resisting the temptation! We checked out the Galleria Nazionale d'Umbria, and it was tiiiiight. Lots of pictures of the J.C. Although I'm usually asleep after looking at the same general image of Mr. Carpenter over and over in my art history classes (sound familiar?), I was actually very fascinated with each one that I saw. And trust me, there were a LOT. The most stunning was this one: http://tuscanyumbriavilla.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/350px-piero_perugia.jpg?w=350&h=588. You can't really tell how amazing it is from this crappy thumbnail, but it was incredible. For dinner, the whole group went out, and that brings about a funny little story. So, throughout dinner we notice a group of about 20 guys at a table close to us staring and pointing. They weren't trying to be sly about it either. They were just STARING and POINTING. Constantly. So, we're like, Dudes. If you're gonna be that obvious about it at least buy us a bottle of wine or something. So our waiter comes over and says that the table of gentleman want to know how old we are. Umm, no. Nice try. We ask who they are and he tells us they're Polish. Oh wait, no. "Polish" is just a goofy Italian waiter's way of saying POLICE. Yeah, the carabinieri. Well, shoot. Now we HAVE to play nice unless we want another Amanda Knox case x8 on our hands. (Too soon?) So we smile and go about our dinner, all the while they are STILL staring and pointing. Side note: Lemme tell you something. No matter what city you're in or what restaurant you go to, there are always these annoying men who come in trying to sell you roses. You would think after telling the same guy, "no I don't want any stupid roses!" five times he would get the picture, but no. So, without fail, in walks in one of the rose guys. A few minutes later our waiter announces, "Be prepared to get some roses soon!" as he walks by our table. I look at the table full of carabinieri and shout, "How about instead of roses we'll take some dolci!" Yeah, I don't think they understood English because in place of a tasty dessert we each got a rose delivered by the one lucky chosen guy from the group. I guess I'll take a rose over nothing (but I still would've much preferred some Tiramisu). It made for a good story, if nothing else. When we went to a bar later with our roses, a group of guys were shocked when we told them they were from the police. Maybe it's a pretty big deal or something? Who knows. You still with me? If yes, wow. I'm barely still with me, and I'm the one writing this thing. Let's continue. Saturday, the 2 Becca's and I got up early and took the bus to Assisi. If you thought Perugia was peaceful and quiet, go to Assisi. It's one of the most tranquil places I've ever been to. We went to check out the church of San Francesco, and my expectations were fully surpassed. First of all, the church was wayyyy bigger than I expected. I dunno, I figured since St. Francis gave up all of his worldly belongings and what not his church would be a little bit on the more moderate side. Nope. It was huge and beautiful. You weren't allowed to take any pictures, but Becca snuck some in, so I'll have to steal those from her and post them on here later. The coolest part of the whole trip was that we got to go down and see the actual tomb of St. Francis. We were lucky because right after we circled the tomb, they closed off the area in order to have Mass. I know I ain't Christian or nuthin, but hearing Mass led by real monks down in the tomb of St. Francis will be one of the highlights of my life. So incredible. After we went through the entire church and saw some relics, we wandered around the city for a bit until it was time to go home. FYI, trying to figure out which bus to take from Assisi back to Perugia was not a fun experience. Once we were back, we had a relaxing afternoon/evening. By the way, Firenze kabobs >Perugia kabobs, by far. This morning when we headed to the train station for our return home to Florence, we were notified that there was a strike and that the train would only take us to Arezzo, at the very farthest. We had heard something last week about a strike happening over the weekend, but pshh, who actually believes that when they hear it. Oops? We tried to create a plan of attack which involved taxis, trains, and buses, but eventually just decided to get on the train and hope for the best. Well, we must have had good ol' St. Francis watching over us because we made it all the way back to Florence SMN like we were supposed to. Thanks, Francy, I owe you one. And now, finally bed. I don't think this post even needs an ending because that'd just be one more thing to read. Catch ya on the flip side, people.
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