Oh the "charms" of Italy. We just got internet back after not having it for a couple of days. I cannot begin to explain to you how cut off you feel when you can't get in touch with anyone. Cellphone minutes here are quite expensive, so unless people call me, I am not calling them too much. I already blew through 45 euros worth of minutes. Yeah... crazy.. 19 days 45 Euros. YIKES!
Moving on. So what fun things should I update you on? I am going to cover my last weekend, but I am starting with a fun crazy story.
Sergio is this man in town that we assume may be the town drunk. Everyone in Amelia looks at him like he is crazy (which he is) and he is always stalking people. Since our arrival we met two other American girls that are in Amelia, but not in our program. One of these girls has the severe misfortune of being the desired object of Sergio's affection. He will search for her all over town and sometimes will show up in our classroom because he assumes that since we are American we know were the other Americans are at all times. (this is a very hard thing to explain to the Italians... that we don't know all of the other Americans. Funny side note, when we were out an Italian boy asked Lauren if she was American, when she answered yes he asked if she knew Cindy Jones.)
Anyways (see... I am so excited to have internet and contact with you all that I am going on, and on, and on) below is a picture of a car on the median. Last Friday on our way home from class we noticed this big commotion. There was a huge crowd (which you can see) and some police cars, etc. So we realized it was a car accident... involving only one car. It seems that Sergio was driving his car (the tiny two door silver car below) and he decided to drive over a sign... the pole is visible in the lower right corner.
Oh Sergio! The cops were laughing so hard. We aren't quite sure what led to him deciding to take the sign out with his car, but it was quite entertaining. Below is the sign. :-)
On Saturday we had an unexpected day off (we have class Monday-Saturday) and so Lindsey, Lauren, Kate and I trekked to Orvieto. Orvieto is a town about an hour away. Well... it is an hour away if you take the direct bus, which we didn't know existed until the end of the day on our way back, so we took two trains to get to Orvieto. One thing I have yet to get used to are the windy roads and the non-air-conditioned swaying bus. We typically get off and need to sit down and calm our stomachs. I am trying to remember to take ginger pills on those days. :-)
Our timing was remarkably perfect in Orvieto. We were completely unaware that something interesting would be happening, and when we arrived we were surprised to find tons of people in the square. They were unveiling a new statue in honor of the Corpus Christie Festival.
The firefighters unveiling the new sculpture! I have a video, but I think I will have to wait until I get home to share those with you guys.
We got gelato at the place below. Besides being absolutely beautiful it is regionally known for it's fantastic gelato. I got kiwi, blueberry and peach. Yummmm yum!
Here is another view of the Duomo after the unveiling. It is absolutely breathtaking in real life. I can't get over the size of things in Italy, you walk around the corner and are faced with the most beautiful awe inspiring things.
Another indication of our perfect timing, there was a Medieval procession going through the town when we went to leave. More men in tights (I swear, the Italian boys love tights). :-)
A close up shot for the ladies!
The view from Orvieto. Orvieto is a hill town, but it is very high. I think it would be pretty close to impossible to try to get to Orvieto without climbing equipment. The town has a trolley system installed because of the steep climb. It takes a trolley and a bus to get to the Duomo.
This is a view from the top of the trolley... or train... or whatever you want to call it.
So then Saturday night we went to the Disco with our Italian friend Guilia (pronounced Julia, the Italians don't have J in the alphabet really). So... I have no pictures of this because I refused to be the American tourist... not that we don't stand out to begin with, more on that later.
We meet Guilia and she gets two of her friends to drive us to the Disco. Lindsey and I get in the car with two guys, Andrea and Agostini and set off on our trip to the Disco. About four minutes into the drive (we were told it would take about 5 minutes) we realized we were leaving the next town and driving up into the forest. Our American mentality had us convinced that Discos are in city centers, not in forests, so Lindsey and I started to plan our escape out of the car as soon as they stopped (I mean come on every horror film starts with two stupid girls driving into the woods with two boys they don't know).
As we started to discuss how to dial 911 in Italian the road opened up a bit and we saw a massive amount of cars. Ah ha, apparently in Italy the discos are in the middle of nowhere on top of hills. Good to know. The disco was funny, it consisted of more opportunities for the Italians to take our pictures when they thought we didn't realize they were taking our picture and the DJ welcomed the American Girls. It is seriously like they have never seen American's before ever. Very entertaining!
We got home at 4:50am and had to meet at noon to go to our Dean's house in the country. Here is Madi's house (you can rent it if you ever want to head over to Italy).
This is the pool, yes I got in it, no I didn't get tan.
This is the view as the sun started to set (the sun sets at about 9pm here).
Another view... that's lavender in the foreground.
Another view.
There was a jazz band. The saxophonist is my friend Harasyn's house dad, very sweet very helpful. I love that they brought their instruments to a house party, so nice.
Sun setting....
My favorite sunset picture. I LOVE the mountain.
Ok... I am seriously working on catching up because I have about 3 more stories until we are up to today, and yet I am sure more stories will happen today, so I will try during class. :-)
