The Whole Shebang

Ok, get ready for the longest blog ever. I am going to lump last week into one. I will try to be brief and entertaining. :-)

We are going to start at the Chalet. The Chalet is an outdoor bar in the park. Some of the girls and I will go to Zio Zeb pizza, order some pizzas and then walk over to the Chalet to enjoy a bottle of vino and the outdoors. I can't get over the location of the Chalet just yet. Europe is very diffent, case in point, the Chalet is positioned between two playgrounds and there are some toys AT the Chalet so that the children (we have seen infants to 13) that stay later than we do (we tend to leave around midnight) have something to play with.

Here is the actual bar. :-) We have got I would like a bottle of white/red wine with ___ glasses in Italian down pat. That's Lauren in the corner of the photo.

I have met two absolutely amazing people that I adore, John and Jane. John is in the program with me and Jane is his wife. They are, without a doubt, two of the most entertaining and kind people I have ever met. For instance, they are staying at a very nice palazzo (palace in Italian) and invited the entire class over for dinner one night. Here is a view of the backyard.

The food... oh the food. Jane is one of those people you wish you could be, but more than likely you'll never quite get it right. She and John run a business of their own, but oh no, she doesn't stop there, she is an amazing cook. She and her friend made all of the food for the dinner and I can say that I have never enjoyed an ENTIRE spread before in my life. Usually I will find one or two things I like, but not all. Not the case here, it was all delectable. 

The Palazzo is in the city walls of Amelia, and this is a view from the backyard.

So, the people that live and own the house are direct decendants of the original owner who was a Pope... or a Bishop... hmm... I'm going to have to look into that. Not a Pope... maybe a Cardinal? Maybe I should have waited to have my first glass of Prosecco until AFTER the tour.

The Palazzo is used as a B&B. In order to get a bathroom in one of the rooms, without affecting the structure of the home, they purchased this swanky piece and built a bathroom in it. SO neat!!

The view. I never get sick of these views and I hope you don't mind. They are not likely to stop anytime soon.

The Palazzo at night. I want a Palazzo. :-)

Suffice it to say that was my favorite night thus far. 

Next,  we went back to Crazy Johnny's (the place where we got the HUGE appetizer). It was just Lindsey, Lauren and I (I promise, I will start taking pictures of people soon) and Isabel and Michelle (two other friends) were at another table. 

Crazy Johnny's (that's not the actual name of the bar, I don't know the real name, but Johnny is the owner and he is crazy) is an experience in and of itself. The menu changes daily, so they don't print one... so you have to try to translate while listening to the waitress (NOT EASY). We have started asking for her notepad so we can read it. So we have had octopus here before, and weren't particularly wanting to have it again so we made sure not to order anything with Popoli in it... or so we thought.

Lauren and I ordered gnocchi and Lindsey ordered pan fried fish with basil... or did she? When her meal came out this is what she got:

A heaping bowl of baby octopi. YUUMMM!! I mean, they really do not taste bad. If you like fried squid (calamari) you'll like fried octopus. It's just the visual you have to get around.

So dinner was lovely and as we were wrapping up a huge group of handsome young men came in and sat at a few tables near ours. As we were getting ready to ask for the check (and finishing our 2nd bottle of wine... I'll help you do the math, 3 girls, 2 bottles) the boys sent over another bottle in exchange for a picture with their birthday boy. This is another example of, Amelians just like Americans. I can't imagine doing this in the States, walking up to a tourist and asking to take a picture with them, but it is always sweet and endearing. 

We took the picture and then started chatting. Amelia is a small town, and you know you are in a small town when you, as the outsider, start to make connections. Such as, our Italian Language teacher is apparently married to one of the guys that had been in the group, but left a little early. Turns out the group is the Amelian football (that's soccer for you American's) team and Monica's husband is the coach. I think Amelia could institute 2 degrees of separation and succeed easily.

To keep it short, we drank the third bottle of wine (only after enticing Isabel and our waitress to help), got another plate of fried octopus (the boys sent it over) and then dessert (the boys sent it over) then we went home.

A few days later we tried a pizza place that is quite a hike away, but has a view that is worth it. This is a picture of a house that we all claim we will own at some point in our lives.

This is a field of sunflowers. I cannot wait for them all to bloom. My mind cannot comprehend how beautiful that will be. 

View

The columns leading to the house we will all own one day. :-)

THE view. That is Amelia. It was an overcast day, so the pictures aren't as great as I would like, but you get the idea.

Nighttime view.

That's all for now! Ciao!

La Vida Loca

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. :-) 

via Roma

I live on via Roma (Rome Street), so every time I goto write this blog I start out with via Roma, even though it isn't quite what I mean to be explaining. I figured you guys would allow me that liberty. So two Saturday's ago we went on a field-trip to Rome, I know, that in and of itself is amazing to say, a field-trip to Rome. However, because it was a class trip we weren't really able to run around everywhere. 

One of our first stops was at San Luigi dei Francesi, a beautiful church in Rome. We were stopping here because of the Caravaggio's that adorn one of the chapels there. Here they both are, the top one is The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, and the bottom one is The Calling of Saint Matthew together they are The Inspiration of Saint Matthew. Obviously they are both much more impressive in person, but I thought you might appreciate it anyways.

I found the following angels to be quite interesting. If you look closely you can see that they are actually holding the balcony area up. I thought that was a nice touch. 

Next we went on to the Pantheon. I had missed this the last time I was in Rome, so I was very excited to see it (especially after seeing Angels and Demons). I cannot believe that I missed this the last time I was in Rome. Let me start with stating that this is by far one of the most amazing buildings I have ever entered. 

Once you walk into the building you are amazed by the enormity of the space. Here is a view of the dome with the famous hole at the very top.

However, my favorite part was this stray dog that wandered in. He was this adorably scruffy little dog and he simply walked in and relaxed on the floor. Once the security saw him this older man (below, in the blue shirt) tried to shoo him away (yes, I was "that" tourist taking pictures of all of this). What I loved the most is that when the security guy went to get reinforcements (he refused to touch the dog) the dog got up and proceeded to walk around the entire building as if he was a human visitor. When he got to the end and the police guy showed up he simply walked out of the building. I swear he must have been a person stuck in a dog's body, it was hilarious.

After the excitement of the Parthenon we all went on our own for lunch, then met at the Borghese Gallery for some more art fun! :-) No cameras allowed inside there, but here is a picture of us lounging outside (from left to right: Kate, Lindsey, Me, and Harasyn).

That's all for now! Ciao!

Ciao or Chow?

The above is a sunset view of Amelia, my little Italian home. This is the view on our way to the outdoor bar we hang out at (blog to follow).

So across the street from my stairs there is what looks to be a small bar/pizzeria. One night Lauren and I did not feel like trekking up the monstrous hill to go to our favorite pizzeria, so we hesitantly decided to try this place. We got a classmate of ours, Catherine, to join us on our culinary adventure.

Every dinner in Italy is a culinary adventure. They take (on average) about 4 hours start to finish. Sometimes menu's aren't provided, the chef just starts talking to you (which isn't a good thing as we just started our Italian lessons yesterday) and you fumble your way through ordering dinner. The only good thing is that EVERYTHING you order in Italy turns out yummy. I have yet to have something I did not like, and I have ventured well beyond my normal culinary borders. For instance, lunch yesterday was polenta with wild boar ragu. Sounds weird, tastes fantastic.

Ok, so back to trying the new pizzeria. We walked in and the fun started immediately. You apparently have to choose between the pizzeria menu and the restaurant menu, we choose the pizza menu. Right after being shown to the table the waitress asked us if we wanted antipasto, we said sure. (Side note: NEVER go to a restaurant in Italy hungry. It will take about an hour to get your appetizer, another hour or so to get your meal, etc. You get ravenous and angry if you didn't eat ahead of time.) After getting the antipasto we made sure to point out ONE antipasto for the three of us to share... or so we thought. THIS is what was brought to our table:

Apparently she thought we meant one antipasto for each of us, she brought three. We can't imagine what she was thinking, but we also think she must have thought we were crazy. The language barrier is killing us. Here is the receipt for our mistake, 30E for antipasto. Usually dinners are pretty cheap, 5E for a pizza. Lesson learned.

Speaking of language lessons, we started our Italian lessons yesterday and I am fumbling through them. I am hoping to get better over time. My main issue is that EVERYONE lied when they said French would help you learn Italian, lies all lies. French completely kills you when you try to learn Italian, mainly pronunciation. I read the words like I do French words, and that does not work. Oh well, hopefully very soon I will get the hang of it. :-)

Ok... so I started working on this blog because I thought I had already posted by Rome blog, but I didn't. One day you might get like 4 blogs so I can catch up. :-) I hope you don't mind.

Robin Hood and Markets

So, I finally have my own access card, so while I am at school I have internet. It is rumored that people have appealed to our landlord to get wireless in the building, so I am crossing my fingers. Also, the head of our program was on site today and realized how messed up the internet is, so he is going to look into an entirely new system for us. 

In the meantime some stories for you to enjoy.

So Sunday morning I woke up, got out of bed and started my morning ritual of opening my terrace blinds and then my terrace door to get some air. Normally this is a very uneventful thing, however this Sunday I opened my blinds to this....

Now, the motorcycle is not what threw me off... look beyond... in the distance... is that a man in tights and medieval garb with a bow and arrow? Yes, yes it is. Apparently in conjunction with the wine festival they had an archery competition. I have found that Italian males aged 0-80 love wearing tights. Ahh... welcome to Amelia.

Now... I have sorta gotten the hang of shopping. My first picture is to prove that Barilla is the choice that Italians make.  

I found an 8 pack of yogurt at the store, some celery at the market and some left overs from Pizza & Co. (where, coincidentally I mooed like a cow to confirm the kind of meat they were trying to sell us).

Apples, carrots, tomatoes from the coop. Ok... buying vegetables in Italy. It just does not make sense. You are NOT supposed to touch the vegetables, you have to put on a glove. Then you have to get the bin number, weigh it, print out a label and move onto the next one. :-) Hence on my first day here I bought a family sized bag of apples.
All my fruits from the market. They are FANTASTIC!!!
Ok... class is starting again. Off I go to learn about art forgery.

The Looking Glass

It looks as though it may be a while before I actually get the opportunity and bandwidth to load my videos, so I am going to try some photos. First, a little background on how I do the blogs, or how I try to do the blogs.

 

At school internet is the most precious commodity and currently only three people can access the wireless at a time. In Italy you don’t just get a universal password and then log on, oh no that would be waaaaaay too easy. In Italy (more particularly in Amelia) you have to get this personalized random log-in and password that comes on this credit card looking item. The 20 cards that my school ordered a while ago need to travel from a town that is about an hour away, sadly we have no idea when they will actually arrive. So in the meantime we all share the log-in’s and it very much limits the amount of time I can sit online.

 

In order to get around the time constraint I have decided to start typing the blog the night ahead and then just posting it when I arrive at school and can get my hands on an access card.  Hopefully this will work much better and I can update you a bit more often!

 

I have a list of things I want to fill you in on (such as the fieldtrip to Rome, the wine festival, the flag throwers and drummers that practice outside my window at midnight, etc) however I am going to start with my apartment in pictures. Again… I really hope the pictures make it online!

This is the view from my front door. Now don’t be fooled, this is not an Ikea catalogue, it is my apartment. You are surprised aren’t you? You were expecting ruins? Me too! I have been very pleasantly surprised. The monstrosity in the majority of the picture is my drying table. Oh yeah, we do things old school over here! I wash my clothes then I have to hang/drape them to dry. I moved it inside because it was starting to look a bit rainy outside.

Moving on, this is my shelving system. I took the liberty of printing out some of my family and friends (you might recognize yourself) and buying some cardboard frames so that I could see your smiling faces!

 

Next, in no particular order, you have my bed, my bathroom, my bedroom with the door to my terrace and bathroom and a shot of my wardrobe/closet.

 

The next series are photos I have taken either of my terrace or of the view from my terrace. This one is of my terrace.

 

Then you have Bar Leonardi. In Italy, bar does not necessarily mean drinking bar it is more like a café. Every morning I walk down and order a caffe latte… Starbucks wishes they could make a caffe latte like this! Bar Leonardi is also quite the hangout for Italians of all ages, all of the ages seem to shy away from going to bed early so I typically have lots of people out there until about 3am. Additionally this is pretty much the intersection of the two main roads in Amelia, so I get lots of fun motorcycle revving to wake me up in the morning.

 

Next you have the church (with the belltower and clock). The belltower chimes every hour and every half hour. I love the bells!

 

The white illuminated archway is the Porta Romana. There are only 4 doors into the Old City and this is the main one. I walk through this everyday to get to class.

 

Speaking of class, the white building here is the archaeological museum. My classes are held in the city library, which is behind this building.

 

Ok… I have to go to bed. More later! Ciao!