It's 5 o'clock somewhere, but in Italy it's noon.

So, this weekend was busy, which i love. I love to be busy and this week is busy. While schoolwork is picking up, it's not all bad and I am enjoying having a schedule. So there are about 3989 things to write about so I am going label things I guess.

Gubbio
This Friday me, Emily, Molly, and Melissa took about an hour bus ride up to the small little medieval stone town. After actually getting out of bed for a 7:50 bus, we managed to drive up to the little town with ZERO tourists. I have really started to appreciate going places and living somewhere where there are not a million tourist attractions. After hiking around in the freezing (by freezing, i mean probably like upper 30's) cold up hill in this city we managed to follow some signs that led us to the funicular. The funicular had these little bird cage type things that led you about halfway up the mountain and then from there you can hike up the rest of the way. Well, I am pretty sure that while these "cages" are legal in Italy I don't think they could be called safe or legal in the US. They were so much fun and I loved literally hopping off of the cage and seeing SNOW. My roommates think that my love of snow is historical because I literally turn into a 5 year old when I see it. For them snow is old news and is miserable. I'm not going to lie, though, hiking up a mountain over some snow was not the most joyous thing. Jumping in it though, was fun. We also visited a church at the top of the mountain for a saint whose actual body was just chilling in the front of the church. Slightly disturbing. I'm not sure why, but more than his body just being there I was also disturbed that he was wearing his whole get up including gloves. The gloves really got me. After seeing the Apennines from the top of Mt. Gubbio (not the real name), we went back down, grabbed some lunch and then hopped on a bus which happened to be the bus full of kids riding home from school which will lead me to my next point. Middle schoolers.

Middle Schoolers
I have learned that middle school is an internationally awkward time for everyone. Not only do middle schoolers smell in America, but they also smell in Italy. Especially when you are on a small bus with about 25 of them for an hour. I guess I never realized that it takes all pre-teens a while to discover deodorant. I also learned that a lot of words are universal, many of which I do not feel comfortable to write on here. In general, middle school is a terrible age and I do not wish to ride a bus around 2:00 with them again. Although, I did see one kid who was definitely the bully of the group who looked identical to a guy I went to middle school with named Justin Giannace. He was the only one in 7th grade with a mustache.

Roma
Rome! After my early morning to Gubbio on Friday, somehow I made it out of bed Saturday in order to catch an 8:00 am bus to Rome. Definitely would take the bus over the train again. Although the bus was full at first and the bus driver had us stand for about 20 minutes and drove us to another bus which was scary because I honestly thought that he was going to just have us stand for a 2.5 hour bus ride. Since this wasn't my first trip to Rome, I didn't know what to expect, I kind of thought that some of the sights would seem old. It was a totally different experience. It was nice not having a tour guide and different not being there with my parents. And possibly my favorite part was watching the faces of friends who were seeing things for the first time. We saw the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Nevona (probably misspelled), The Pantheon, the Ruins, and the Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps was especially neat to see because I didn't see them on my last trip to Rome. It was crazy being around that many people and also not having to use any Italian. I actually wanted to, but everywhere people just approached you with English. It made me appreciate Perugia because if I were studing in Rome, I don't think I would be motivated to learn Italian.

Other Tidbits...
I guess I should explain the title of this blog. While enjoying my "fabulous" life in Italy, today my food and culture class had a wine tasting. My 12:00 class. We went about 400 meters (probably means nothing to anyone, I don't even know how far this is other than I know where the actual cafe is) to Cafe di Perugia and tasted 3 different wines. It was fun to take a break from the norm and break out of the classroom. It was also interesting too, to be tired from 3 glasses of wine during my already tiring psychology class. I am also having fun adjusting to British English spellings like "behaviour" rather than "behavior" and using words like trolley rather than grocery cart. I also rather enjoy hearing my British and Irish teachers use their accents in speaking in Italian.

In other unrelated things, please keep the people in Egypt in your prayers. There are 2 girls from Presbyterian College studying abroad in Cairo who have been evacuated from there schools as of today. Taylor Warner and Jessica Shamoon are their names and they are in contact as much as they can with their families, but their school is moving them to a safe European country.

Also, Ellen Scheide, my big in my sorority is donating blood stem cells today to a man with Lukemia. She will return to PC on Tuesday from her procedure. She is so giving and I am so proud of her!

As always, pictures are on facebook. I will try to put some on here later.
Caio!

Better Late Than Never.

A New Church I found In Perugia.

Church in Assisi.

So just as I thought I would, I have not kept up with this blog as much as I would like which I guess means that this post will have to be a little long which will encourage me to write more often so I don't leave things out.

So first off, last week was the beginning of real classes. Due to my lack of a good camera (my own fault) I decided not to take photography. Mostly because I have gone through 3 cameras in three years and have been demoted to what my parents said would survive being in fraternaty house that runs on double a batteries. So, I got a new class approved through my school and have decided to declare a Psychology minor! Or at least that is my intention now, we will see if I actually will have time to complete it at PC. So here is a basic rundown of my classes:

• Contemporary Italy: Basically this class covers everything you wanted (or did not want) to know about Italy. Every class we cover a new topic and will basically cover every aspect of the entire country. We are going to cover georgraphy, history, religion, family life, organized crime, etc. Basically the works.




• Food and Culture of Italy: This class is just as delightful as it sounds. The professor is a young Brittish man who is really funny and commutes here from Florence. Besides a fieldtrip we are going to take to Florence later on, we talk about why the food here is the way it is and the history going back to the beginning of time it seems. Today we tasted olive oils and next week we are tasting wines.




• Elementary Italian: I don't think this needs much explination, but I do really enjoy Alassandra my Italian teacher. The language isn't too hard to pick up on, its just hard to break my habits from 7 or so years of Spanish. She does want us to learn it all though, one girl in our class paused because she didn't know the answer and let a profane word slip, so Alassandra asked us if we knew what it was in Italian and wrote it on the board for future reference.




• Human Development: This class is basically where culture meets psychology. The sweet Irish woman who teaches is is absolutely brilliant and the class is intense, but interesting. Basically we explore the theories of psychology and their origins, and analyze why they don't all include culture. A lot of reading.

An adventure I have recently taken part in is TANDEM. This is a cross cultural experience that Umbra (my program) and the University of Perugia put on. They have it at Il Barraio, the cool little bar I think I have mentioned before with the great sangria and you get to go meet Italian people. Although I didn't have much Italian to practice with the people, the people I met spoke wonderful English and I learned a lot about cultural differences. The one girl we really got to know, I think her name was Rafaella basically told us that Italians look to America as the perfect example of Nationalism which I thought was really interesting. I explained to her that I thought while most people would say they were glad to live in America, there are many that don't like everything that happens there. I definitely plan on going back to this, they have it about every 2 weeks.

Last week, in the midst of everyone in my program getting sick and very cold weather, we went to go visit a nearby town of Assisi. It was absolutely beautiful even in the rain/snow. My southern body had quite a shock to the cold weather. We toured the basilica of St. Francis and it was HUGE and gorgeous. I sometimes wonder about huge churches like that because I see tons of people touring them as a building and at the same time I see people in the pews almost in tears in prayer. I wish I had more of an understanding of St. Francis' story and of how saints play into the Catholic faith as well. Regardless it was beautiful and even though pictures weren't allowed inside, I don't think I will forget that church. The whole town of Assisi was beautiful really.

We tried some new things this week, we went to two separate aperitivos - both wonderful! And yesterday Emily and I explored some of the parts of the city that we hadn't yet. We ended up by our house somehow 2 hours later after finding some really neat shops, restaurants, an art school, and some spectacular new views. I don't think it ever gets old.

and it all begins now.

I guess it has been an eventful past couple of days, I have learned a lot and luckily slept a lot since adjusting to a new culture has been a little crazy. On Wednesday we had a welcome aperitivo hosted by our school at a local place called il barraio. An aperitivo is basically a little like an Italian happy hour. If you go to a place and order at least one drink, they basically keep appetizer type food coming as long as you are there. Since our aperitivo was school hosted at this little place, it was completely free which was nice being that the Euro has been fluctuating quite alot. They served us all pitchers of Italian Sangria and some pizza and these little quesadilla type things with prosciutto and cheese in them. I know sangria is not thought of as a typical Italian drink, but it wasn't like any I have had in Spain or the US. Probably because the wine was local and probably because we are convinced they didn't use much juice in it because juice basically cost more than wine here. It was a really fun night and the place we went to was really cool and had like a Moroccan feel to it.

(the church in falign
Friday we decided to take our first "major" outing and take a train. The original intention was to go to Spello, but unfortunately one of the people we were with could not figure out how to open the train door so we missed the stop. Fortunately the train had another stop in about 7 minutes that led us to the little town of Faligno. While Faligno wasn't big (neither was Spello), it was really nice to stumble upon such a small little town where we were the only tourists really. We did meet a little man from Manchester who was really nice. The town had a beautiful cathedral and a bunch of shops and arches and whatnot. It was kind of exciting to stumble upon a neat little place like that. So needless to say on the way back to avoid and more issues, I was the one to open the door to get back to Perugia. We got back just in time for a late dinner and found this little restaurant called Lunabar that had some amazing food. I had a seafood pizza where most of the seafood was unidentifiable, but it was absolutely delicious. Also, the house wine there was probably one of my top favorites since I have been here. We now have officially mastered the public transportation system and know that even when things go wrong, they can still go right.

(Me, Molly, and Emily before the tour)
(one of my new discoveries on the tour)

Yesterday one of the guys from our school that has worked there for years led us on a 2 hour walk of the city that was the "non historical" tour. It had a little history, maybe a little truth, and a lot of really cool places and sights that I didn't even know our little city had. It's crazy how everyday we find something new here. We even found a couple of new shops and places to eat. Definitely a cool thing to do and a fantastic work out since all of this food is so good.

(Umbrian Country House)

Today was amazing, the school contacted us earlier this week about going to a country house for a lunch and at the proposal of free food and drinks we were all in. We drove about 25 minutes outside of city center to a small town and had a four hour lunch. Italians love taking forever to do things and this lunch was one of those things that was worth the wait. We had a fabulous antipasti, pasta course, main course of turkey, tiramisu, and finished off with the strongest cup of espresso I have ever had in my life. Needless to say even after all of that food I was very much awake. We got to explore around the property where we were a little bit before leaving and it was absolutely beautiful.

This little city is beginning to fill up, all of the other University students are back in town and it is a sight to see how many people fill up this town at night now. The piazza outside of our street was packed last night at 1:30 and as far as we could hear from our apartment they were still going for a while. Its funny how things are different here, the students all hang out at bars, but also the really cool thing to do is to be in the streets and squares in masses. Pretty sure thats illegal where I am from. Needless to say our little city is very much alive and even more fun.

Class begins officially tomorrow, so we can see how that goes. Luckily I have nothing until 11 any day. So far, I love this country.

Mi Chiamo Molly. Sono di Georgia.

So as my Italian is getting better (severe overstatement) I am getting a little more confident in exploring the city shops, supermarkets, ect. Actually, my practical afternoon Italian class took a trip to the huge 'supermarcato' that is a little bit out side of the center of the city. While there are a few small markets around town, to really find the most for your money and more practical items/items that Americans are familiar with it is best to visit the bigger store. To get to the bigger store, I had my first trip with my class on the city's mini metro which is an above ground public transportation system that is above ground. It is only about two years old and really convenient, not to mention you get a fantastic view of the city without having to go very far at all. Like in America, Italy has chain stores. The store we went to is called the Coop (pronounced Coh-op if that makes sense) and was essentially like a Publix, but much better and much fresher ingredients. I had to buy a reusable shopping bag here today though to save my self a bit of money because as of January of this year, unless you buy the plastic bag at a grocery store you aren't getting one.

I am excited to be getting on a normal schedule and be getting settled into this beautiful city. It is starting to feel a bit like home. I have cooked meals here now, ridden transportation, done homework, taken classes, and even ordered my panino (sandwhich) today completely in Italian. Besides almost getting hit by a Fiat daily and the shady people that come out at night (happens everywhere, right?), I really do feel safe here. Italy has really livened my sense of adventure. Even though I live about 30 seconds from school, every day it seems like we discover a new view or a new part of town that we cannot wait to see more of. Also, it never fails that we learn a new cultural thing or idea that we cannot totally seem to wrap around our heads. So since before I left I wrote a list of things that I thought would be interesting to adjust to, here is a short version of a current running list of interesting things I have found in Italy thus far:
1. Strange store hours occur here. There is "la pausa" or the pause which is like the Spanish equivilent to a siesta where a lot of things close down from about 1:30 to 4, sometimes the stores close, sometimes they don't. Heck, sometimes they don't open back up until the owner darn well pleases. Also, shops often can be found closed on Monday mornings and Thursday afternoons. I feel like Italians just very much go with the flow and if they don't want to open, they just don't.
2. Italians are not stupid and know when Americans are coming here for school because they pass around flyers to come to the more "American" bars to get a free drink with your American ID and to quote "Shake your booty off." Obviously American people have a fabulous and classy reputation here. Note: These are not the places I am trying to spend my time here, no worries Mom and Dad.
3. I am all about being good to our environment, but these people are some kind of serious about recycling. We have 4 different colored trash bags that all of our trash must be sorted into and taken out all on different days between 8 and 10 at night. I can take one handful of trash from lunch and use 3 separate trash bags, but only after looking at the piece of paper that tells me what goes where.
4. Our shower door is a tri fold, I don't know if this makes sense to anyone, but it literally folds in three and if you aren't careful will leak everywhere. And even if you are extremely careful, it leaks a little. What does this mean? Our apartment bathroom came with instructions...and a mop. We have to mop after every single shower to garuntee that we do not leak water to the people below us. But I guess some things are worth having a beautiful place to live.
5. Fashion trends here are a little different than here at home. Which can mean one of two things, they are way ahead of us or behind us. From the looks of it, I think it might be a little bit of both. While there is lots of high fashion here and lots of discount stores, the two top things in this season? Shiny, puffy coats and those Timberland hiking boots.
6. Starbucks in America things it is so fancy for using Italian words and having all sorts of varieties. Well guess what, America? Italians have been known to call our coffee "dirty water." If you simply go into a coffe shop and order a caffe (the basic, you don't even say espresso), you will only get a shot of espresso. The Italians don't mess around. They have some variations of this, some with milk, some with chocolate, even some a little big watered down, but they think the stuff we like is gross.
7. Lastly for now, the people here are unlike any other nationality I have met. While Americans (I am one of them sometimes) and other people get really frustrated when people are in their country and do not speak their language adequately, the Italians do not care. The only thing they care about is that you even tried in the first place. Even if the means of communication is mostly smiling and pointing (which I am so very good at doing), the people appreciate that you even say hello or goodbye in their native language.

Tomauroooo

So, as my first day of classes was today I am officially an Italian student. My vocabulary has been expanded from greetings and drinks to simple sentences, apartment words, and a few others. Not too bad if I don't say so myself. Today started "intensive Italian week" which is a week for us only to do Italian class to help us to get oriented to the language. We have two sessions a day and they flew by quickly today, so I am hoping for the same thing the next three days of class.

Next week starts the rest of my classes which happen to include at this point Elementary Italian, Photography I, The History and Culture of Food in Italy, and Contemporary Italy: Society and Culture. All of which, I am excited about. I may drop photography though, because I didn't bring the really nice camera which is probably what a photography teacher might want.

A big accomplishment in our apartment has been completed in the past two days, we have cooked! This doesn't seem like it would be that big of a deal, but in Italy energy is very precious and too many appliances/lights at once makes everything short out and clearly that scares me, Emily, and the other Molly. So yesterday we made a delicious lunch of pasta and also made a discovery about Italian bread. Perugians enjoy unsalted bread, which we failed to remember when we were in the market in the first day. Unsalted bread is the absolute opposite of delicious and we now lovingly refer to the loaf we still have as "the crouton" as it is not only not that great but also a little hard and slightly stale. No worries, a little pesto and salt does the trick with this. Tonight's dinner was a little more elaborate. Emily cooked some Gnocchi with pesto and I made some mozzarella, pomodoro (red sauce), and prosciutto bruschetta. I must say, I was impressed with our cooking and so were some of our program directors that came in to check out some maintenance things while we were eating.

This city is just absolutely beautiful and I love just wandering around it (not alone, of course) to see what I can find next. Also, they have this great holiday season going on currently. You can currently see "SALDI" written on every door and shop window, meaning sale of course! They have a sale holiday. It started last weekend and apparently goes on for a few weeks. I think it may be time to find a new pair of boots considering I brought one pair and may be the most cold natured person alive.The proud cooks.

some pictures to enjoy

some of our old time furniture thats pretty, but a falling apart a little

part of our living room

part of one of the smaller piazzos

some of our kitchen

my bedroom

view of the city from the mini metro station

My first apartment and various other adventures.

So yesterday we woke up pretty early and headed out to our apartment. My roommate Leigha and I met our other apartment-mates Emily and another Molly and headed off to our new home, Via Bartolo 40. Being one of the lone southerners in my program (pretty sure that the people from PC are the only southerners), I am the only one who thinks it is cold at 40 degrees. The people I live with are: Emily from Rochester, Molly from Philedelphia, and Leigha from somewhere in Massachusetts. Our apartment is absolutely beautiful and absolutely cold. It is Italian law that you can only have 7 hours of heat a day. If you ask my father, he can tell you how much I love manipulating the heat/AC to my liking. So sleeping all bundled up is the only option.
Next, our big task was to go grocery shopping. Seeing as no one in my apartment really speaks Italian past the basic salutations, we went with the people from a nearby apartment because they have a girl who speaks really well. We went to Meta this little cramped place and bought some basics like pasta, sauce, water, and wine. After realizing we wouldn't probably head back there for a while because the lady yelled at Leigha and Molly for using grocery bags, not totally sure why, we found a really close by locally owned grocer.
We also took a walking tour of our own and given by the school. This city is a bit more urban than I expected, but beautiful none the less. It has so much character and beauty and little things that you don't expect. We are up on a mountain so once you walk to the city edge you have an amazing breathtaking view.
The people here are wonderful, not only are the school staff helpful, but the locals that really care about the students you can really tell. The local grocer actually saw my roommate struggling carrying around her groceries that she didn't get in a bag and gave her a bag from her own store so she would be able to walk around and get what she needed.
Hopefully, I will post some pictures of the apartment soon. We are currently using someones internet that happened to work this morning from our living room.

Ciao!

Ready or Not, Here I Am

So here I am, sitting in the little computer area of my hotel IN ITALY. It hasnt fully hit me yet that I am here so I am going to cut this short because I am exhausted and quite frankly the Italian keyboard is confusing. Our flight was a little delayed due to the plane being broken, but never fear Delta saved the day and gave us a new plane. We got to the Rome airport about 8.30 (sorry I cant find the correct puncutation on here) and then were later bussed to Perugia. We are currently all staying in this quaint little hotel called Hotel Gio. It is so cute and Wine and Jazz themed, nothing wrong there, right? I got my class schedule today and after a good nights rest to rid myself of this jetlag I will actually be able to further share what they are. My roommate is already in bed so I guess I will join her because at 9.30 in the morning I get shuttled to my apartment!

Twas The Night Before Hartsfield-Jackson Airport...

So its the night before I have to leave and I think it took until about...uh yesterday to actually get real when I had to say goodbye to my niece and nephew. The packing process is done and really has been for about two days. I wish I had taken pictures because my room was quite a site.

I am actually anal when it comes to packing and have written about 20 lists of everything I need. My biggest advice to someone who is packing for 4 months would be 2 things. The first is when packing, use your scale. Airlines used to allow 70 pounds and now allow 50, and my checked bag is exactly 49.5 pounds. I am very sure of this. My other thing would be to take caution in following the suggested packing list, or at least the one recommended by my school. Now, I may be eating my words come May 8th, but there is no way on this earth that a 20 year old college student could live off of 3 "wash and wear outfits," 1 dress, 1 jacket, 2 pairs of shorts, and 6 pairs of underwear. This is four months after all.

It's actually not totally sunk in yet that I will be living not only not at PC for a semester, but in another country in a totally different part of the world. The culture is different, the food is different, and well at PC I get two cars worth of stuff to bring with me. I am excited to see what Perugia has in store for me and ready to see how I will adapt to the things. So to end my little ramble I thought I would come up with a list of things to adjust to, both positive and just interesting:
1. Most obviously, the language. (hello and wine will get me through)
2. Wine is cheaper than water.
3. Lack of central air conditioning.
4. Regular Use of Public Transportation
5. No internet in my apartment.
6. Super conservative use of energy. (as in no laundry and blowdrying at the same time)
7. No dryers.
8. Taking all classes that don't relate to anything I am studying.
9. Having one suitcase worth of clothes to last me 4 months (if you can't tell, im struggling with this one)
10. No puppy to crawl into bed with me at night.