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.