Sixth weekend update: Ladies' Night and Meeting the Parents!

Asides from the beautiful Assisi, this week was rather filled with important dates! Friday was International Women's Awareness Day, and so Bar La Posta had a "Magic Mike" event to celebrate. A couple Americans and Italians got together and choreographed a performance that was very entertaining. The bar also gave every girl a  flower (which I helped put together) in honor of the night.

It was a really fun event (Bar La Posta never fails to be a fun night) and it was the first time I was brave enough to wear heels in the cobblestone streets of Italy! I didn't fall so I would like to call it a successful night. 

The next day I took a short morning trip to Cortona. I got there rather early and none of the stores were open yet, so I wrote in a cafe near the piazza. Have I told y'all how much I love Cortona? I hope so. It never fails to remind me that it's my favorite town. This time, it was the amount of wifi I could get literally anywhere I went. Not only did the cafe have wifi, but after I was done drinking, I went out to the steps of the bell tower to finish writing and could still get wifi from two other cafes. Ridiculous! I couldn't even get this kind of Princess treatment in Florence or Rome! Once T-Nobile opened (the store I came all the way to Cortona for), I bought the leather weekender bag I wanted and then I met up Shenell and Dezi in Arezzo for the rest of the afternoon. We finally picked up Dezi's handmade leather boots, which were beautiful!

On Sunday, the center organized a brunch for the students to eat and socialize with local families. Shenell and I paired up and were paired up with the sweetest family! Our family also decided to join two other families and we had lunch in Cortona (after a prosecco drink in Castig). It was the longest lunch/meal I've ever had. The whole meal lasted four hours and we had an after lunch promenade around Cortona and then they took us to Montecchio Castle. This was the first time I really was expected to use and know my italian (although Stefania knew English pretty well) and it was such a breath of fresh air to actually get to practice and do what I planned to do when I got to Italy. I suppose I never really thought about how being enclosed in a space with only english-speakers and not exactly needing to speak any Italian other than what is necessary to get by (knowing how to ask for information in the streets, stores, order) would really hinder my learning, but I got a heavy dose of it with these families!

If you want to learn a language, talk to a child. They don't understand that you can't understand them. They don't understand that you need them to speak slower and they will just keep talking so you better keep up!

The whole family! 

The leather bag I bought in Cortona.

On Tuesday, I leave Castiglion for two weeks! One week in Venice and the second week (spring break) in London and Paris. It's going to be a long adventure with only a backpack worth of clothes and necessities!

"Chi si volta, e chi si gira, sempre a casa va finire."
(No matter where you go or turn, you will always end up at home.)

Fifth Week Updates: Books, Theatres and Picnics!

Either this week has been a pretty easy breezy week, or I’ve really gotten used to all the intense travelling that we cram into it. Perhaps a bit of both!

On Monday, the mayor (or as they call him in Italiano, sindaco) of castiglion fiorentino came to eat dinner with us. A couple friends and I got to meet him and present him with a gift! But that was pretty much the extent of it. He welcomed us to castig and then we just ate as if it were just any ol’ day.

For our Field Trip Wednesday, we went back to Florence and toured the Accademia museum. This is where the REAL David is. Of course when I refer to David, I’m referring to Michelangelo’s David. I’ve only seen the FAKE Davids and I had only assume (that since they were really good copies, as I’ve been told) the real one would be quite similar. Nope. The real David is massive compared to the fakes and just all around more visually appealing. You can really see the pensive expression/thought in David’s face and I don’t think I can exaggerate how gigantic his hands were. They. Were. Massive. And lets not forget his butt. It was nice, not gonna lie. David is supposed to represent the perfect proportions of the body and well, he definitely takes the gold for a nice sculpted body (ha! So punny).

Our professor Giovanni took us back to the Galileo museum and into their private library where we were introduced to many old important texts of various philosophers, astronomers and etc. 

A work by Cardan that is censored due to "dangerous information" that went against the teachings of the church.

It was pretty neat to be able to touch first edition original texts from Galileo that were secretly published by the Medici family after his death because owning any books by Galileo were forbidden/illegal. 

Thursday we went to Castiglion’s Teatro that is no longer in use because of the town’s financial problems, but it was a beautiful baroque style theater. We got to sit in the fancy box seats and I got to pretend I was rich and important for a couple minutes. Hey, a girl can dream!

Look how beautiful it is! Also, there is the amazing Kyla reciting Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream while Cece, Laura and I LUXURIOUSLY watched her performance.

One of my favorite things back in the States that I indulged in are Friday morning/afternoon errands (and feelgoodfriday, but you already know all about that!) after classes. In Castig, since I don’t have classes AND there is a Friday market place, Friday morning errands are my dream come true. There is nothing like the feeling of doing all my  errands by foot and not being dependent on a car. Although I’ve never had a car of my own to begin with and so never really needed to drive anyway, I’ve really enjoyed that luxury of being able to walk to nearly anything I need. Back at Cstat, if I need to go to HEB, I would need a car or I would have to take a bus. Here, I can literally walk to an alimentari in five minutes (or to the market on Fridays).

   

I know, Dez and I are super adorable.

On Saturday, Shenell, Alice, Tessa, Ivan, Dez and I took the early morning train to Arezzo for the day to shop, visit the Antique Market and have lunch. I wish I took an earlier train (we took the 940AM, which is pretty early honestly...) just so that I had more time to check out the antique fair (it nearly stretches through most of Arezzo) before lunch and Siesta started. But I got three vintage Italian postcards for my collection which I am very excited about! One of them actually was mailed TO Italy from Pittsburgh, PA by an Italian tourist, which I thought was super neat and I can't wait to translate all the letters on the back of each postcard.

We had lunch at a cute trattoria and then we shopped around town. I mostly bought stuff at Sephora (also a pair of matching socks with my lovelies Alice and Shenell) and did my traditional "grocery" shopping at the Arezzo Eurospar (because we are too lazy to walk fifteen minutes to the Castig Co-op), which is grocery store. The boys and I went to get drinks at a cafe and striked up an interesting conversation with the bartender about America, travelling, basketball and american football. I think I may be in love with him but I may be speaking too soon. I'm always so shocked at how incredibly well the Italians speak English  It's just flawless compared to my jumbling of words and thoughts. I feel so inadequate!

 

This explains our relationship very well. You don't really know what is going on but you know it's a bunch of weird silly people doing weird silly things.

This is me trying a "flaming absinthe" shot, in which they light the liquor on fire, melt sugar over it, stir, and then I proceed to drink it. As you can see I didn't enjoy the experience very much. But my face was priceless so I thought I would share it with you all.

Sunday was probably THE best weather we have had since we've been here. The sun was shining so bright, the temperature was perfect and so we decided to have a brunch picnic in the courtyard.

It was completely relaxing - a much needed break from the stress and the cold!
I'm hoping the weather will continue to stay this amazing for our Venice trip and Spring Break!

Until next time!

"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

Third Week Updates: Orvieto,Valentine's Day, Pizza Making

Gambino game crazy

After our tour at the duomo of Orvieto, we ate lunch at a little Pasticceria bar and I had a spinach/cheese panino because I couldn't have meat. I was skeptical at first because I've never been a big fan of spinach but it was actually super yummy. We then got some sweets to eat the next day (Valentine's day).Also, ceramics in Orvieto are beautiful. I got a couple mugs as souvenirs.

Happy Valentine's Day! Or as they say, boun san valentino! Shenell and I organized a mini- valentine's tea party in substitution for a valentine's day back in the States. We had pastries and finger sandwiches and of course, tea.

On Saturday, we went to a pizza making class! Mostly, we learned how to make bread.

The agriturismo was beautiful. The bread came out smelling so good and the pizzas definitely tasted homemade. The most surprising pizza (and unique) was the tuna and onion pizza. I was worried that the onions would really overpower the pizza but strangely it was so perfect! Never would have thought to put fish on a pizza, the italians think of everything!

Until next time!

“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore”
-Dean Martin

Lent in Italy

In preparing for Lent, I've told you all about the carnevale celebrations that go on before Ash Wednesday. This Tuesday was "Fat Tuesday," "Mardi gras" or "Martedi grasso" in Italy. After dinner, the gang and I got ready for the costume party that Bar La Posta was hosting. I dressed up as a pirate, Shenell as Ke$ha, Alice as a wood nymph and Dezi as a magician. We realized that us girls could potentially have shown up as Captain Hook (me), Tiger Lily(Shenell) and Tinker Bell (Alice)!

It was a lot of fun. I'm always surprised by how amazing these Italian teens' English are and then I realize how much American pop culture(ex: music) is transfused here to begin with.. of course they know English better than I know Italian! I was happy to be able to dance to the songs I was familiar with back home, but it would have been nice to be more immersed with Italian music.

On Wednesday, we went to Orvieto for our weekly field trip (Heads up: next week is Rome, I'm excited!) and mainly focused on the Duomo di Orvieto. It has defintely been my favorite duomo so far (I've only really seen about three or four so I can't be absolute yet, but it sure does take the cake) perhaps because of it's aesthetic beauty or the fact that I really appreciated the historical value that the tour guide emphasized to us. I think about anything can be interesting if told correctly or if one focused on the things that would interest that audience most. Muara (the guide), was really great at doing so. I wish I could show you pictures of the interior, but we were not allowed to take any.

The newest chapel in the duomo was beautiful. Signorelli painted very frightening Last Judgement depictions that apparently inspired Michelangelo's Last judgement. Fun fact: Signorelli depicted his ex-girlfriend as a prostitute and also in hell strapped on a demon. FUN STUFF. So the moral is - don't upset an artist because his revenge is eternal!

I went to Ash Wednesday mass for the first time ever (I think I've gone once as a child, but I can't really recall that) and my first Italian mass. It was extremely cold because there was no central heating unit. It was hard to follow for obvious reasons (I can barely follow mass in Vietnamese let alone Italian which I don't know that well) but at the same time so similar to english/vietnamese mass that I could understand what was happening.

I decided to give up gossiping (which has shown to be very hard to define, but I know what I should say and what I shouldn't repeat, if that makes sense), talking negatively about others and kiwis (Dezi and I are always fighting for the kiwi during lunch and dinner, so I thought I would be a fun thing to give up so others could eat it).

Forward to Friday. I had woke up (late for class- whoops) to the idea that I could try and fast today instead of just giving up meat for the day. I don't plan for it to be a reoccurring thing, but it was just one of those "in-the-moment" decisions that I felt I was compelled to follow. I was surprised that I did not feel much hunger pains through out the day at all. God was very good to me. I got a lot of reading done that I have been avoiding (The Picture of Dorian Gray) and caught up on journaling. It got a lot more difficult after dinner but at midnight I treated myself to a Rocchio pizza at the pirate bar (4 cheese, sausage and other goodness) and some of Cece's delicious nutella pizza (WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT TO MAKE SUCH A CONCOCTION).



I will let you all know how Lent is going in these next several weeks.

Until next time!

 To change and to change for the better are two different things.

          - German proverb.

Second Week Updates: Duomo, Galileo, and other Journeys

This Wednesday we took another trip to Firenze to see the duomo and the OPA museum that houses many of the duomo's artifacts and history and the Galileo Museum. I got to see Giorgio Vesari's fresco painting "The Last Judgement" on the dome of santa maria del fiore again and it is just as breathtaking as the first time I laid my eyes on it. Easily one of my favorite paintings in Florence (minus a couple in the Uffizi museum, which we will be going to soon!) and I am in love with the fake loggia that is painted at the top of the duomo to give it a realist view of the elders/prophets looking down at the levels of heaven and hell.

other cool things:

- The OPA preserved all of the models and sketches of the modeling competition for the duomo. It's so amazing to be able to experience what could have been the duomo vs. what already is constructed. There were so many amazing designs and to be able to look out the window to see the finished product really allows you to feel like you're a part of it all.

- Below is a picture of one of my professors Giovanni who works at the Galileo Museum. WE ALL NEED SCIENCE because it's so awesome and to see Galileo's inventions in the flesh and to figure out how they all worked made many of us (more so myself) feel so overwhelmed and for lack of better words, dumb. Giovanni explained to us how Galileo came up with the Law of Falling Bodies and to see that much hypothesis, failed experiments and realization was so pure to me. So in summary science is cool.

We also got to see Ghiberti's famous Gate of Paradise (as named by Michelangelo) which is now being displayed after many years of restoration

Bailie took us to a place her friend recommended her for lunch called "I Fratellini" or "the little brothers" which was this hole in the wall (literally) restaurant. I had a wonderful prosciutto crudo & mozzarella panino. Afterward I had my first crepe in Italy filled with fragola gelato. The best decision I made that day. It was so delicious!

Enough about Florence. On Friday (also known as feelgoodfriday for those of you who haven't experienced those with me), a group of girls and I decided to hike up to a residential castle in a neighboring town called Montecchio. It was a 6 mile walk to the castle and it was a beautiful day although it got chillier throughout the day. As we got higher up to the castle we got to gaze back down at castiglion and other towns around the mountain and it was all just so surreal. I've never gone "hiking" before and was a little worried about if I could walk that much and then back but I felt great (and exhausted) by the end of it! Beautiful way to work out considering all of the amazing scenery surrounding the journey.

View looking up the mountain and castle in Montecchio

(Group photo taken from Jessica)

Until next time!


"And yet it moves." Galileo Galilei