Dove Ammna??

Yesterday for our poetry class, Julia had us go up to the Duomo and write for a while. The assignment was to write a poem on the facade of the building, incorporating something overheard while we were writing (a phrase from a tour guide, perhaps). All was going well as Becky and I sat on a bench looking at the Duomo, and we saw a young man talking to Eli on the steps. After a while, we watched as this man walked over and began talking to Hannah on the other side of the steps. He was talking to her for quite a while and when it was time to leave, I went over to give her her bag and head back to the monastery. As I walked up, this gentleman turns to me, says "nice to meet you!" and gives me a handshake. He then tells me that his name is Francesco, and he would like my facebook and/or messenger information. After a lot of polite rejection and impolite perseverance on his part, we finally managed to leave. Those Italian men sure are persistent.
Well, we forgot about him and went on with our lives. Today, after lunch we had Italian class, and before it got started, Matteo addressed the group with this statement: "this will be your last Italian class." We were a little confused, when he continued, "your Italian is getting a little too good. because now we are getting boys coming to the monastery wanting to see you and hang out with you..."
He goes on to tell a little story about how while we were at lunch today, someone buzzed at the door. Matt answered the intercom and asked if there was a package, and a man answered "yes, I have package for...Ammna." So of course, Matt goes downstairs to open the door. But what he is met with is not a man delivering a package...no no...It is dear Francesco, here to see Ammna, with the blonde hair and the big glasses, "she very smile." Poor Hannah had been a little too friendly while talking to him yesterday and had told him where we lived, so he had come to call on her. BAD DECISION. Matt had to tell him he wasn't allowed to hang out in the monastery and had sent him away.
We didn't realize just how persistent the men here are. Lesson learned.
In other news, classes are going well, as is life in general here. Last night after dinner, Matt played the movie Heima for us on the big screen downstairs (with a superb sound system). If you haven't heard of the film, you should move that to the top of your to-do list. It's a documentary on the band Sigur Ros, and it's beautiful.
I CAN'T WAIT TIL SATURDAY
I will certainly devote a post and several pictures to this on sunday, but this saturday we are going to be harvesting grapes all day. An older couple, friends of the program, own a vineyard nearby and will be harvesting the crops this week and we get to help. We'll pick and eat a ton of grapes, we'll learn how to tell which ones are good and the correct way of harvesting them, we'll work the de-stemming machine, and then clean it, and be served some great Italian food by the couple who runs the vineyard. A true Italian experience...it should be fun.

Day 26: Relaxation

September 27th
I awoke this morning at 9:30, which is really late for me, and made some eggs. After I took my time getting ready for the day, I spent the morning leisurely reading. Around noon, Carissa, Annie and I prepared lunch. We went to the grocery store yesterday and got bread, cheese, tomatoes, wine and fruit. The three of us, along with Christine and John, had a picnic in a park down the street overlooking the countryside below. Apart from the bees (John's allergic) it was a very pleasant picnic. One thing to mention about eating here is the amount of olive oil we consume is just ridiculous. I'm not entirely sure if it's healthy or not...but it sure tastes good. Anyway, after we enjoyed our delicious food and wonderful conversation, we moseyed on back to the monastery and began an afternoon of Mao: the most ridiculous card game to ever be played. After a few hours of yelling "thank you, you beautiful man," naming beatles, jumping for jacks and making up lies about our personal history...we had laughed so much our throats hurt. For any who haven't played that game before...put it on the top of your to-do list. It's a lot of fun.
A little over half our group was gone this weekend. Since we had no homework, it was a good opportunity to travel. Some of them are back now, others will trickle in at various times this evening. But all will be welcomed tonight by a wonderful rarity here in Italy: chocolate chip cookies. Christine, with the help of a few students, took it upon herself to provide delicious baked goods for us--for which we are eternally grateful.
Tomorrow morning begins poetry. Although we're all a little sad the weekend is over, the prospect of a month of a new subject is exciting. Hopefully it'll live up to expectations

Day 24: Pirates

Friday was Ronan's (Matt's son) birthday party and it was pirate themed and it was awesome. I woke up early in the morning to finish my paper and by 10am I was free from all homework. I helped Matt's wife, Shirona, with birthday preparations and the party started at 4:30. It was a most joyous occasion. Carissa painted tattoos on everybody, Shirona made the coolest cake ever and it was fun all around. The party, though technically for a 4 year old's birthday, was also a celebration of the end of our renaissance studies class. After dinner a few of us went out for a celebratory glass of wine (of which i did not partake). it's seems like a sin to be in italy and not enjoy wine..but i don't. a nice cone of gelato however...i'm all over that.
Julia Kasdorf arrived today with her 7 year old daughter. She will be teaching the next class, poetry and ekphrasis. I haven't actually met her yet, so I have no idea what she's like. her class starts on monday, so we'll see then.

Day 22: The Insanity Sets In

This week has been crazy. We have now finished our first class, Renaissance Studies. Wednesday was our test. We had to memorize 80 paintings, but were only testing on 50, which was nice. Today we had our presentations, which went pretty well but took up almost 4 hours. The only thing left is the paper, which will hopefully be finished soon, then on to an entire weekend of blessed sweet FREEDOM.
The above picture is a fairly accurate example of what happens when we are forced to study for hours and hours and hours and our brains can't handle it so we just kind of freak out. It's a pretty common occurrence.
Other insanity lately has included La Cena: dinner. Last night we had pizza for dinner. The process of bringing out 5 pizzas to us took over an hour and a half. After 4 pizzas, we thought for sure dinner was over. We were completely stuffed, so we stacked our plates and prepared to leave. but then! MORE PIZZA. everyone looked at the plate doubtfully, knowing there was very little chance any of that pizza would fit into our extremely full tummies.
Being the adventurous one that I am, I grabbed a slice, said "No challenge is to great for me!" and took a bite. The others followed suit, and 5 minutes later we had so much food inside us we didn't know what to do.
and then
CAKE! yes. after eating that much pizza, i proceeded to eat a piece of chocolate cake. It's a crazy miracle I'm not an enormous person...but by some sweet blessing, I am not.
Carissa also had a bit of a water drinking contest and chugged 6 glasses of water in succession...
We're in desperate need of a break.
Speaking of, this weekend's activities will consist of:
watching movies
sleeping
eating
reading
sleeping
watching movies
eating
writing
walking
reading
sleeping
IT WILL BE AMAZING. but first: the paper.
andiamo.

Day 21: crunch time.

As September begins to end, so does our Renaissance Studies class. And with it, comes the pressure every student knows well: finals. While most college students are a mere quarter of the way through their semester, we've had the equivalent of 4 months of this class, compressed into 3 weeks. Tensions are not as high as one might think, considering that 22 students must memorize 80 paintings and over 50 terms, write a paper on a piece of art from the renaissance, and prepare and give a group presentation on elements from the Orvieto Duomo...all in 3 days.
My paper is on Donatello's Mary Magdalene statue, and while it's challenging, I've enjoyed researching it, so it really hasn't been that stressful (of course, I haven't finished it yet). I'm paired with John for my presentation, and we must research the presence of Dante's purgatory in the frescoes in the San Brizio chapel in town. This would have been much less enjoyable were John not such a gifted musician and entertainer. While studying in the Sala last evening, John whipped out his ukelele and began his narration of Purgatorio in musical form. The tune caught on, and every now and then you might hear the sounds of "Dante......Dante......" drifting through the corridors.
On the whole, finals week is not that bad here. And even if it were, I feel that the fact that I'm surrounded by the Italian countryside would make it enjoyable. Nothing seems quite so bad when you can look out your window past the tufa cliffs and see the mountains rising in the distance. This place is magical, and I adore it more with every day I spend here.

Days 17-19: Florence

Last Friday morning we left our beloved San Paolo at 7:45am, hopped on the Foniculare and rode down the mountain to the train station, where we were thrilled to discover that our train had been delayed by 35 minutes. After a quick jaunt over to the cafe for cappuccinos, our train eventually came and we set out for Florence. 3 merry hours later, we stepped out onto the smelly streets of Firenze, as it is so lovingly called here in Italy. Within a minute we were hit with a barrage of street vendors, trying to sell us everything from runoffs of paintings that weren't even good the first time, to scarves and remote control cars. Florence is a tourist town, and the local vendors take full advantage of it. We walked down the street, over the river (through the woods) and eventually ended up at our hostel. A set of bolted wooden doors, a hallway, and another bolted door led us to our destination: The Gould Institute. (where you can check out any time you want...but never leave?)
The name was a little sketchy, but the hostel was actually pretty nice. We were there for 2 nights, and our 3 days there were jam packed full of activity.
Friday afternoon, we had a nice stroll around the town, visiting Or San Michele, Palazzo Vecchio, the Baptistery and the Duomo. The evening was spent walking from the center of the city all the way up to San Miniato, where this picture was taken from.

The walk was a little bit insane, but meeting Fra Bernardo at the top and getting a tour of the cathedral was wonderful. Bernardo is a monk there, and we had the privilege of listening to him sing a little monk song which was great. (Just to clarify, it wasn't a song about a monk...just the monk singing a song).

Saturday was spent at the bargello museum, the medici palazzo chapel, santa maria novella, the brancacci chapel, and santa trinita. I'd go into what all those places are, but it'd take too long. Let's just say it was a very busy day.
Sunday we set out in the morning to see the Museo San Marco, but it was closed, so that idea went out the window. We then went to the museo dell'opera del duomo, which was fascinating, then had lunch in town before heading back to the train station. An hour ride took us to Arezzo, where the movie Life Is Beautiful was filmed, and we saw Piero della Francesca's frescoes. We were then caught in a thunderstorm, and arrived back in Orvieto tired, damp, and exhausted.
Overall it was an enjoyable weekend.
Carissa and I found awesome star trek glasses in one of the markets..pretty cool.

Rain, Bonnie Tyler, and Tiramisu

September 17
After 4 days of rain, the sun is finally out. And as beneficial as rain is, I'm sure glad the storms have stopped. The past few days have been fairly uneventful, with the exception of a few events. The first occurred this past sunday. After awaking, disheartened, to a lack of syrup for my french toast, I needed something to brighten my day. And after a boring breakfast and a walk through town, my day was certainly made bright. For what did I find? not syrup..no...it was something far greater. Something that brings joy to the ears of all who hear it...happiness to the hearts of all its listeners. That's right folks. Total Eclipse of the Heart. Carissa and I spent all of sunday morning making a music video to that song, and spent the evening editing it to perfection. It began as a birthday present for my friend Liz back at school, but we had so much fun making it that we couldn't help but share it with the other students at San Paolo. And for all you wonderful people out there, he's the link so you too can share in the wondrous joy that is Bonnie Tyler. <- click that ok.
Anyway. That was sunday afternoon. Sunday night we had a birthday party for our dear sweet Hannah, who turned 22 on Saturday. And I've never been to heaven...but I'm fairly certain heaven tastes something like the tiramisu we had after dinner that night. It was simply divine. Laura, the Italian RA here, is going to teach us all how to make it so we can bring the heavenly happiness back to the states with us.
Other than that, it's just been class, homework, food, and more food. Which is just fine by me. Tomorrow we leave for Florence for 3 days, which will no doubt be 3 full days of insanity. I'll be sure to keep you updated.

Community Life: Puzzles and Karaoke

Today's post will focus on our life as a tight-knit community in San Paolo, and in Orvieto. For example, I'm sure many of you are wondering what exactly it is we do with our free time. The answer? KARAOKE.
Here, we see Eli, Becky, and Erika singing the YMCA on the street by Laconda del Lupa (our restaurant). I believe the person we don't see back there is Annie, but who knows.
Most of the group joined in, at the very least from the sidelines, for this merry time of singing and embarrassment. The Italians seemed to like our enthusiasm, and it provided great entertainment for all.
Karaoke, believe it or not, is not an every day occurrence for us. This particular night was the "shopping under the stars" event. Stores stayed open in town until 1am, with live music in different locations all over the city. The town was buzzing with people, and the music varied from unbearable hits of the 80s to Italian instrumental tunes.
Todi, Hannah, and Carissa listened to a nice guitar duet until the Axl Rose wannabe started staring at us. Then we promptly left.
Hanging out in the town is a leisure activity frequently enjoyed here. However, an equally popular time-killer is the Sala. And in the sala: puzzles.

The first puzzle to be completed was the controversial "kitten" puzzle. The amount of puzzle-doing time was about equal to the amount of complaining-about-how-awful-the-puzzle-is time. Apparently, the kitten was not up to par for these puzzle professionals. So, once that was completed, "the philosophers" began. A 1000 piece puzzle that apparently, was far superior to the last one. By the second day, about 60% of it was done. Above is a picture of the puzzlers hard at work on the philosophers puzzle. I feel like I've used the word puzzle far too many times in the last few minutes, but there really are no synonyms for puzzle, as far as I know. Anyway, those are the fun shenanigans that go on around here. It's a great group of people and we spend most of our time together, which is fun. The community we have here is very unlike a normal college setting, in that whether we are in class, in the library, in our rooms, the kitchen, the sala, or pretty much anywhere...we're never more than 50 feet apart. It gives us a good chance to really get to know one another.

Day 10: Siena

September 11
Thursday night we were served some very interesting, and somewhat unidentifiable, food for dinner. And it would seem that one of these unknown dishes gave me an allergic reaction. I'd hazard a guess and say it was the strange fishy orange stuff on toast that did it... Anyway, whatever it was, it caused me to be up almost all night, so when I got up at 6 on Friday morning, I was a little less than chipper. We drove about an hour to some monastery by a hill somewhere...I wasn't really paying attention to where we were. We picnicked there before heading to Siena. I was barely conscious for the first half of the day. Dr. Skillen brought us to the town hall in Siena and talked for half an hour about Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good Government painting. Interesting though it was, I could not for the life of me focus. I was having trouble not falling asleep on the bench.
In Siena we saw the town hall, the duomo, and a few other buildings. The duomo was magnificent, but a little too ornate for my taste. Also, it is now solely a museum, which makes the experience less satisfying. The duomo in Orvieto still has mass every sunday, which gives it a more traditional and genuine feel.
On the ride back Matteo let us listen to the radio, and we were amazed by Italian radio's fascination with american 80s music. Overall it was a fun day, though exhausting. The rest of my weekend will be spent studying. In about a week and a half, I must have the details of 80 paintings memorized, as well as about 50 other terms, a paper written, and 2 projects completed. With each day that goes by, the stress level raises a bit. It'll be interesting to see how everyone does in the next couple weeks.

Day 8: The Studious Life

September 9
Classes began on Tuesday, with a slide show on the uses of art and a lot of the basics of our course, which is taught by Dr. Skillen. For the next three weeks he'll be teaching us all about art and architecture in the renaissance period. On Wednesday we had class in the morning, and a mix of homework, napping, talking, and wandering around town filled up the afternoon. The afternoons are typically dedicated to homework and studying, though they are most often spent doing completely unproductive activities...like sleeping.
I spent the evening hanging out in the sala with a few others, discussing deep philosophical matters that affect college students today. The discussion began intellectually with a comment about The Taming of the Shrew...and the ever-so-popular adaption 10 Things I Hate About You. Which of course led to a conversation on how hot Heath Ledger is and how sad it is that he died. A tangent from that conversation led to a shared hatred of the TV adaption of that movie, and once that topic had been thoroughly covered, we discussed Heath Ledger's hair in the movie and the disconcerting memories of the styles of the late '90s. When we had all agreed that, although Heath's hair was indeed stringy and distasteful in that film, he was still gorgeous overall. Our conversation then wavered from hairstyles of 10 years ago to the MaryKate and Ashley phenomenon that every middle school girl adored, to Harriet the Spy.
Anyway.
That's the sort of thing that goes on around here. Real productive and all that.
Our schedule is becoming more lax, and the routine of class in the morning is starting to be routine. Of course, that will all be thrown for a loop when we take off for Siena this weekend, and a full weekend in Florence next weekend.
So that's what's new...not much. However, after Siena, I'll update the world on Lorenzetti's frescoes and all other such exciting events.
Ciao.

Days 6 and 7: Assisi and FruityBits

The Adventure That Was Assisi.

9am: meet outside to depart for assisi.

9:20: we start wondering where the cars are

9:30: cars arrive, we pile into them. Carissa drove our little fiat with me, hannah, katy and anna

9:45: we depart

10:15: problem #1. The van Christine was driving started smoking, so we pulled over and hung out for a while. It sucked that we couldn't do anything, but luckily we were stranded next to a gorgeous lake.

Jodi (whom we affectionately call Todi) and Becky chillin out by the lake

11:15: we determine that the car is safe enough to drive, and off to assisi we go

11:20: the car has trouble accelerating, so we pull over by the side of the road.

11:22: we discover that this particular spot at the side of the road is the operation center for one unhappy little prostitute, who didn't like us interurpting her business.

11:30: off we go again

During the next hour, the dramamine i took begain to kick in. Unfortunately, I didn't have the non drowsy formula, so i was zonked. i apparently fell asleep with my head out the window. that was comfy.

1:15: ASSISI! we finally made it. and we were all starving, but Matteo didn't want to let us eat right away, so we wandered around the chapel where St Francis apparently did great things

2:10: Lunchtime. hallelujah. we had a delicious meal of bread, cheese, salad, salami, tomatoes, olives, and juice.

We wandered around the town for a while, saw the tomb of Francis in the Basilica and other such sights.

That's where my friend francis is buried.

At 6 we left, and drove for a good 2 hours back to Orvieto. On the way back, we discovered several wonderful Italian radio stations that provided us great entertainment. If you were wondering, Italians love Green Day. 121 Guns played 6 different times while we were driving. We also discovered this special little gem by Laurent Wolf, whom i'm sure will not be winning any grammys anytime soon... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJDgEl2x9Ys

That led to some dancing and whatnot.

When we returned, John Skillen was there to greet us

DAY 7: The tragedy of the fruitybits

After lunch today, Carissa and I ventured off for our daily ritual of afternoon gelato. We made it our goal on the first night to try all the flavours, to accurately judge which ones are best. Today we got 3 flavours, one of which I can't pronounce or spell, but it was white with fruit and things on top. IT WAS THE WORST TASTING THING ON THE PLANET. it tasted like a piece of christmas fruitcake that someone threw away and then picked it up a year later and put it in gelato. it broke my little heart to taste it. Needless to say, we threw that away and got a new cone full of nutella hazelnut gelato, which was much more satisfactory.

San Paolo

Here are a few pictures of the monastery. I'll probably post more later...the place is huge and i don't want to spend a whole bunch of time photographing every inch of it. here's just a bit to give you an idea of where i live.
The ceiling in one of the hallways


A fresco at the top of the stairs on the 2nd floor


This is the hallway on the 2nd floor, the Dolls' apartment at the end


The classroom/computer room--2nd floor


3rd floor where our rooms are, the Sala is on the left


The back courtyard, overlooking the cliffs


The view from the back courtyard


The student sala, used for studying, lounging, eating, watching tv, whatever


The breakfast room. to the left is the kitchen


The bathroom in my room. notice the location of the shower...real convenient

The view out my window


My room. my bed is on the right.

Day 4: Roma

September 5
I awoke this morning at 4:50. You can imagine how displeased I was about this. I had actually set my alarm for 5:15, but woke up early. After a groggy breakfast of corn flakes and tea, we left San Paolo. We left at 6:15 in order to get our bus down to the train station at 6:30. However, when we arrived at the bus stop, the bus was too small for the amount of people waiting for it. They were eventually able to get a larger bus and we made it to the station with minutes to spare.
We arrived in Rome tired but excited, and once we got there we were able to stop at a cafe for cappuccini and pastries. We visited a museum first, though I can't remember what it was called. From there, we made our way to the Pantheon, stopping for some gelato along the way. (Best flavor so far is limoncello, hands down).
The pantheon was breathtaking. We spent about a half hour inside it, though I wish we could have stayed longer. The effect was something that I can't really describe, and pictures certainly can't do justice. It was a pretty great experience. From there, we walked to the Roman Forum, which again was amazing. At the opposite end was the Colosseum and the Arch of Titus. Our last stop was the Basilica. It was hard to fully appreciate the architecture when we spent such a short amount of time in each place.
The day was exhausting (that much walking in hot hot weather...not fun) but it was a good experience. When we got back, Matt was kind enough to turn on our internet since we were on the train home during normal internet hour.
Limoncello Gelato!

Matt teaching us stuff outside the Colosseum

Ruins at the Roman Forum...beautiful!

Hannah and I outside the Colosseum

Day 2: Experiencing a New Culture

September 3
The day began with shelf milk and breakfast cookies. An Italian breakfast, it would seem, is not the sort of thing I'm used to eating for breakfast. For some reason, "shelf milk" as it's commonly called, does not go bad when left unrefrigerated, so they just store it on shelves in the pantry. It's a mystery why America hasn't seemed to have discovered this wonder drink. Breakfast cookies are commonly eaten here too, which was a completely foreign concept to me. Cookies..for breakfast? hey, I kind of like the idea.
After our first Italian breakfast, we began our walking tour of Orvieto, led by Matt and Alessandro, the Italian instructor here. And when I say walking tour...I don't mean a little stroll on the sidewalk (which by the way, do not exist in Orvieto). We began by walking down to a lower level, outside the city walls. The city is surrounded by cliffs, and it was a steep climb. After we climbed back up (many, many stairs) we made our way to the center of the town. We took a quick cappuccino stop before beginning our ascent into the clock tower. Located in the center of Orvieto, the clock tower stands as the tallest structure in the city. From the top (which was up an unbelievably tall staircase) we could view the entire city, which was absolutely gorgeous.
In the evening, we hosted a party for the friends of San Paolo, and the nuns who share the monastery with us. A band played a lot of songs (including "Sweet Home Chicago"), which was a lot of fun. We also had our first taste of Orvieto wine. Figs are common here, and a lot of us tried our first one at our soiree. They look like brains, but taste pretty good. We met a lot of great people, though we hardly understood any of what they said to us. It was a great time of interaction with the townspeople and it was good to practice the few phrases we did know.
The night ended with a stroll through the city, where a few of us enjoyed the fresh air next to a fountain down the street.

One of the local kids at the party, the band in the corner Carissa and Hannah enjoying the party

My first taste of an Italian fig

The Begininning of an Adventure

Day 1: September 1st

I left Chicago at 1pm central time. After an hour and a half flight, I joined the group in Washington DC, where to our dismay, we discovered that our flight had been overbooked. It looked as though we would have to take a later flight, but as it turned out, all but two of us were able to get on our original flight. Garrett and Anna volunteered to go separately (with compensation, of course) and they joined us in Orvieto the next day.
The flight was about 8 hours long, and I tried in vain to get some rest during it. Airplane seats are just not comfortable. Matt Doll, who runs the program along with John Skillen, met us at the airport and showed us to our bus from Rome to Orvieto. We left DC at 6pm eastern time and arrived at 8am Italian time (which meant we were starting our day in the middle of the night). It was exhausting, but we managed to make it through the day.
When we arrived in Orvieto, we found that much to our dismay, we were required to carry our luggage up a hill to the Monastery. After hours of traveling, we were exhausted, and it wasn't a pleasant job. We were met in the courtyard by three little kids, all eager to meet us.
After we were settled into our rooms, we walked to lunch where we were met by a vibrant energetic family, who would be our servers for the next few months. The rest of the day was spent unpacking and getting settled, followed by dinner at 8. And there was nothing like a cup of gelato to finish off a wonderful day in Orvieto!
The view from the back courtyard of San Paolo