Italy: 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.