Things are picking up....

Thanks to the car. Ok, we were lazy today and even drove it to school instead of walking, but it was raining, so I think that justifies it!

Yesterday we made a friend in class. Her name is Ruth and she's from Australia. She's only 18 but jess and I get along really well with her, nice to have a third party around.

We finally got to go to one of the main University's 2 cafeterias for lunch. If I am not mistaken, it is pretty much open to anyone. they never asked for student IDs and we saw older people, workmen etc.

For the amazing price of just under 2 euros. about $2.40 American you can have a very filling, really decent lunch. It consists of four what they call "courses" here.
You get bread, one fruit, which consisted of your choice of banana, plum, apple, peach or a big slice of watermelon.

Then a piece of pizza (more like 1/2 a pizza) and/or a bowl of a pasta or rice dish.

Then either a vegetable like zhucchini or mixed veg or a fresh salad.

Then and empty large plastic cup for either water or pop at a fountain.

WOW! when you are on a budget, this is a real find. We got in there about noon, and there was a small gatheirng of people. We saw food inside, but it didn't open when it said it would. After about 15 minutes, someone banged on the door and asked when they would open. They said in 45 minutes, but something was said, and they very quickly opened the doors. (threat of a riot from hungry students??)

We sat there the entire two hours, and when we came out, there was STILL a huge line. I think they feed the entire population of people under 25 in Perugia as well as some older.

After eating we headed back to class from 4 pm to 6, then walked back to the apt to pick up the car and headed off to Assissi.

Just a disclaimer, although i always try to be accurate, I make no guarentees that anything i say is true when it comes to any area of Italy we visit. I try my best, but that is all I can do.

When we entered the part of town that was not up on the mountain, we noticed a LOT of nuns and monks walking the street, and then on the right a duomo with a LOT of people singing. All excited, we parked and walked back, noticing a line of people slowly walking into the Basilica with a sring of people surrounding them. A lot of them had peace signs, or PACE signs. That was then I realized that wahat we were watching was the end of the Peace march that I think had been from Perugia to Assisi.

We watched for a bit and then decided to go in to see the inside. Normally they would not have let us in, I had shorts on, Jess a tank top, and Ruth a skirt that was not to her knees, but we lucked out, being that so many people who had done the walk was dressed similarly.

Now this was the first time I have even been inside something like this since coming to italy and I had no idea what to expect.

Let me tel you, i am certainly not much for organized religion, etc, but when I went inside that church, as corny as it may sound, I was honestly moved to tears.

I have never seen anything that even came close to this. It's almost impossible to describe and pictures don't even come close to doing it justice. The paintings, the arches, the..... heck, I don't even know what to call them. Angels heads out of stone, beautiful marble everywhere. Beautiful carved wooden confessionals. I mean, it was everything you think the inside of an Italian church would be, plus so much more. You can check Jess' blog for some pictures we took of the outisde as well as some pics of the inside that she got off the web. We didn't dare take pictures inside with all the people.

We stayed long enought to listen to the beginnning of mass in Latin before taking off for the part of Assissi up on the mountain.

Just a note, anytime we talk about me driving into a city that is up on a hill or moutain, just picture us in a tiny car, careening(sp) around the corners with Jess hanging on for dear life to the "oh shit" handle of the car, yelling "Slow down! MOOOOMMMMMM... SLOW DOWN!!!!!!"

I love driving the roads here, but it makes Jess absolutely nuts.

Anyway, up into the town, as far up as we thought we could drive, then parked the car in a space that was realy too smal for the car, but was the beggest spot I could find. It was outside a little bar/cafe, and we decided to see if we could walk to the top of the city, which had what looked like a fort or a castle. I am not into the history lesson tonight like I was about out trip to Rome, but we had guides then. Without them, I'm just making wild guesses about everything.

The first thing I noticed that was interesting is that all the building were made out of a different type and color stone them Perugia, and the apartment/houses we walked by seemed to have so many more plants and flowers outside, it was really lovely.

We found the road leading up to the highest part of town and started hiking up, t was pretty steep.

By my calculations, the amount of stairs and steep hills I have climbed X the amount of healthy food I have eaten since coming to Italy, I honestly think I should weigh something like 98 lbs by now. No such luck. I have lost about 12 pounds, but most of that was when I was sick. I still have hope though, we have only been here a month. (and don't you DARE say I am not losing weight because I am gaining muscle. Say that and I will clock you upside the head.)

The walk up there (as well as down), you had to stop about every 15 feet and make every come over and see. The scenery changed into something more magnificient every time we looked.

You could see down across the entire valley, and byt the time we got to the top, you couild see everything within almost 180 degrees. You had the valley infront and to the left, and the right. OH MAN! On the right was the first time we had been close to proper hills and valleys/mountain range valleys.. Unbelivable.

I was going to have so much to say to describe it, but nothing I could tell you would make you understand how amazing the view was.

I AM SO FREAKING GLAD I QUIT MY JOB, SOLD MY HOUSE AND CAME HERE. I don't care if I get sent back and have to live on the street. Everything here I am seeing and experiencing is so worth it.

And that's all I have to say on that subject... :-)

New subject.... The bathrooms at school. I found out yesterday that they are coed when i went in and there was a man standing at the sink washing his hands.... Oh! hmm.... I looked at the door and there was a stick figure in a dress, so I knew I was in the right place. Obviously he didn't knkow he was in the wrong place, and being that I really had to go to the bathroom, I decided to have pity on him and just go use a stall. thats when I saw something along the terms of the word MEN on one of the stall doors. Hmm... coed.... okee dokee then.

To be honest, they are more like enclosed little rooms, each with a window, at least the bathroom I use.

There is one stall there, that has the most beautiful view of the coutryside out it, it's like a picture postcard. Amazing. Everything here is amazing.


Well, almost everything. Today after school Jess and I decided to take a drive out of town, to one of the nearby towns to find a different place to have lunch. We ended up driving about 40 miles out of town, to a place called Umbertide.

It had been pouring all morning, rain is seriously needed here, even thought everything is still green, we hadn't had a good rain in several weeks.

Anyway, the rain had also cooled off the temperatures a lot, which was wonderful. As you drive down the hill to get out of town, you have this amazing view of the valley and the moutains to one side of you. Today along several of the ridges was a line of clouds that sort of hung onto the lines of the mountains. i have never seen anything like it, it was....... you guessed it.... amazing!!! LOL It was like someone had erased all the color of the background up one side and down another. As we were drving towards Umbertide, one moutain even had a little top of fog, looking like there was snow on it. there were also very low clouds, or fog in the valleys between the moutains... Dorothy, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.

We found a hotel restaurant in Umbertide that served full meals, not just panini or little sandwiches.

We went in, the waitress seated us, gave us menus and were deciding what to order, when the waitress seated a couple at the table next to us. Jess and I were discussing had just ordered when we noticed the couple had asked to be moved to another table, next to some other people.

What? Do I smell, I shower every day, etc..... I was truly offended. It wasn't like they wanted a table away from people, they still had a table next to others. I'm reasonably sure that neither Jess nor I were drooling, yelling or picking our noses. Maybe I was being too sensitive, but I honestly thought they asked to be moved because we were American. (filthy beasts that we are)

I felt a little better when I saw they were not Italian, but were German. I'm not sure why i felt better, but I did. i spent the rest of the time wishing I knew the owners of the restaurant so that I could make some sort of American spectacle of myself to justify the Germans' imagined or real opinions of us.

But of course, being freaking Minnesota nice (grr) I made sure jess and I were meticulous in our manners so that they could not go back to Germany supporting my imagined opinion of American's being pigs at the very least.

Ok, I seem to be rambling, so I'll just get on with it and tell you what we had for lunch.

Neither Jess and I could pass up the first of a pasta with a marinera type sauce with wild boar in it. This was the first time we had seen a dish offered that had wild boar in it. It's very common in i THINK quite a lot of parts of Italy, and the dish was reaaaaaaally tasty. Very good. We had also ordered a quarter liter of house red wine, which was just enough for both of us to have a glass (yes mom, I did not drive drunk) as well as a bottle of water.

Second, Jess had steamed green beans, and I had zhucchini which tasted like it had been grilled.Not bad.

Third, jess had pork chops, which were really more like riblets sort of, but longer. Again, cooked like they were grilled over an open fire, really great. I had what I though was just going to be chicken breast (which when i pronounced pollo the Spanish way when ordering - POY-OH instead of what I think was simply POLO, I made the waitress laugh. oh well)This too was smply grilled over what must have been a wood fire or something, honestly it was great.

Last we decided to order dessert because there were items we didn't recognize, so of course we needed to find out what they were.

I asked the waiter if he spoke English, he said he spoke a little and asked him to explain to us what they were and Jess and I both ended up ordering the same thing. We still weren't sure what it was, but somewhere along the way the waiter had said chocolate and cream, and that was good enough for us.

What we got was a plate with three round, puff pastries filled with a white cream. These had been dipped into a sort of chocolate mousse. Our experience with italy and sugar is they do NOT make things overly sweet, which really is a nice change. This dessert was the same, we could eat all three and not feel like the whole thing was just too rich. Oh man... all in all the meal was a real treat for us. Perugia seems to consist of mostly pizza places. UCK.

Anyway, back home we came, and now we've just finished laundry and jess is going with Ruth to the outdoor movie that we have right by our apartment.

You go down this back alley, and out a door in the wall surrounding the town, down past a little outdoor bar, and over to a screened off area. When you pay your 4.5 euro you go inside to small, ancient ampitheater(sp) built into the hill outisde the city. There are only about 10-15 rows built out of stone, but it's amazing to sit there under the stars watching a movie on a nice movie theater screen. (small theater screen)

we went this monday and watched "Finding neverland" It was the first time we had gone there, annd what a feeling to be out in the night air sitting in an ancient ampitheater under the stars in Italy. You could see the lights in the valley, and there were even lightening bugs in the bushes on the walk down. Truly wonderful.

Have i mentioned that I am happy we came here?? :-) :-) :-)

Well, I am off to the apartment to get some sleep. School at 8:30 am tomorrow.

buona notte.

OH wait! Jess posted pictures of Assissi on her blog, check there. I'm posting pictures of Gizzy on mine...

Gizzy from under the bed

Gizzy foot!

Gizzy nose.. Gizzy feet!

Footses