Hey guys! So I've finally taken a few moments to get the blog up and running and post a short little entry with some pictures from my first week and a half in Perugia. So far the adventure has been unbelievable. Upon arriving in Rome, our program directors picked us up and brought us to the outskirts of Perugia (our new hometown for the next four months) and we all promptly passed out from the lack of sleep over the previous 24 hours of travel. After a much needed nap all of the program participants had a great first italian dinner and slept again anxiously awaiting the next day when we would be brought to our italian apartments with our new flatmates.
The next morning myself and my four roomates (Chrissy (SanFrancisco/Boulder), Ariel (New York/Northeastern), Mattie (New Hampshire/Northeastern) and Alexandra (LA/UCLA)) were all taken in a taxi to our new apartment where we're going to be based for the next four months. The apartment is great (some pictures are located below), small but functions exactly as we need it to. Three bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and deck. After moving in we had a short orientation meeting and then had the night to ourselves. As Perugia is a city of students the main Piazza (Piazza IV Novembre) is flooded with students and Perugian natives every night of the week. . . sometimes it's hard to tell whether it's a weekend or a weekday :) The following day we had a practical tour of Perugia (pharmacia, supermercato, scuola etc.) followed by a three hour orientation meeting in the duomo (main church of Perugia). We then headed home to get ready for our first day of classes.
The first week of classes (last Mon-Th) was dedicated solely to getting our italian good enough to get around Perugia as the vast majority of all the inhabitants speak little to no english and italian is necessary to get around and function, therefore we had three hours of italian lecture in the morning and two hours of practical italian in the afternoon. My italian professor Francesco is awesome, he lives just outside the city and has a great sense of humor that made these long classes seem hours shorter. During the day we took class and at night my roomates and myself along with other Umbra students travelled throughout Perugia exploring and checking out the sights, learning our way around the city. At the end of the week Umbra held the first of many Umbra nights at a local Steakhouse (Argentina Steakhouse) where we all met for apertivos (a sort of italian tapas) which was great not only for the food and the spectacular view but also for the great food! After dinner one of my roomates and I met up with a few of our new friends from the Universita di Stranieri (University for foreigners) for dinner at a great Pizzeria (Pizza e Musica) which was jazz themed and had some of the best pizza we've had since we've arrived. One great thing about this city is not only are we getting to really know many italians but the number of internationals is awesome. . . just at this dinner alone we had an australian, german, greek, norweigian, and polish girl along with ourselves! It was great.
Finally the week of intensive italian was over and we had a great weekend of more explorations ahead of us. . .
Friday (yes my weekends start on Thursday night :) we woke up and together explored Perugia figuring out what we wanted to do for the rest of the weekend as well as where things were located in relation to our apartamento. Saturday we again explored, joining a local gym this day. This was an experience in it of itself seeing as the woman registering us spoke no english at all which forced me to use my little italian to help my roomate Chrissy and I figure out what was going on but the gym is great full of locals and just big enough to serve it's purpose.
Sunday we had an Umbra outing to a local farming town called Passignano. This town was amazing, it was all self-sufficient. They are known everywhere for their award winning olive oil, but are also known for being a part of the slow-food movement. This movement is all about keeping the traditions of Italian food and culture alive by not being commercialized and industrialized in the sense that they have full-course meals that last hours, which we were lucky enough to have prepared for us later in the afternoon. We were taken on a tour of the farm by the owner and patriarch of the family running the farm and he showed us the olive trees etc. . . even inviting us back in October/November to partake in the harvesting (which I might have to take him up on). After that we were invited in to learn how the process of making the olive oil occurs and then we were given a lesson in making homemade pasta. . . I was one of the few participants and loved it! A few of the older italian women from the area taught us and it was awesome to later eat the fruits of our labor ! Returning to the main building we were served a four course meal made completely from food found on the farm. After the meal we were stuffed and went outside to work off some of that food while we waited for the bus.
This first week in Perugia has been amazing but I'll try to post shorter and more frequent posts along with picturse as time goes on! Love and peace to you all !!!
<3 Aisling Ciao!!!
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