School, Bike Riding and Church - Perfect Combo

School
Odd that it felt so good to be tossed right out of bed this morning by my alarm clock. I've always enjoyed the first day of school and now that I'm all grown up, I was still totally excited about it. Today was entrance exam day. All of the new students number somewhere around 70 total and we'll be split out into different classes based on our skill in Italian.

The full immersion experience began with the instructions being given in all Italian. For the very important questions, they spoke a few words in English. All of the faculty were very friendly and even more so when they saw my name. Thanks, Mom & Dad, it really helps me here to have the look and name of an Italian. As previously discussed, I clearly don't fit where it comes to dress and language, but I'm working on those aspects.

They had an option for the entrance exam to be oral and not written for those with very little Italian background. I took that option (though it sounded scarier). For people in my situation, I just talked to a woman for a few minutes (she wanted to know all about where my roots are in Italy) and she placed me in the almost-beginner level. That's appropriate & what I expected. I was a little disappointed as I couldn't wait to see what kind of material was on the written exam.

It's really cool to see what all they offer students: a really inexpensive museum pass for everything cultural in Perugia, good discount card for food, services, etc, gym (not sure if it's free or just super inexpensive), tons of movie nights, cultural opportunities and weekend trips. From what I could tell, I detected very few Americans are here. There's a very large asian population and I figure most of the others are from the EU (and they all are not going to be beginners, probably). Many more women than men, too. That's going to be weird for me since I'm so used to (and more comfortable with) being in male-dominated jobs and activities. But, I will have to wait until Tuesday to see who's who and what's what as that's the next day of class. Monday might be a holy day in Italy, not sure.

Bike Riding
I've been feeling pretty bad about not riding much. Of course, other things took priority and I needed to let the riding go for the time being. Now being settled in, I have the time and energy to get back out there and so I did this afternoon. The wind yesterday and today was strong but I simply didn't care.

Mind you, I've been riding on the same air that I got on the first day in Mallorca! The shop is always closed when I have a chance to go there (during siesta). But today was going to be the day to actually get in to the shop. In the meantime, I took a ride over to Assisi and went to St. Francis' church at the top of the hill. I said a prayer for everyone who needs one. Scary clouds were looming, but I've learned that these clouds often are pretending to be storm clouds. Good gamble, I could count the number of rain drops that fell on me today. Also cool to revisit the day from the Ciclismo trip when we visited Assissi--when Don bought me lunch and told me to save my money so that I could make this trip back to Italy and where Glenn and I hung out and waited for a very long time for Marcello, Roe and Jim who never turned up (it was such a gross touristy place--remember that sandwich, Glenn?)

Next stop: bike shop and it's a NICE shop! The woman who helped me was super nice and she hooked me up with a pump, lube, CO2 cartridges. All for 24 euro total (excellent price for all of that). Even better--I got times for group rides...this entire transaction was done in Italian (and a lot of hand-waving).

It was nothing but fun carrying that pump back home (1,000 feet of vertical over 4 miles), it would have been nice to have not made that wrong turn that involved even steeper pitches in the pavement, grades over 20% in six locations...all in-saddle. Gonna feel some legs yelling at me tomorrow.

My camera wasn't invited along for the ride, I wish I could share pics with you!

Church
If there's one place that I feel at home no matter where I am, it's in church. Today being Holy Thursday, there was a mass in the evening that I was very happy to attend. It was held in the cathedral and it was packed with people. No, I can't understand most of the words, but I know what they're saying. It's time with God and it's time to be a family--no matter the language anyone speaks. It fills me in so many ways.

Here are some pics that I snuck...sort of seems to suck out some of the meaning of a mass when the camera comes out, but I really wanted to share with you!

Candidates for confirmation are having their feet washed in the above picture.

There's something really special about these pillows, I just don't know what it is. The entire congregation crowded around the area in the back of the church where these are immediately after mass was over.

Here are the people swarming the "room" where the pillows were placed.

Sorry it's blurry, but better than nothing:

Inside of the cathedral.

Here's its exterior--I didn't guess it to be a cathedral prior to being pointed to it! See the stairs--very popular hangout spot for college kids.

Something that was interesting: when they gave communion, everyone all at once poured into the center aisle without people going in order (first row goes, when there's room in the aisle, the 2nd row goes, etc--the way it happens in the states). It was absolute chaos.

There was a lot more to notice/share, but I'll save that for another time when it's a boring Sunday and the only thing to report on is mass.

Also squeezed in time to shop today. Got this new shirt--turns out there are a lot of pretty cool clothes that aren't very expensive. Only issue: Italian sizes run small (Italian girls do, too). This is a medium and quite small on me. They didn't have a large and I don't care to ever wear a large in anything but socks. Gotta get serious about that Gelato Diet!