Art - Inside and Out!

Turns out not everything was closed today...so I ended up spending the late afternoon at an incredible art museum in town (and it's nearly free after the student discount).

The rain finally let up and the sun poured down making for a picture-perfect sunset!

It's back to school time and I'm sooo excited to be a student again. Amazingly enough, I was able to buy a pair of shoes that are fashionable enough for my new clothes (I was sure they were, again, going to not have my size and I refuse to go too small in shoes...the first store didn't have a single pair of shoes big enough, I got lucky at the second one).

On that note, time to switch into school mode!

What to do on rainy day: Techie Challenge

Not that I exactly know what the rest of the day entails, but I do have a very nice poncho and will be going out after posting this. Please, if any geeks are reading this and have ideas, I need to hear them!

Here's the challenge: I can see from Google maps what roads I want to take to go places, but to be able to follow the directions and have a pleasant bike ride, it involves needing to turn the directions/map created by Google Maps into a course route that can be uploaded into my Garmin GPS. (As I've said before, street names are worthless along with Google route directions.)

From what I've found in researching today: Garmin's courses are XML and so long as you have latitude and longitude points, it's not difficult to simply create one's own XML course file.

The problem boils down to this, then: I want a listing of all of the necessary latitude/longitude points to create a reasonable course to follow. With these data points, all is well. In Google maps, one can right-click on a point and the lat/long coordinates are shown to the user. At this point, I just copy/paste into Excel & have formulas there take care of creating the XML file. Great--but I don't love the time that has to be spent clicking on the map and pulling off the lat/long data.

If any of you have ideas as to anything out there to solve this problem, I'll give you a virtual pat on the back. From my Google searches, I'm surprised to not find much of anything available.

I'm pleased, however, to report that this is (though time-consuming) entirely possible as I now have a course uploaded on GPS waiting for me to get to a very cool town! I'll post the ride after I successfully do it on the bike. 

Raining Gatti e Cani (Cats and Dogs) per Pasqua!

Yesterday was an absolutely lovely day, fairly opposite from the constant rain falling today. This is the first significant (like activity-stopping) weather since I've been in Italy. My plan was to go to church and then pedal to Bevagna and spend the afternoon there. Instead, I've stayed in since church and have watched Italian tv--cartoons, westerns (dubbed, it's strange in Italian) and now world news. Back to yesterday & I apologize, this isn't posted in chronological order:

Finally, here's Assisi as seen from the road yesterday:













 (Click on the picture to see it bigger.)

Also seen on the road:

I have figured it out that reading maps & trying to figure out directions (including using Google map directions) is absolutely pointless. It's just important to know which towns are close to which other towns, what's north, south, east & west, follow town signs and do whatever intuition says is most right.

When I was walking around town yesterday morning (before it was warm enough to ride), it was so much fun to walk down new roads and see where they lead. Here's a nice vista.

That's how I ended up finding the shops where I picked up some cute, inexpensive clothes. At one store, I was talked into pants that are two sizes smaller than I typically wear--but, as the guy said, it's how the Italian girls wear clothes--small. They're black pants with gold stitching and gold zippers all over. I like them a lot (no, they aren't comfortable). Let me tell you, these pants are as effective as going on a diet. Clearly, I have no intention of starving myself in the happy land of amazing food.

I've found that I really enjoy conversing with shop owners and listening to others as they shop. The proprietors want to talk to me because I have money to spend in their stores (or they're just nice people), I don't care their intention. I try to buy one small thing everywhere I go (of course, it has to be something I need), and that buys me a full experience and social opportunity.

When I was at the market yesterday buying a couple of things, the line was pretty long. I find it interesting that even when someone is buying very few things (and everyone only pays in cash), each transaction seems to take a long time. I'm not sure why this is yet. There isn't an express lane. By the time I left, the line stretched to the back of the store. Definitely Easter shoppers, but lines tend to be long and slow from what I've found so far.

Same situation at the Post Office. I needed to send in some paperwork. Take a number. Read my Italian-English dictionary. Wait. Finally they take me and I find out that the special stamp I need can only be bought at certain other post offices. Hopefully they're open tomorrow. It surprised me that every business seemed to have normal hours Friday and Saturday before Easter.

Here are pictures taken from the street fair/market, whatever it's called:

Awesome, huge olives.

Sun-dried tomatoes.

Sweets.

Cannoli--I did the taste test & the one I'd had before (that I discussed on the blog) was the best, but I'm not complaining about these. The fair runs through tomorrow. One more cannolo only if the weather holds and I have 3+ hours to burn it off!

I liked this guy--he was very friendly and generous with samples. I bought some really tasty, soft cheese from him, I wish I knew what kind it is. Something that impressed me with the people selling their wares is that after weighing the food, they would round down as to how much I owed them and I always got proper change back (sometimes more than I expected). Considering they all know I'm American (maybe Italians don't wear pony tails?), I got a very good impression of their business ethic.

At the beginning of the Easter Vigil mass, everyone gathered in the courtyard (this is standard Catholic, if you're not familiar). There was a huge fire going in a big metal container. 

Then with candles lit, everyone proceeded into the church. Not sure the significance of all of the people in the white robes (men and women).

Contrary to the way this picture looks, town was packed and loud at 1:20 am (when the Vigil mass was over). In fact, people were walking around all over with cups of beer, all ages were out. For that matter, all ages were in church, too.

Easter Sunday

This is the scene as taken from the steps of the cathedral.

Some quick observations about Sunday mass and Easter in general: I didn't see a lot of the Easter bunny in shops here, but there is some Easter bunny (particularly in chocolate form) and what's particularly popular here are these really large, hollow chocolate eggs (large like ~1 foot tall). I'd like to see what's in other towns. Here, the Perugina chocolate factory is extremely popular/famous around Italy and they produce these eggs. I'm looking forward to the free tour.

Easter colors as Easter merchandise in stores have been sterotypical pastel. However, in church, I saw almost all dark colors (blacks and browns, furs, boots). People are all very fashionable, but hair standards appear lower than clothing standards (possibly because this is a humid climate and Italian hair doesn't like humidity--I can tell you that from experience!)

The mass was beautiful, but no different in form/function from American Catholic Easter day mass. The choir was remarkably beautiful. The last song they sang was "Alleluia." Lots of people stuck around to hear the whole thing. Oh yeah, and when people wish each other Peace be with You, they often kiss on both cheeks and say "Pace." So this is very similar to the way it happens in the States except for the cheek kissing (this is commonly seen on the streets when friends greet each other, as well). The street fair is still going on today, don't know if there's anything out of the ordinary going on, I'd guess not as lots of food has been bought in the past few days, I'm sure huge feasts are being eaten!

And here's my mini-feast:

I even used the oven. I suppose the food here inspires me (ah, and I have time!) This is egg, pasta noodles, sun-dried tomatoes, bok choy, leftover rosemarino pizza with mozzarella bufala melted over it. You'll have to trust me that it was good.

Now to figure out what to do tomorrow if it continues to rain. Nice to have a day at home today! Hope you all had a very enjoyable Easter Sunday!!!

Buona Pasqua (Happy Easter)!

Quick update on today: I got some new clothes & am officially allowed
to be seen on the streets in Italy. Went on 70km bike ride that was
simply wonderful with perfect temperatures, spring smelling, gorgeous
landscapes, birds chirping & I (finally) started to feel semi-fast
(had to be a tail wind).

Went to Easter Vigil mass (last year was in Princeton for it). Mass
started at 10pm, thought it felt a little long (didn't have time on
me), turns out it ended at 1:20am...pretty amazing how full the
cathedral was and how many people stuck it out to the end.

I hope every one of you has a very happy Easter and celebrate it's
true meaning.

Also, please pray hard for my teammate's brother who is fighting
leukemia and may not make it another day or two (his name is Dave).

Off to zzzzzzzzzz land!

Putting it in Perspective

Red line = an easy/shortish bike ride (aside from the climbs).

Good Friday

Why is Good Friday called "Good"? Doesn't seem good to me at all, at least I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't calling it that. I'm pretty bummed that I missed mass tonight, but my bike broke on me (shifter cable snapped--when this happens, the gearing is very difficult and with the major climb home, there's no way I could have ridden it). Rode to Assisi again & apparently you're not meant to see it since the camera came with but the memory card did not. Sorry!!!

Fortunately, the bike shop is at the bottom of the climb (though many kilometers away from where I was when the cable broke) so I was able to make it there and they were awesome to help me out. The mechanics spoke enough English (though I was sort of hoping they would just try to speak Italian to me and I could try really hard to understand...I prefer it this way). I'd enjoy not hearing another word of English for the next 5 months, to be perfectly honest.

There's a street fair going on right now in the piazza with the most wonderful food (and some non-edible wares, too)--many of the vendors are from Sicily so I made sure to try a cannolo. It was, by far, the best one I've ever had--Dad, you'd agree with me, I'm sure. Shell wasn't flaky, but more solid and thick, the filling was creamy but with enough ricotta, it wasn't airy or too sweet. It didn't have the chopped chocolate or pistachios in it like the way I make them, but it didn't need the extra ingredients. There's another vendor out there selling cannoli as well, will try one of theirs tomorrow.

Picked up some super wonderful wine (Montefalco Rosso and Rossobastardo) -- two bottles, 12 euro. Can't beat that!

And here's the best part of my mini-food shopping extravaganza (besides the canolo): Mozzarella di bufala (1/2 kilogram for 4 euro, I don't know prices, but that has to be good)! (See how moist it is in the center?)

And huge olives! Guess it's not obvious in this picture how big they are, but trust me on this one. Huge (like the longest is a little over an inch long, I will measure later) and very, very meaty.

My version of the Mediterrean diet:

This is rosemarino (rosemary) pizza that I picked up from the local grocery store this morning, basilico (basil) and sun-dried pomodoro (tomatoes) with the mozzarella di bufala, drizzed with olive oil...what a treat!

Until I make friends, I'm trying to eat well at home since I'm going to want to go out a lot probably soon. Can't believe I'm in Italy living alone (basically), eating alone. This really stinks. The whole point of this was for me to get out of my "comfort" zone of living alone, doing my thing. And here I am, living similarly to how I did before. I will be moving in with Italians next month unless things pick up dramatically socially. On that note, I'm too tired to go out (wrong gear on hills ripped me up), though I know that I should. Tomorrow I will switch things up and start living more like an Italian! Buona notte!

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!

You Heard it Here First...

I saw Amanda Knox on the street in Perugia...she was skipping and whistling "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah"...!

APRIL FOOL'S!!!

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Home Sweet Home

Here's a tour of my new home, at least this month. Honestly, I love that it is so low maintenance and small. I'm getting the feeling that this is simply the way apartments work in Italy for students: the place comes furnished, with art on the walls and sheets on the bed. Dishes and pots and pans are in the kitchen. Why would any Italian student want to buy his/her own stuff? Most students move home after college so I'm guessing these purchases only happen after a couple gets married.

View out the window.

The shutters are great. The place is very dark until I open them up. Who needs curtains?

Kitchen:

"Cabinet" on the left-most side is the refrigerator (top) and freezer (split into three small sections, bottom).

Washer is in the kitchen. Yikes! I forgot--my laundry is done and I totally spaced it tonight. Not sure where it'll be getting dried...hmmm...



Tonight I got to meet a very cool family (family friends in a roundabout way) who were in town. We feasted at a great local restaurant that was down a cool alley. Oh, the best part of Italy is just this! And before dinner we had some to-die-for Montefalco vino. mmmmm. I need to pay that winery a visit (it's super close to Bevagna).

Here's that alley:

And here we are at a fab lookout spot:

Tomorrow, finally, is the day I've been looking forward to for 6 months now...Italian school begins! (Alright, so entrance exams are first, but I have a feeling I'll learn a lot just being tested about everything I don't know.) Buona fortuna to me!

(Or you could say "In bocca al lupo!" and I respond back to you: "Crepi il lupo." This means: in the mouth of the wolf and the response means: may the wolf die. This is right along the lines of break a leg.) No wolves, no breaking legs tomorrow, but definitely going to be an interesting experience being tested on a language that I haven't studied formally yet. Results will be blogged when I get them.

Ciao ciao!

I Have an Italian Address, Does that Make me Italian?

An update on what's going on with me: obviously, yesterday was a very tiring 24 km wandering all over Venice (yeah, I wore my GPS watch because I'm a wannabe geek). I took a night train to Perugia where I arrived at 7:15 this morning. The train was very uncomfortable: 6 sleepy people in a very small compartment. When I walked in, a guy was sitting in my seat (next to the window) and a child was crying his head off. Luckily, the guy moved (begrudgingly) and the child was perfect for the rest of the night after his mom returned (his poor, helpless dad). I slept off and on, but it was cold and not very restful.

I was able to take a nap (back at the farm), grab my stuff (I had left a lot there) and set off yet again. And so continues the journey of our comic character in the slightly altered version of the "Under the Tuscan Sun" story. Part two of this story was played out with me and all of my bags (much fuller and even more awkward than when I originally got to the farm) as I drug everything back down the gravel road to the bus stop. The sky was dark, I was sure I was going to get rained on and to top things off, I got to wait an extra 15 minutes for the bus since I misread the schedule (hrumph, there's two schedules posted for each bus and apparently today the other one applied where it never has before). Maybe kids are on spring break & it's a school vs non-school thing? These are some of the amusing frustrations to moving to a very different place.

I was only a couple of minutes late to check in at my new apartment (new for me, it's anything but new...it's centuries old and I like that part the best! I can't break it if the last 900 people before me didn't break it). Tonight I met my roommate who is from Holland and seems pretty cool. Best part about her: she doesn't like chocolate or wine...so I get all of the chocolate and wine others have given to her.

A quick trip to the market yielded a very early dinner since I was super hungry; it felt so great to be able to buy food knowing it won't have to be moved anywhere. Getting established, settling down. This is truly fantastic. Dinner was complete and satisfying: big, beautiful spinach and beet salad, pasta with olive oil and garlic, red vino, bread with very fresh honey from Sunday's market in Vicenza).

After dinner, I unpacked, put up pictures of family and friends along with the goodbye cards you all gave me, organized everything, stowed the bike bag and other luggage under the bed and here I am! Pictures of the place later, I'm exhausted. This whole process really, truly makes me feel like a college freshman again.

And one other thing to mention: it has been in the back of my mind for a few days, but the realization that I brought travel-appropriate clothes only and almost NOTHING fashionable has me totally freaked out. My Italian leather boots are collecting dust in Denver, grrrrrrrr. It's back to school time and I'm going to be that kid wearing the hand-me-downs from multiple other siblings. I might feel 19, but I can't dress like it if I want to be Italian. This could be a fun problem to solve! 

Blogging will slow down dramatically once school starts as there will be much more going on socially and I will want to study so my priorities will shift a lot. This blogging project has been so much fun and I really appreciate all of the personal emails I've received from you in response to the posts. They all mean so much to me to receive. Grazie mille. Ciao ciao!