This blog has been brought to you by my Roman Empire history class.
Friday morning started bright and early at 6 am. We had to get to the Piazza d'Italia to catch our bus to Rome, which from there took us down in southern Italy about 6 hours away. After sleeping for the entire bus ride, which I am still amazed I did that, we arrived at the first national park of the weekend. Here we saw a lot of aquaducts and bodies of water that were used for electricity? It was kind of boring so that part, not so clear. But after that we got to go explore inside of this living cave. It is one of the biggest in Italy. It takes something like a million years for the rock to form a square inch. pretty wild. But we started off on a boat in a river inside of the cave. Then we got out and explored within the cave. We weren’t supposed to take pictures so I didn’t take my camera, but then everyone ended up taking pictures so I was pretty upset. When we finished our cave tour we drove for another 3 hours to get to the park of Pollino. We got to our hotel around 9 and had an amazing dinner. I think the waiter thought I was an alcoholic because I was the only one who knew how to ask for more wine in Italian so I kept asking for everyone. That night I roomed with a girl from my program who I hadn’t hung out with much yet so I was glad I got to get to know her. Also in our room was this girl Brittany from Florence- now I have somebody to stay with when I go! The next morning we got up and went to the mountain to hike. We were the first group of Americans to ever set foot on these paths which was pretty cool. It sucked because it was kind of raining and they tour guides said if it was clear we could see forever from the top of the mountain. However we still saw so much and had a gorgeous view. We went up so high we were in the clouds at some points. It also got veryyyy windy at the top and the tour guide was yelling at me and my friends for taking self timer pics of ourselves near the ledge, “Do not make dangerous picture!” For lunch they gave us the best bagged lunches ever. We each got a slice of pizza, a prociutto and cheese sandwich and an eggplant sandwich. I at all of it, obviously. Then we hiked back down the mountain and had nap time. When we regrouped we went “orienteering”. I teamed up with my two roomies and we had to go around the town and hit all of the check points by means of a map with no street names or anything. At the first check point there was a mushroom spread on a piece of bread. I tried it but got grossed out and threw it away. The next one we got a spinach calzones and wine, which were both delicious. Next we to a shop and got salami and cheese, the fried dough and then we tested all these different kinds of homemade honey. I bought one that was great for sore throats but it has an after taste that’s like menthol. Then we were done and did a little bit of shopping around the town.
At dinner that night we had a three man band came in (an accordion player, an instrument like an oboe, and one like a bag pipe, but made out of goat skin) and we all danced! After dinner we went to bed early to be ready for the next day. We left at 7 am and went further south to the heel of the Italian boot. We then got to a small village and had to descend down into the canyons. We were going down at almost a 90 degree incline, it was pretty intense. But it was so worth it because it was definitely my favorite part of the weekend. We were inside of the canyons going through rivers, climbing around obstacles, etc. Within the first few minutes I tripped over some rocks and got some serious eggs on my shins. Then about ten minutes later I tried to climb up this mini waterfall and got sucked down a little vortex of water. I thought I was going to go right under but I somehow stopped myself but I couldn’t get out because I was laughing to hard haha.
After we were done in the canyons we had to climb up all of the hills we came down. It was absolute misery. On our way up we got a little lost and encountered this old Italian lady who reminded me of my yaya, (short, huge boobs, waddles, tried to feed us, and couldn’t speak English). While she was trying to feed us, her cat escaped. So we all sat and watched this lady chase her cat around, being unsuccessful. She then waddled back to her house and came back with a box of cat food and started shaking it at the cat. She finally got the cat cornered, went to grab it, but it ran away and the lady fell head first into the wall! It was kind of sad but once we saw she was fine we all started laughing. We then made it to the bus, and the crazy lady Dora was freaking out, per usual, about where everyone else was. While we waited for her heart attack to pass, we went and got what might have been the best gelato I have had since I’ve been here, besides Grom of course. After we got back on the bus we headed to the last stop of the weekend, an iconic museum. It was so boring it showed us how to make icons through a ten minute instructional video. I did notice that there were a lot of similarities however with the icons that are in Greek churches. After this museum we were all starvinggggg but we were not allowed to eat on the bus, so we had to wait an extra hour. We then stopped at a reststop on the highway and were given our lunches and told to eat outside. But it started to rain. So we all had to go inside the convenient store and eat because this Dora lady was so freaking crazy. We finished eating and then got on the bus, traveled for what seemed like for days, then made it back to Perugia late Sunday night with a visitor.
My dad had arrived in Perugia late that afternoon while I was rotting my life away on the bus. But he had also been traveling for a couple days so he was sleeping when I got back. The next morning I met him at his hotel at 8 and we went to a café, had some café e cornette and explored Perugia. He then came into my Italian class with me and my Italian teacher had my class help teach him key Italian phrases like “Dove il bancomat?” ” Vorrei una botiglia di vino rosso” Il conto per favore, etc. After class we had pizza at Pizza Mediterraneo , my favorriteee and then we just decided to go to Assisi for a few hours. It was a really cool town, but it was so touristy there wasn’t really that much to do.
That night we went to dinner at the restaurant on my street that Vittorio owns (the man that we met the first day who also has the Gelato shop who wanted to teach us all Italian). It was absolutely amazing. The architecture inside was unreal and I would have never expected it looking at the outside. The ceilings were 1000 yr old brick. We started off with some homemade creations by Vitorrio. I could not even tell you what we ate, but it was all very good. Then we had prociutto and melon, then we each had a pork tenderloin dish with some kind of vegetables and sauce. We ate dinner over a four hour span, but we also were talking to Vitorrio and he was showing us around the restaurant, the wine cellar, telling us the history, etc. After being well fed, we went to La Tana D’Orso because it was the first DJ per Chance night and me and all my roommates we DJing. So we got there, and all of my friends were hanging out with my dad more than me? He took a particular liking to my friend Leo from Australia, who works at La Tana, Keegan, Blake and Max. He kept buying everyone drinks, and I made them a lot of shots as well. Then I think at some point we all danced and were playing oldies classics for Paul, aka the beatles and queen. We then walked Paul back to his hotel, and we got in trouble by the people who work there because it was around 3 am, I think, and the hotel was closed.
The next day he did not join our Italian class… I wonder why.. and everyone was telling me they were still drunk thanks to my dad from the night before. After I went out to lunch with him at Café di Perugia. I got gnocchi and he got some type of pasta too. He then left L and I went to the rest of my classes for the day. That night we made gnocchi at Bar Milano with my Italian class. Last night we had Tandem again and I made some new Italian friends. When it was over I went to La Tana for the night to bartend. We had the Beta House there again, but it did not last for very long. All night I kept making screw drivers for this really nice American man. He was hanging out at the bar and being really friendly with us, complaining about his jetlag. He was also the only person who tipped me that night, and he put 5 euro, not in the clearly marked tip jar but in the bucket of sangria. I later found out that this man was Amanda Knox’s dad. Lucy, my bar manager, told me he comes to Italy for a few months at a time to keep Amanda company, and I assumed he had just arrived due to his jet lag. It was pretty weird/sad. But now the weekend has begun and I need to go do more things to blog about! Ciao tutti!
(I will post pictures later because the internet at the school is not working right now)
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