A Trip to the South

A lot has happened since my last post so get ready for a novel. For my reader’s convenience, I have included chapters. Also I have cooler stuff to write about than what I eat for dinner every night. Here goes!

Thursday Feb. 10^th

We took a tour of our local environment around Orvieto, visiting Bolsena and a little city on a hill. Our first stop was an old castle that we can see from various lookout points from the top of Orvieto. Next we headed to Bolsena where we ate lunch at a beautiful lake. After this we drove to a hilltop where two kstate professors have a home. It was quite the hike across a bridge then up a really steep path and we were all exhausted by the end of it. Except of course for the handful of people that jumped on a cart as it drove past us. We concluded this tour at a lookout point with a great view of our quaint little hilltop town.

Friday Feb. 11^th

We had our official class trip to Florence with Marco as our guide. Our professor’s wife accidentally got on the train headed south to Rome instead of north to Florence and everyone got quite the chuckle out of that. I kept quiet because that’s something I would do easily. It reminded me of the time Madie and I went in the wrong theatre at the movies. About 20 minutes in we looked at each other and said “This is not what I was expecting.” Sure enough, we were watching Amazing Grace and not The Ultimate Gift. (Miss you MadDog) Back to Florence, we went inside Santa Croce this time and saw the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo.  The biggest event of this day came when we were sitting on the train headed home that evening and Tyler got an e-mail saying that they did not ship our tickets to the Roma vs. Napoli game for the following day. Therefore, we all headed to Beerhouse to drown the sorrows of missing out on a sweet game of soccer and a night out in Rome.  We spent Saturday trying to figure out the ticket situation and getting our money refunded before heading to Café del Corso to watch the game on tv.

Sunday Feb. 13^th

Since our travel plans to Rome fell through, we had to go see something new this weekend, so we decided to go to Perugia! Our whole group that was supposed to go to the game decided to leave early on the 8am train. Only problem is when we got to the funicolare (the trolley that takes you down the hill to the train station) we realized it didn’t start running until 8am on Sundays – that won’t work.  There were six of us girls at the funicolare deciding what we should do since the only other way down the hill is the bus system and we assumed they ran on the same schedule as the funicolare. Well, we were wrong.  We had not caught a single glimpse of the bus we needed, so our only other option was to start the trek down the mountain on foot. As we embarked on this we checked the time, it was after 7:30am, train leaves at 8, and we heard it took about 30 minutes to wind down the hill. Those times do not add up in our favor so naturally, we started running. We called the 5 guys to tell them we were going down on foot and they kinda laughed and said “Really? Ok, we’ll meet you down there.”  We pretty much assumed they wouldn’t make the train since we were ahead of them and already running - wrong again. As the 6 of us girls ran in a single file line down the side of the road in our boots and jackets, a bus passes us, with 5 familiar faces smiling and waving at us from the back window. We’ll just say we earned every bite of chocolate we ate that day. The guys were impressed because they said the thought to run down to the station never crossed their minds, they just would have caught the next train two hours later.

Monday Feb. 14^th – San Valentino Day

Great news! Valentine’s Day in Italy has the same effect of self realization on being alone in Italy as it does in the states. Awesome. Although we had an awesome group dinner at Zeppelin and Katie brought little treats to us in studio that morning.  Our dinner at Zeppelin consisted of an appetizer of vegetable lasagna, a soup I didn’t really care for, a pasta dish, a main course of fried lamb cutlet and a cheesecake for dessert. Along with many bottles of vino, grappa, and lemoncello.

The South Trip

We set out early and in the rain on Wednesday for our trip south to see Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Casserta. As we approached Herculaneum we got our first glimpse of an Italian town that is not beautiful and charming like those we are used to, but rather a dump. We explored the ruins from Mt. Vesuvius’s 79 a.d. eruption, which would be an epic place for a game of laser tag, then boarded the bus again, soaking wet of course. That evening we had a group dinner at our hotel and walked around town looking for something to entertain us. That mission was unsuccessful, but we ended up with 7 dogs following us around. Most of the dogs in the area are taken care of by the archaeology foundation so the dogs can roam the ruins and city, begging for human attention. Worked like a charm on us tourists.

 The following day we made the short walk from our hotel to the ruins of Pompeii. It is a really impressive spread of ancient ruins and made us realize Pompeii was a lively place with its gardens and stadium before all its citizens were killed by toxic gases and smothered with volcanic ash. That evening we made the quick trip from Pompeii to Sorrento, the gateway to the Amalfi Coast. We stopped at a famous little gelato shop where I ordered the Kit-Kat and Nutella! Days can’t end any better than that. On Friday, the last day of our tours, we visited a large palace in Casserta. By this time, I’ve seen many palaces so this one wasn’t really something to write home about.

The real fun begins when our supervised tour ends.

We were released from our trip and free to embark on our own journeys Friday afternoon. Most of our class headed to the beautiful Amalfi Coast again but my roommates and I decided to try our luck at something else.

Our Mission: Hike Mt. Vesuvius.

End Result: Fail.

So here’s the story that goes along with that…

At the train station in Pompeii we asked for the buses that take people up Mt. Vesuv to a park where we could get out and make the 30 minute hike up to the top. Some of the workers were implying that the buses were done running for the day and the only word we could really make out was ‘tomorrow’.  We were feeling pretty defeated because we already had plans to go to the isle of Capri tomorrow when suddenly a guy pointed to a well dressed man standing by the entrance of the train station, said something in italian to him then the man says “I’ll take you.” Take us where exactly, we wondered. We followed him to his car and he said he would take us up Mt. Vesuvius for 10 euro each. Well, that’s not too bad of a price and this is the only time we have allotted to do this, so we agreed and got in the car with a stranger. The whole situation was a bit skethy and all 5 of us had our minds racing with how this scenario might turn out; awesome pictures of us on top of a deadly volcano, or another documentary of what not to do while studying abroad. Luckily, my years of watching murder mystery shows and countless episodes of Dexter kicked my instincts into gear and I took note of his eyes, wrinkly forehead, and unique white leather band on his left wrist. I then left a strand of my hair under the front seat so there is DNA proof we were in that car. Katie also texted the guys to tell them if we don’t show up on the coast tomorrow we’re in a white van on Mt. Vesuvius with a guy named Enzo. As we winded up the roads, it became harder and harder to see any scenery due to the heavy fog. When we finally reached the national park near the top, Enzo ordered us to jump out and snap some pictures because we could not go any higher. I couldn’t really see anything so it was a bit of let down, at least we tried though.  We then asked Enzo if he would take us to our Bed & Breakfast we had booked for that night. He agreed and that was probably the smartest thing we had done all day. Turns out we were in a sketchy area of a nearby town to Pompeii and never would have found this place in the dark, rain, and on foot carrying bags. So the man we thought capable of killing us actually saved our lives. We slept well that night.

Saturday at Isle of Capri (not the casino)

We made our way out of the dump known as Scafati, dreaming of the beautiful coastline! From Sorrento, there is a boat that takes you to the island and well worth the 30 euro. We couldn’t have asked for better weather on this day as I was able to go sleeveless and soak up that Italian sun for most of the afternoon. One of the attractions on the island is a chair lift that takes you to the highest mountain. It was a fun ride and we snapped countless pictures of the surroundings. While on the 15 minute chair ride, guess who we pass? None other than Tyler, Kevin, Logan, Zach, Mitch and Craig. What are the odds of them coming down the mountain the same time we are making our way up it? We caught the 5:40 boat back to Sorrento where we located the bus that would drive us down the coast to Positano, where we had reserved another Bed & Breakfast for that night. We again, were looking for our B&B in the dark and luckily some kind stranger on the bus knew where we were headed and had the bus driver stop right at the entrance of La Maliosa d’Arienze. Another life saver because we would have never found this place tucked away on the edge of the cliffs. We woke up the following morning to a beautiful view of the water and coastline. We hiked down an endless staircase to a pebbly beach where we played around, wrote sand messages and snapped a few “band pictures” to try and keep up with the 5 guy apartment that does this everywhere we go. By now, we were all exhausted and ready to get back home to Orvieto and get this 30 pound bag off my back. To get from Naples to Orvieto, we bought tickets for a faster and more direct train. We were some of the first people on and my 4 roommates took up one section and I sat across the aisle in another, most definitely not our assigned seats listed on the tickets. As more people boarded and the train became crowded we realized how badly we were messing people up by sitting where we wanted. The older man that had the ticket for my seat boarded the train; of course he spoke only Italian, and pointed to his ticket then my seat. I gave him an awkward smile then pointed to my roommates who I wanted to stay near and he just laughed and took the vacant seat across from me. We couldn’t survive here without the ability to use our hands when speaking. Times like this I hate the language barrier because I bet we would have had great conversation during the 3 hour train ride.

When we finally walked through the door of our apartment we ran to the kitchen to look for a Franca Cake that we usually get on Wednesdays. Sure enough, she left one in the fridge for us! Another great ending to a day in Italia!

Hope this was a nice break from work Syd.

Ciao,

Rachel

“In perfect Italian style, we do exactly what we shouldn’t.”

Our visit to Rome was incredible! The history of Italy literally slaps you in the face! It was unreal to see the coliseum and Arch of Constantine. From there we continued walking all around the ruins seeing capitol hill with a great view of the Roman Forum. We also saw Circus Maximus, hopefully it was more impressive in its day because now its just a dog walking trail. We also stopped at this church that had started to build an addition and discovered the oldest in ruins in the whole area. Our guided tour with Marco ended at the Pantheon, which is another site that fully lives up to all the hype, absolutely breathtaking. From here our large group split and I went with a group of the girls to head up to St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. To get there we walked along the Tiber River and snapped many pictures of the beautiful bridges. The Vatican was pretty neat looking, we decided not to go inside this time though so we had time to hit up the other sites. I’ll be back in Rome showing my parents all the same things when they come at the end of the program so I figured I could wait to see the inside when they’re here, and they’ll pay my admission. From the Vatican we caught the Metro which dropped us off near the Spanish Steps. They are not very impressive, just a flight of stairs where we rested our legs. The Trevi Fountain on the other hand was awesome! I threw about a month’s rent in and it was most definitely worth it all. For dinner we stopped at a cute little restaurant to rest our legs and sip some vino. We finally headed home on the 9:45pm train back to Orvieto with most all of our other classmates.

The day after our Rome trip we went back to Zeppelin (restaurant where we had our cooking class) for a wine tasting. The lady explained a lot of stuff to us, most of it over my head because I'll drink wine right out of a box, but still had fun chatting with everyone. Our usual Saturday nights are seeming to be spent at Beer House with our whole group. That night we met some of the Arizona students, most of them are Communications majors, also studying at Centro Studi.

With all the traveling and side projects we’ve been doing, it’s hard to find time for our normal studio work, which is a nice break from K-State. We spent two class times touring different neighborhoods in Orvieto, many of which I had not seen yet. The first day we did this, the weather was so beautiful that we spent our lunch break on the roof top terrace at some of the girl’s apartments. I’ll take that over a foot of snow any day. Later that evening we went to Pizzeria Charlie’s. Delicious. Besides the fact we couldn’t read a few words on the menu and a few people were surprised to find shrimp and french fries on their pizza.

After the second day of tours one of the girl’s apartments hosted a pot-luck dinner for our whole group, faculty included. We ate Gnocchi, salad, bruschetta, little cheeseburgers, salad, and pork. My apartment was in charge of dessert and since we don’t have an oven we found these sponge cakes at the store and made three different cakes. One with nutella and banana, another with a home-made cream cheese icing topped with oreos, and the final one had carmelized apples on top. They turned out delicious considering we pretty much had to wing it! So we ate dinner, threw confetti all over their apartment and headed to Beer House. Confetti is the thing to throw over here, it litters the streets most evenings. I’ve heard it is in celebration leading to Carnivale.

Another developing routine is making dinner with the guys every Thursday before our early field trips on Fridays. This week we traded french toast for biscuits and gravy.

  My second Friday field trip with Marco was to Assisi! I cannot rave enough about how beautiful and fun this little town is. It also happens to be Marco’s hometown so he had many stories to share. First we took a private bus through some of the best landscape I’ve seen yet for the hour and a half drive there. The first stop was St. Francis’ Basilica. This is an awesome church where the tomb of Francis is below the alter to keep it from being robbed. Above the crypt is the lower basilica covered in frescoes that tell the story of his life. Above that is the upper basilica with some of the oldest stained glass in Italy. It is also much brighter inside than most churches of that time. Next we made the trek up to castle. I had so much fun running around in the tunnels and rooms and towers that reminded me of Tunnel Town from my childhood. Another cool thing about Assisi is the color of the stone is more pink than anything else I’ve seen thus far. All in all, a beautiful little town and a great Friday!

The girls at Santa Chiara told us about a chocolate festival happening in Firenze (Florence), so it’s not even a question where we went to the day after our Assisi trip. My first impressions of Firenze were that it was pretty dirty and covered in graffiti (might be because I just witnessed the beauty that is Assisi though). When we finally made our way to the chocolate festival, we witnessed a riot happening in front of Santa Croce. Apparently they were protesting the Prime Minister. Then we met up with the Santa Chiara group, it was so good to see those girls again!

Super Bowl Sunday was a beautiful day in Orvieto! I decided to go for a run around the trail that spirals down our little hilltop town. It was an intense trail but I made it, kind of. My roommate Katie is from Chicago and a huge packers fan so she was bound and determined to find a place to watch the Super Bowl that night. We found that we could get the game on the tv at our house but the picture was fuzzy and bouncing so it was hard to watch. So at halftime we found a little bar that is open 24 hours and turned on the game. So yes, I did miss a good portion of the laser light show by the Black Eyed Peas that I’ve heard so much about. We were up until around 4:30am cheering on the Packers!

The next day we headed to the valley (often referred to as downstairs) to grocery shop at the Coop (instead of Co-Op, Italians pronounce it like my name. Score one to Italia). At the Coop we bought the fixins for a mexican feast which satisfied our cravings for something besides pasta and pizza.

Wednesdays are now referred to as Franca Cake Day because our landlord bakes us a cake/pie while our apartment gets cleaned.  In studio, Katie and I taped the guys’ supplies to the wall and wrapped string around their desks chairs and through their back packs after they messed with Katie’s desk earlier in the day. Revenge. Then the roomies and I made some dinner and went for gelato.

I have a lot of exciting events coming up: tomorrow we are going ‘downstairs’ to a cemetery  with a great view back up at Orvieto, Friday Marco will take us to Firenze, Saturday I go back to Rome for the Roma vs. Napoli soccer game, then Sunday there is a chocolate festival in Perugia.

In case this post isn’t quite long enough here is an interesting tid bit. In Italy, if someone leaves a door open they say, “Do you live at the Coliseum? Shut the Door!” Similar to our expression, “Were you raised in a barn?”

I bet my mom is the only person who made it to the end of this post. Sorry for the novel.

Ciao!

Rachel