For those family and friends who are excited to keep up with my blog, this is for you. For those of you who have already been to Orvieto or have a short attention span… good luck…
Our apartment is on the Piazza del Popolo, which is perfect because that’s where market is every Thursday and Saturday! It’s as if little elves come in during the night, and when we wake up, our piazza/parking lot has been quietly turned into the hub of town. We struggled remembering Italian words for food and resort to a lot of pointing, and hand gestures saying how much cheese we want. And haggling is far too advanced right now, so we’re probably paying full price… The oranges here are amazing! Especially the blood oranges. There’s a cheese that I guess Orvieto makes specially called Peccorino, which tastes kind of like a parmeggian. There’s tons of great meats, but I haven’t found any non-pork items. So ya, I’ve been eating a lot of oranges, cheese, and bread, and that’s about it.
We’ve been going to the bars for breakfast (these are like coffee shops in the states). The coffee is super strong and gives us a good kick to last us for the day. And the pastries are amazing! Although I should probably stop eating pastries for breakfast… but I don’t know how to say anything else…
One of our Italian teachers (Marina) gave us a little tour of the town on Thursday. It’s actually a lot bigger than I imagined. And I’ll never figure my way around with all the helter skelter of streets (which by the way, the rule of driving here is basically, if you can fit in it, you can drive on it. We’ve gotten pretty good at becoming one with the wall as cars wiz by with barely inches on either side).
We cooked our first apartment meal Friday night. And thanks to Talia and her endless Food Network Channel watching, I actually did pretty well. It took us forever to figure out the gas stove which we have to light with matches, but somehow the attached oven is electric...
Friday night, thanks to our generous college back home who footed the bill, we went to the ballet Swan Lake at the town theater. I’m not much for ballet but it was enjoyable and good to experience the theater. After all, dance is a universal language, so it wasn’t like we had to decipher Italian J
We also had our first lecture on Friday (three hours) with Marco Ceccerani who teaches the Italian history. I like his views on the world, very informed and accepting – its good to hear a non-American view (not anti-American, just non-American). And maybe it’ll give some of the American, Bible-Belt, Mid-Westerners a reality check.
Saturday was more market, I got stopped by the Tax Police… I’m not exactly sure what all went down, but I was let go without much trouble. Jen and I ventured down to the Coop (the closest thing to a grocery store here) and picked up some supplies (we didn’t get much to start out with compared to the other apartments). A small group of us explored the Rupe around the city that afternoon/evening (this is also what I’ve been running on, and although it’s a loop, I swear, it doesn’t connect...) Jen and I cooked a small dinner because Kylie and Angela were still full from their cooking class/giant meal from earlier. And then we went out to the hoppin’ young-people hangouts of Orvieto (I think they were entertained with trying to accommodate us and the music turned into like an American sock hop night…).
My morning running proves, as always, to be a nice time to myself and an adventure trying to find my way around, running up and down ridiculous hills. Although, I feel my direction keeping is flawed: “at the giant mountain wall, go up…” and if you know Orvieto at all or have seen pictures, the whole thing is a giant mountain wall, and only at certain points can you actually find a way up.
Oh, and I’m sick… of course… L
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