Goodbye Orvieto

We're down to our last two and a half hours here in Orvieto, and then we board a train to Bologna where we'll board another train to Paris. It's hard to believe we're leaving when I'm sitting at my favorite caffe where my favorite baristas have gotten to know me and say "ciao!" when they see me. But I had an awesome last 24 hours here, so I am totally content with my final days.

This weekend, as I mentioned I think, is the Corpus Domini festivities. Yesterday was the Lady's Parade or something to that effect where a ton of Orvieto women walked up and down the streets in beautiful Medieval costumes, even the littlest members.

There was another, bigger procession this morning and it made me wonder how one is able to participate. Is it a privilege to be invited? Are the costumes passed on from generation to generation?

Last night the majority of Orvieto kids that were still around we to an underground wine tasting. However, it wasn't so much a wine tasting as an all-you-can-drink wine buffet with only two types of wine. But since there was plenty of wine, it goes without saying that it was a lot of fun. The chefs and waiters at the restaurant made no effort to hide how much they love American girls and kept insisting on taking pictures with all of us...it was kind of weird, but I wasn't too concerned considering we are leaving today. 

Well I have said all my goodbyes and packed up all my stuff, all that's left is to board the train and head on out. I don't know what my internet situation will be from now on, but hopefully I'll be able to keep this blog updated one way or another!

Grazie e arrivederci!

Final Countdown

I can't believe we are already at the end of our time here in Orvieto. School is done (!!!) and Michelle and I leave Sunday afternoon to start our journey westward. It is kind of sad considering how wonderful Orvieto is, and how much I have grown to love it, but also exciting to start the last leg of our adventure and of course, to go home! I'm not gonna lie--I miss America so freaking much. I have been telling everyone that as soon as I get back I want Starbucks and guacamole, and once I enter my house I'm going to hug my dogs and jump in my pool. One of my friends said she's going to kiss a cactus...I wouldn't go that far, but I get it.

This week has been mostly devoted to final essays, but there have been a few highlights along the way.

1. Cooking Class: I don't have any pictures, unfortunately, but this may have been my best meal in Italy. We learned how to make handmade pasta (tagliatelle), eggplant parmigiana, zucchini flan, pesto, pasta ragu, and tiramisu. Well, "learned" is kind of relative...I'm not confident in my ability to cook any of these dishes again, but I do know I learned how to eat them.

2. Suddenly discovering the best restaurants in Orvieto: For some reason, we hadn't really stumbled upon the best restaurants until the last week or two, and it's sad that it took this long, but so worth the wait.

3. We're being replaced: I have seen a lot of college-aged Americans around Orvieto which makes me think that they are the new crop coming in to be the obnoxious Americans at Bar Duomo. It's sad because I'd like to think everyone here will miss us.

4. Hot, Hot, Hot: The weather has been ridiculously hot and humid this week. I'm ready for the dry heat again.

5. Corpus Domini: It's a big religious festival that I can't really explain (google it), but basically the town is decked out in Medieval banners and there are monk chants blasting from the Duomo that can be heard all throughout town. This weekend all the processions and such are going down, it should be interesting.

6. Tourists Central: Every week the amount of tourists has increased (and the amount increases throughout the week) and they seem to be exploding out of the tour buses these days. Most of them are English speaking, so that's always fun. I also saw a Disney Adventures tour group come through yesterday which was weird to say the least...

7. Parents: Some of the kids in our group's parents are in town, and although it makes me miss my own, it's comforting and exciting to have them here.

8. Saying goodbyes: I can't believe it, but in two days I won't be walking around Orvieto, saying "hi" to everyone I know. Some of my friends are leaving tomorrow and I will miss them.

Tonight is our "Farewell Dinner" which I'm sure will be succeeded by a last big group hoorah at Bar Duomo. Hopefully, there will be some nice pictures of everyone getting all fancy and such.

Last Week

Less than one week until I leave Orvieto. I decided to post some pictures of this beautiful place since I haven't really had the chance to. Enjoy!

View from the top of the cliff

View of Orvieto Scalo from Orvieto (the main town sits on top of the cliff)

It is a very windy road to the top

Firenze (The Final Field Trip)

Yesterday was our last group field trip. It's kind of hard to believe I probably won't be in an Autogrill for a long time (For those of you who don't know, Autogrill is the Italian equivalent of gas station mini marts ON CRACK). Our first stop in Florence was to The Academia, the art museum where Michelangelo's "David" is kept. The museum is pretty small, but David is MASSIVE and impressive. Our tour guide made a joke that all the girls in the group looked enamored and said something like, "It all looks good now, but will be gone later" referring to David's perfectly chiseled body. The Academia also housed a bunch of other cool art, but was very, very crowded and difficult to move around, so I was happy when it was time for lunch.

The famous Piazza della Repubblica

After lunch our next scheduled activity was a walking tour of Florence. For those of you who don't know and haven't read my other blog about Florence (shame!), the city has excellent shopping and high fashion. So a lot of people in our group, especially those who weren't staying the weekend in Florence decided to ditch the tour (which was sure to be too long, too hot, and not interesting enough) and shop instead. Michelle and I struggled with the idea, but in the end decided to at least start the tour and if we passed by a shop we just could not resist, we would taper off. Well, it was about five minutes in when we ducked into a caffe to grab a bottle of water, when we walked out the group was gone and we could not find them anywhere. We were both wearing our "whisper units"--little radio devices we use on tours so everyone can hear our guides--so we tried to find the group based on our guide's voice coming in and out. We spent a good ten minutes tracking them before we decided to look for the group in the Florence H&M.

In our defense, shopping is a great way to have a cultural experience. I learned how Italian registers and fitting rooms operate (slowlyyyy) and that people have absolutely no regard for personal space. Normally, if you run into someone in America you apologize profusely, but in Europe I'm pretty sure they do it on purpose.

High fashion and luxury cars in Florence, reminded me of home

I also finally got an authentic Italian leather bag--something I have been dreaming of since my last visit to this wonderful city, and I also had excellent gelato...drip all over me as we ran to our meeting place.

The Florence Duomo, so impressive

As you can tell, Florence is beautiful, and is the only city we've visited here that I can see myself returning to long-term. My love for it is not easily expressed in words.

On another note, the Jersey Shore wrapped filming up a little while ago, so Michelle, Tiffany, and I are officially the only Orvieto kids who got to see them! This only makes me super excited because everyone else desperately wanted to run into them too.

This is our last week in Orvieto! It's kind of hard to believe, but I'm also kind of ready to move on to the next part of our adventure and go back to the USA. This week is paper writing galore, a cooking class, and hopefully some fun hidden in between! Stay tuned!

Club Med

Today was our field trip to Tarquinia to see an Etruscan Necroplis AKA...a bunch of tombs. As you can tell from my previous blogs, I'm getting very tired of touring ruins, so I was not all that excited about this one. But it was a pretty area and was nice to walk around in a big open field with a nice sea view! Claudio kept reminding us throughout the whole tour "Just be patient and soon you'll be at the beach." The tombs are basically little "huts" that are decorated inside with frescoes to honor the dead. You have to walk down a dark, claustrophobic staircase and look through a glass window to see them, but it is amazing how well preserved they are.

The tour was pretty quick and then we headed off to the beach! The weather in June so far has been rainy most days, but today was sunny and beautiful. We ate lunch at a great restaurant with a sea view and it was just so wonderful to finally have a (half) day to just relax and hang out in the sun.

Beaches in Italy are a little different. There are several different blocked off areas that are "pay beaches" and then random patches of sand that are "free beaches." There isn't much of a difference except the pay beaches come with chairs and umbrellas. The sand, as you can tell, was black because of old volcanic rock and such and the water was freeeezing, but of course, we still all had to go in. There really isn't much more to say about the beach, but I can't stress how nice it was to have some time off to do nothing.

There is an Italian phrase: il dolce far niete, which translates to "The sweetness of doing nothing," I think that perfectly describes this afternoon.

Back in Orvieto it is crackdown time for school. We only have a little over a week left which I cannot believe. In other news, Michelle and I finally tried the pizza place (which we used to refer to as "the sketchy pizza place) outside our apartment and it was good! and cheap! Coming up next we have our last fieldtrip to Florence on Friday, until then, I'll leave you with a nice image of the Mediterranean Sea.

Back in Old Napoli, That's Amore

This past weekend was our overnight fieldtrip to Naples, Pompeii, and Paestum. For those of you not familiar with a map of Italy, this is an area known as the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy just north of the "boot" of Italy. We left Orvieto at 5:30 in the morning for a 4/4 1/2 hour bus ride to Naples. Because of the early departure time, some kids on our bus will still drunk...which made for a very annoying first part of the ride for the rest of us who were trying to sleep.

Naples is a very interesting city and I really had heard nothing but bad things about it before arriving there, but I was excited to visit it since it is right on the sea. Honestly, I thought it was a cool place since the vibe is a lot different than any other city in Italy I have seen so far. It is definitely a lot "dirtier" than Rome and Florence and less put together. My first thought upon entering Naples was, "Why didn't the Jersey Shore decide to come here?" They would fit in much better.

Our activity in Naples was a visit to the National Museum of Archaeology, one of the most important Archaeology museums in the world. We got to see the "Gabinetto Segreto" where all the erotic art excavated from Pompeii is housed. It also contains some famous statues and frescoes. 

I remember seeing this particular work when learning about Pompeii for the first time in 6th grade.

After the museum, we had a break for lunch. One of the girls in our group wrote down the name and location of the pizzeria known as the "Best Pizza in Naples," it was a metro ride away, but a group of us decided to venture to it anyway. Of course since it is the "Best Pizza in Naples," it was also the longest wait in Naples and we didn't have the time to try it so we went to the pizzeria across the street. Even though we had to shovel down half of it before putting the other half in a box and running to make it back to our bus in time, I still concede that it was probably just as good as the "Best Pizza in Naples." 

Next up was a trip to Pompeii. The weather had been muggy all day, and as soon as we got off the bus in Ancient Pompeii it started pouring rain. The good part of this was that the place was totally empty as all the tourist went home...the bad part was that it was pouring rain. I was also exhausted and we spent over three hours at the site, nevertheless it was unreal to see the town I had heard so much about in my World History classes and also my Natural Disasters class earlier this year. It was also incredibly eerie to be there seeing this town that was totally covered by volcanic ash. The cloudy weather added to the eeriness because it looked like Mt. Vesuvius was erupting, and I have to admit I was sure that if Vesuvius was going to erupt any time soon it would be when I was there. 

It was also cool/creepy to see the preserved bodies. In case you don't know, when the archaeologists were excavating Pompeii, they learned that if they poured plaster into the holes or whatever, a cast would be made of the bodies in the position they were in when covered by the Pyroclastic Flow from the Volcano.

Michelle and I started practicing our "Vesuvius Eruption Poses" so that if we were caught in the same situation, our poses would be much more creative than "AHHHH VOLCANO!!!!"

Next we headed to our hotel in the actual town of Pompeii, or as I like to call it the "Future Ruins of Pompeii." The hotel exceeded my expectations, it was very nice but also very European with one old fashioned key for each room and an interesting bathroom. We had some free time to explore the city, which isn't all that exciting, and I had the best cappuccino of my life:

The hotel put on a nice 3-course dinner for us, complete with wine and bread. Afterwards, we were exhausted and decided to go out for gelato before bed. A few people went out, but I'm not really sure what they did considering Pompeii's night life consists of a bunch of 14-year-olds wandering around the town square. 

The next morning, after a good hotel breakfast (still no protein involved), we headed south to Paestum. This is the part of the trip I knew the least about, but probably enjoyed the most. It is basically a bunch of ruins of Greek temples, which was refreshing considering how Roman ruined-out I am. The area was gorgeous as the temples were spread out in a big field. It was the first sunny day we have had in June and that combined with a cool sea breeze made for perfect weather. 

I also bought a small bottle of a southern Italy specialty, Limoncello and had lunch at a restaurant called "Happy Sandwich" so all in all Paestum was a positive experience. Around 2, we headed back and made it to Orvieto by 7:30, just in time to not start my paper due tomorrow.

We have less than two weeks left here in Orvieto! It's crazy and I'm expecting it will go by quickly considering how many activities there are and how much homework I don't want to do. Next field trip will be to the seaside town of Tarquinia, so hopefully the weather will be nice on Wednesday for that!

Things I Miss about America

Since I am a little over halfway through my time in Europe, I decided to post some things I miss about home that just do not exist here in Orvieto/Italy in general.

1. One Stop Shopping: At times, it is charming that you have to go to three different stores to get three different items, but most of the time, it's annoying. I miss being able to go to Target and buy everything I need without running around town.

2. Coffee to Go: The Italians don't really drink coffee out of necessity, so they drink it casually in caffes, no one walks around carrying drinks on the streets of Orvieto. But I wish I could run into a coffee shop (Starbucks) and get a drink to go (grande, non-fat, iced chai).

3. Normal Store Hours: As great as siesta is for napping, it is terribly inconvenient because most stores close between 12 and 4, and most restaurants close after the lunch rush and don't open up again until about 7 pm. So if you want to shop or eat during siesta...you're pretty much out of luck. I always seem to forget about this too, and it's still disappointing to walk to a store and remember "Oh yeah...siesta."

4. Breakfast: In one of my favorite shows, Chuck, two of the characters are in Europe and one says to the other "Croissants for breakfast everyday? Europe is brilliant!" I remember seeing that and thinking, "Yeah! They are!" But no...what happened to breakfast being the most important meal of the day? I need PROTEIN. Eggs. Hashbrowns. Pancakes.

5. Real Showers: The ones here are tiny and it's almost impossible to feel completely clean afterwards.

6. Free water: Here it is not custom for restaurants to give water as a courtesy, so you have to pay around 2 euros for water every time. It adds up.

7. Mexican Food: Salsa and guacamole...enough said.

8. TV: Sad, but true.

9. Sunshine: It's been raining here for 10 days. TEN. What? I need the sun.

10. Oh yeah, my family, friends, and dogs: I miss you all so much and I can't wait to see you in less than three weeks!

Siena

Yesterday we took another field trip to Siena in Tuscany. I have to be honest---I was not super excited about this trip because I didn't really know anything about it and when I looked it up on Google Images, it looked like every other town we've seen in Italy so far (they start to blend together after a while). But the town was gorgeous and very, very green! It sort of reminded me of Michigan at first, but then I saw the view of the city center.

No so much Michigan anymore. We also visited two Cathedrals, I don't remember the name of the first and I'm too impatient to look it up on this slow internet connection, but it was built first and honors Catherine, Patron Saint of Italy. It also displays a relic of her: her head and thumb. A little creepy, but cool.

Next, we walked around the city a little bit. Siena is about halfway between Orvieto and Florence in terms of size, wealth, and Americanization. They have foot locker and no Starbucks, but they do have signs on the main road counting down how many minutes away McDonald's is. The main square of Siena is best known for its yearly horse races in which horses race for glory and pride, not for money and no bets are placed on the race.

Next we toured the city hall where we learned a lot about the history of Siena...at this point we were all starving and fading so I can't really remember enough details to recount here. Afterwards, me and a few others ate lunch at this excellent Trattoria and I had great ravioli.

Lastly, we toured the main Cathedral of Siena which looks a lot like the Cathedral in Orvieto except more Disney-esque. The inside is also beautiful and features artwork from Donatello and Michelangelo. It also has beautiful frescoes on the floor, but they are covered up for most of the year for preservation and are only uncovered in the months of August and September.

After our tour of the Church we headed back to Orvieto. Saturday we start our weekend trip to Naples/Pompeii/Paestum so I'm sure I will have tons to say about that, stay tuned!

Florence: GTL (Gelato, Trains, and Leather)

Since this is a long weekend, a good portion of the group of Arizona kids took off for the weekend. I, unfortuntely, have too much homework and not enough money to be able to such things, so instead Michelle, Tiffany (new friend!), and I decided to head to Florence for the day. We will be going there later as a whole group, but I figured it couldn't hurt to have extra time in the city I have heard so many wonderful things about. And oh my gosh, let me tell you, it far exceeded my expectations. Firenze (pronounced fear-ents-say not fur-en-zeeee like the Americans on the train pronounced it) is gorgeous and classy. I think that's probably what makes it stand out against Rome (which is still awesome), the city just exudes class. It's a very clean city and with the exception of the scary, old lady beggars on the street (Michelle swears they cursed us when we refused them money...more on that later), all the people look fabulous all the time. Also, it's very touristy so pretty much everyone in the shops/restaurants speak fluent English which was very, very refreshing!

The first part of the day was great. We left around 10 from Orvieto. It takes about 2 and a half hour by slow train to get there. There are two types of trains in Italy, the regular trains which make frequent stops and are slower and the "fast" trains that make less stop and are, well, faster. The slower trains do take longer and aren't always nice on the inside (we got lucky this time) but are much cheaper. We shared a compartment with a nice Italian nun.

For those of you who don't know, the fourth season of Jersey Shore is currently filming in Florence. I understand why MTV sent the guidos/guidettes to Italy, but not Florence...it's not near a shore, unless you count the river, and like I said, it is a classy place. Nevertheless, we decided we needed to stalk the Jersey people while we were there. Afterall, Michelle and I are huge film and TV nerds and we were very interested in how reality TV is filmed...and man! it is an intense process. We found the restaurant, O' Vesuvio Pizzeria thanks to the help of my phone's navigation, but honestly, it would've been hard to miss considering the huge mob of Americans (mostly girls our age) outside. I recognized two of the cast members immediately but someone had to tell me that it was Pauly D and Vinny that were just chilling outside the restaurant (I'm just really proud that I didn't know who they were, ok?) 

Anyway, we chatted a little to the Producer who was more willing to talk to us after he found out that Michelle and I are film students. You can't just walk into the restaurant, the show blocks off an area around it and people can take pictures from the outskirts, but if you want to go inside, which we did, they take you around into an alley "holding zone" and you must sign a release form since cameras are rolling AT ALL TIMES. They were very intense about this point and told us that we were not allowed to talk about the show, the cameras, or any of the equipment and were allowed to talk to the cast but NOT about the show. That part made me giggle because what else would I talk to them about? Hey...Snooki, how do you like Florentine weather? 

Badass camera woman filming Vinny and Pauly D 

When we were about to walk in, a young American man who worked for the show looked at my release form and asked me where in Arizona I was from. I told him where and that I went to U of A and he said "no way! me too!" Michelle asked if he graduated with a film degree, and he was like Yeah! Media Arts! and we said, us too! It was cool to see a UA Media Arts grad working in the industry. I asked him if he was a PA (Production Assistant) because this guy looked really young, and he answered coldly, and a little bit offended "No, I'm a Release Coordinator." Oops. My bad. But ok..."Release Coordinator?" That doesn't sound much cooler. That sounds like a job you give to a tiffed kid who's mad about having to help his mom grocery shop. "Oh how sweet! Are you mommy's little helper today?" "No! I'm the fruit juice and pudding consultant!"

Well we finally went inside and I was surprised by how small and low key the restaurant was. You order your food and Pauly D's job was to basically hand you your drink/harass you. He was definitely entertaining though. Sammi was the only one actually working making pizza in the brick oven. They call you for your food (Starbucks style!), and I didn't hear my name the first time it was called so Pauly yelled "CAITLIN COME GET YOUR FRICKIN PIZZA." And that was my exciting celebrity times for the day. 

The pizza was delicious. Definitely the best I've had in Italy so far. I find it a little sad/ironic that the best pizza I've had in Italy was made by Sammi "Sweetheart" from Jersey Shore. 

After all the Jersey excitement and a welcome return to American culture, I reengaged myself with Florentine culture by having the best gelato of Italy so far (made by real Italians this time).

 Then it was time for shopping! Florence is known to have the best shopping in Italy, mostly because it is the leather capital of Europe. My goal was to find a sweet deal on a leather purse, but unfortunately none was good enough for me to let go of my money (although the bags are fabulous and much cheaper than the US for the most part). Shopping was pretty unsuccessful for the three of us but it was fun to see all Florence had to offer. It also started pouring rain, which was a bummer. 

I was planning on meeting up with my friend Catherine who is studying abroad in Florence, my phone was dying and I wasn't able to access the data part of it (for Facebook) but luckily somehow we were able to talk on my phone before it died. Unluckily, it died right after I talked to her and we could not find each other like we planned, I don't really know Florence so I couldn't explain where I was and we just didn't cross paths. I was depressed and didn't want to give up, but we had a train to catch so we had to move on. When we got to the train station, we learned that the train was actually an hour LATER than we thought, so we didn't need to be in a rush at all. We decided to pass time at an Italian train station delicatessen, McDonald's, and ended up running into two other girls from our program. It was random but nice to have a group to share a compartment with and make the time pass back to Orvieto. Once we got back, around 10, the funiculare, a cable car that takes you from the bottom of the cliff to the top, was closed for the night. So we asked a bus driver if he was going up, he said yes but was kind of noncommittal. But eventually he drove us up the hill (really fast and scarily) and once we got there we asked him how much the ride was and he said, "No charge, just for you." America really needs to embrace freebies for girls. 

This was a long blog but I hope you enjoyed it! This week is more school fun, but our next trip is to Siena on Wednesday. 

Republic Day

Yesterday we took a field trip to Tivoli, a hillside town near Rome.

Our first stop was Hadrian's Villa (Villa Adriana), built by the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd Century A.D. It is huge but since it is like, really old it is mostly ruins--I have to admit that at this point I am kind of over rocks. They are all very cool, but kind of start to blend together after a while. Also, the morning was very hot and humid so we were all a little cranky. It was supposed to rain, and the day before it was pre-rainy all day in Orvieto and the weather was cool and breezy, so everyone wore jeans anticipating the same weather. Unfortunately, the villa has also turned into a kind of tourist trap and one of the structures turns into a performance space during the summer.

The villa was still pretty cool and our tour guide was Alba our director who is awesome, so overall it was a good experience.

This is the emperor's private villa where he supposedly spent time with his lover (a man)...of course this is the only part of the historical information I retained.

Next we had lunch in the actual town of Tivoli. The town is very cool and feels like a beach town, I kept expecting to see an ocean beyond the drop-off of the hill. I had my first cappuccino of Italy it was iced and delicious.

Our last stop of the day was at Villa d'Este which is a GORGEOUS renaissance-period villa. I know very little about the history because they let us wander around without a tour guide and almost as soon as we got there it started POURING rain. Luckily, the gardens and the fountains of the villa are so beautiful that the rain didn't take away from the experience at all.

making the best of the rain!

As I told you before we were warned about the British soliders that are staying in Orvieto until Sunday. It is such a quiet, calm town that any sort of "disturbance" is a big deal. Claudio compared them to centaurs: half man, half animal---emphasis on the animal part. Well, apparently when you tell 80 college students, "Warning! Stay away from the British soldiers at Bar Duomo" we hear "OH MY GOD BRITISH SOLDIERS AT BAR DUOMO?!!" Needless to say, almost everyone was at the bar last night and it was actually a lot of fun. The Brits told us that the e-mails "hurt their feelings" but we left before any havoc was wreaked...just in case.