Enchanted May: 2011

San Severino before the parade

Or last week. I also have to catch up on this weekend and do my homework, among other things. So, a quick overview: last week we did an evening trip to San Severino, where we had dinner at a convent and saw a medieval parade, which was pretty neat and very entertaining. Our teacher Gugu's little niece Cica (Frederica) kept us entertained too with her rapid-fire Italian. We baked "biscotti con i chips di cioccolato" as a typical American food for the cena internazionale at the school in town, and met the students there again (we had met them before at a karaoke/gelato party). We lost the competition to the Icelandic delegation, but they were really sweet (and they shared their Icelandic liquor) so no one minded much.

100-odd cookies

The garden in the convent

Matteo and Melanie in the parade

Cica

Professor Wallace came to stay in Castelraimondo for the week with his family, and he showed us around Assisi on Friday. I loved Assisi - there was a road sign as we drove in saying "Welcome to Assisi: City of Peace." We saw Giotto's incredible frescoes in the church of St. Francis, and the crypt where St. Francis is buried. Sadly we didn't have too much time there but I would have loved to explore the city more.

There were Franciscan monks everywhere in Assisi. I liked this one with a baseball cap.

Flowers everywhere

We returned to the villa and made dinner (weekends we're on our own, and we decided to stay based at the villa this one). We turned in early because we had to be up early (4:30) for our day trip with Edulingua people to Pisa, San Gimignano, and Siena on Saturday. Unfortunately most of the day was spent driving - it would have been better if we'd seen just cities in Tuscany that were closer and skipped Pisa, but va bene. It was easy enough to get on and off the bus instead of navigating the train system and paying for a hostel.

Yep, had to take the picture

I'm not a fan of Pisa, although I admit I didn't see any of it outside of the Piazza dei Miracoli. It was pretty overrun with tourists and vendors, but we took our Leaning Tower shots, went in the church (free prayer entrance again), and departed.

La Toscana - che bella!

Next stop was San Gimignano for lunch, which was a really cute town. The towers and architecture are beautiful, and the shops and food were great (a few of us bought pictures there, and went to "the world's best" gelateria).

Finally Siena to round off the day, where we saw San Domenico, which houses a relic of St. Catherine of Siena's (strangely - her head), the Duomo, which was amazingly beautiful (there's a wonderful Mary chapel to the side), the main piazza, and the shopping streets. Daryl and I wandered down one and stopped in pretty much every wine store. We also had some fun conversations in Italian with the shopkeepers, and I bought ricciarelli, delicious almond cookies that are a local specialty.

Candles for Santa Caterina di Siena

Duomo di Siena

Riciarelli

We clambered on the double decker bus again and got back to Castelraimondo by 11:30 - a long day, but a good one. Sunday we relaxed by the pool at the villa, and I read Love in the Time of Cholera, loaned to me by Elizabeth. (I finished it today - it was fantastic.)

Sunday night dinner - ordering the pizza was an adventure.

French fry pizza. Seriously.

Yesterday and today we were back to class as usual, but yesterday afternoon we took a trip to Urbino. Most things (the museum) were closed, but we walked around a bit, saw Raphael's birthplace and the university where Gugu went to school, bought gelato, and went home. I can't believe it's our last week here - on to Bologna this weekend, and Rimini next week. I don't want to leave. Although it will be nice to be somewhere where toilet paper isn't rationed.