Una Ragazza Americana In Italia

463 Stairs to Go

2010-02-20T02:31:00.000-08:00

Spending a weekend in Florence and exploring each street is everyone’s dream. The downside is that a weekend is not long enough. This only leaves one solution, having to come back in the future! On our last trip, we had a glorious time in the artistic Italian city, Firenze. The hardest part was trying to narrow down our sights of interest into two compact days, but I’ll start at the beginning.

The entire group was going to leave right after my Italian class was over. As usual, I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I was sending last minute emails, making sure I had my charged camera batteries, and deciding what food in the kitchen I could scarf down so I wouldn’t be starving all the way to Florence. After gathering our belongings, we briskly headed towards the bus stop, climbed on our beloved bus to Arezzo, and we were off. The fifty minute bus always seems to feel like a ten minute ride. This could be because we were so excited about our trip that the time flew by, or because I fell asleep as usual.

After arriving to Arezzo, we crossed the street and headed towards the train station. There we learned about purchasing tickets, checking the departing and arriving schedules, and how to locate your desired train. Fortunately, Dr. Webb had already purchased our tickets, so we did not have to work with the high tech machinery. We boarded our train and, once again, we all fell asleep to the calm buzzing of the country side passing by.

Once arriving in the Santa Maria Novella Train Station, Dr. Webb and John Rose pointed out the useful locations: the baggage storage facility, pricy but clean bathrooms, and the information center. After grabbing our complimentary map, we were off to the hotel, Convitto della Calza. It is fair to say we were all blown away by the beauty of the city, even if the weather was a little dreary. Once we came upon the Duomo, all of our jaws dropped to the ground. Even though we wanted to stop and stare for hours, we pressed on. After a quick group picture on the Ponte Vecchio, we continued across the famous bridge and we were dazzled by all of the overpriced jewelry in the window shops. A few more turns and streets later, we finally reached our hotel. After settling in and choosing our beds, Hilary, Jess, and I decided to go on a quick walk to explore the neighborhood. Our real motive was to identify a local gelateria for some gelato. Unfortunately, we did not come across a gelateria; however, we did come across an enticing pastry shop that we couldn’t refuse to pass up. There I had a traditional pastry called un fritelle di riso and this wonderful chocolate brownie item which consisted of stacks of phyllo dough with layers of chocolate in between. I must say, my expert taste buds informed me the brownie was much better than the traditional puff pastry.

We then all met back up at the hotel for a scrumptious dinner courteous of Dr. Webb and John Rose. We had delicious pasta with pomodoro sauce, grilled chicken with potatoes and cauliflower, and a warm liquid chocolate filled brownie. You can guess which course was my favorite, the dessert! I ate it too quickly before I could take a picture of its glory.

It was then back to our rooms to read our guide books and prepare for our adventures the next day. After a full night’s sleep, we woke up early to have a quick breakfast and then split into smaller groups based on everyone’s individual interests. I went off with Hilary, Kelsey, and Megan and our first stop was the Santa Maria Novella Church. I found the facade, exterior front of the church, to be my favorite part. The facade is a Romanesque design because of its rounded arches and different colored marble design. The interior of the church is actually a Gothic design because of the many pointy arches that line the nave of the church.

Our next stop was Piazza San Marco, but it took us longer than we hoped to get there because we came across this magical paper shop, Il Papiro. Inside we were greeted by the shop owner who immediately started to explain to us the process of how the historical marble paper is made. To make this paper, the artist starts with a box filled with wall paper glue. He then sprinkles various colors of paint on top of the glue. Once the paint hits the glue, it begins to disperse evenly throughout the top of the glue; however, the colors don’t mix because the glue holds the blotches of paint together. Then the artist can run combs through the gel that are of different sizes and lengths to create a pattern. A piece of paper is then placed on top of the glue since the glue is keeping the paint from changing design. Once the paper touches the paint, the design is printed. The paper is then held up to dry until it is ready to be made into a book, lampshade, pencil, or any number of items. I was already fascinated with his explanation, but when he offered to demonstrate, I was thrilled. Hilary and I fell in love with this store. The gentleman was so sweet he even gave us the paper he had made as a demonstration as a present. He also gave us discount cards if we ever return to the area.

Once we finally arrived to Piazza San Marco, we went straight into the Museo di San Marco. The building that houses the museum was originally a Dominican convent. Inside, the walls are covered with beautiful frescoes done by Fra’ Angelico. My favorite fresco we came across was The Annunciation. A fresco of the angel Gabriel telling Mary she is going to become pregnant with baby Jesus. I was drawn to this fresco because of its simplicity, yet the colors in Gabriel’s wings are vibrant and every shade of the rainbow. After the museum, we met up with the rest of the girls and grabbed a quick lunch at Il Chibellini. There I had gnocchi in a pumpkin sauce and it was delightful.

After lunch, we all headed to towards the Duomo in hopes of climbing to the top. I found it very interesting that when Florence started to build its Duomo, they were unsure of how they were going to close the dome at the top. I would hope that if you were going to build the tallest structure in Florence, you would have a plan on how to complete it before starting. Half way up the climb to the top, the never ending stair cases end on the inside of the cathedral along the bottom of the dome. This was one of my favorite parts because as you walk around the rim of the dome, you are right beneath the frescos depicting the last judgment which were massive, vibrant, and remarkable. After continuing up more stairs and squeezing into tight places, we finally arrived to the top. The panoramic view of Florence was worth the hike up the 463 stairs. We all took heaps of photos to prove we had endured the long journey. My favorite views were of the Campanile, which was close by, and being able to spot the church Santa Miniato al Monte, the beautiful Romanesque church on the hill. My hope of visiting this church was not possible this particular time, but that is just another reason to come back in the future, which I am sure I will.

After our workout for the day, we reenergized with some delicious gelato because our next stop was the Duomo Museum. This museum contains the most precious and valuable artworks from the Duomo, Baptistery, and Campanile. It also contains early sketches and ideas that people had proposed for the design of the cathedral. Hilary, Kelsey, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the various sculptures, but after an hour and a half, our stomachs were telling us it was getting close to dinner.

After walking back over the Ponte Vecchio to the hotel, we made reservations for a local restaurant at the front desk. The food was fairly good. I tried their gnocchi in a cream sauce and their tiramisu. While in the restaurant I made a quick stop at the WC. Once inside, I heard these children come running in and they started banging on my door. I responded “un momento,” hoping they would stop because I was becoming embarrassed. As they persisted they started to chant “Occupata, occupata,” which means occupied in Italian. I then firmly responded with a more serious tone, “un momento, per favore!!!” When this didn’t work, I was left no other option but to bang back on the door. As I was leaving to go wash my hands, I came upon the culprits, four little Italian children who appeared 8-10 years old. I then made sure to carefully give them the “Betty Webb” glare, a very stern, serious, and mean glare, to each child for at least 2-3 seconds. I was hoping this would clearly demonstrate who the superior was. As I peered at the last child, he replied with a “scusi,” in a very sympathetic tone and I was sure I had won this battle!!

After returning to our hotel, we decided to have an early night and went straight to our rooms. After planning our second day, we were fast asleep and dreaming about our adventures! Next to follow will be day 2 in Florence and a wonderful trip to Siena!!

Ci vediamo la settimana prossima! (See you next week!)

Kayley

I Fought the Alarm and the Alarm Won

2010-02-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

We have been lucky enough to experience a lovely blanket of snow fall onto Sansepolcro. Even though the snow only lasted two days, it was exciting to see the town in its white glory! While we were in Italian class Friday afternoon, the snow started to fall. My Italian teacher, who has a fear of bad weather, quickly rushed our two person class to an end and she was off.

That Saturday we took a lovely trip to Arezzo to get acquainted with various transportation methods and to explore the town for a little while. Before we departed, we learned how to read and use a bus schedule. At first it looked extremely complicated because there are four different schedules in four different colors and three of the schedules involve Sansepolcro. After further studying the schedule, you notice that there is only one schedule that includes Arezzo and Sansepolcro. Another important note is that not every bus stops in Sansepolcro and not every bus stops in Arezzo. If that was not confusing enough, there is a special schedule for a work day, feriale, and a special schedule for Sunday, festivo. Putting all that aside, it was not too unbearable to understand. For safety issues, we have all memorized that the last bus from Arezzo to Sansepolcro leaves at 8:35, so we can at least get home safely!

On our way to Arezzo, we first learned where to buy our bus tickets and how to buy them. To buy a bus ticket, you go to the little bar next to the bus stop, walk up to the counter, and ask for
“un quattro corse” a Arezzo. The shop owner will then give you a ticket that costs about twelve euro and can be used four times. Buying four tickets at once is slightly cheaper than buying four tickets individually. Once aboard the bus we learned how to stamp our ticket and take a seat before the bus speed off into the distance. It was a glorious bus rider. Even though I am an incredible car sleeper, I was able to keep awake to enjoy the lovely white countryside covered in snow.

After arriving to Arezzo, we crossed the street to the stazione ferroviaria, train station. Once inside the station we learned which signs showed us when trains were arriving and departing. We also learned where to buy train tickets and how to get to the various lanes to our train we might need in the future. After our brief lesson on trains, we headed to the tourist office which we now recognize by the universal symbol of a letter “i ” found on maps. Once we were at the tourist center, we each took a map and then it was off to explore the city.

We first entered the city walls and headed straight for the edge of the city to the main cathedral. The whole town is set on a decent sized hill, and on the top of the hill lies the duomo. On our way we passed through Piazza Grande, the main square in town. It was exciting to see everything sprinkled with a hint of snow.

We then continued our way back up to the cathedral. Once we were there, we admired its most prized possession, the Madonna Del Conforto. She is a small bust of a saint’s head who was believed by the citizens to have saved their city. They occasionally bring her out for special events, and parade her through the town. Our next stop would have been San Francesco Church; however, it is closed until March. Inside this church you will find beautiful frescos by Piero della Francesca, who was born in Sansepolcro. Fortunately, I do not leave Italy until May, so there will be many opportunities to go back! After admiring the cathedral, we went for a walk around the Passeggio del Parto, a beautiful park right next to the church. It was fun to see the park full of children of all ages playing in the snow, so we had no choice but to have a snow fight of our own.

After we had enough of getting hit by snow balls, we searched for a nice place to eat. We came across a small restaurant off the beaten path called the Osteria delle Poste. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves so it was perfect. I ordered these amazing mushroom raviolis and I also had a piece of the restaurant’s homemade tiramisu. After lunch, we decided to head back to Sansepolcro to try and get some work done.

On Sunday, we were surprised by wonderful Valentine treats from Bekah, Dr. Webb, John Rose, and Sara. We were delighted to find wonderful candies, cookies, mini cakes, and a beautiful card. We returned the spirit by giving a rose to Bekah and Dr. Webb. We also bought John Rose a planted plant because he enjoys them thoroughly. I also was lucky enough to have a beautiful card to open from my own valentine that was a lot of fun to read and share with the rest of the girls.

My biggest challenge with school so far has been waking up in time for class. There is no skipping class when your classes are a floor below your room. If you are not in your seat on time, the professors will send a student to come find you, or in my experience, come wake you up. Fortunately, all of the fellow students are now under agreement to make sure everyone is stirring in the morning before classes. Not wanting to depend on other people, I have been experimenting with different combinations of alarms to wake me up in the mornings. I have tried using my travel alarm, which I normally just sleep through. I have also tried using both my travel alarm and my cell phone; however, the cell phone usually ends up in the bed somehow, so I do not hear that alarm either. To overcome this dilemma, I decided to invest in a new alarm. I bought an old fashioned alarm with the two bells on top that ring back and forth to wake me up, and it is very effective. On the first trial run with the alarm, my roommate decided it would be a good idea to place the alarm on top of our bookshelf. This would require us to get completely out of bed to shut off the annoying sound. It seemed a wise idea to me so we gave it a try. Once the morning came, the alarmed sound and I jumped out of bed knocking all of the blankets and sheets on the floor. I then slammed into the wall because it was pitch dark and I could not see where I was going. Then with a throbbing head, I searched for the tall bookshelf and shut the alarm off. I must say, this is probably the first time in my life I have never gone back to bed without pressing the snooze button. The only casualty was a decent scrape on the side of my face and a good size knot on my forehead. The plus side is that we know the alarm is sufficient and extremely effective. For future reference, we just might place it in a less dangerous spot next time.

The next week of school was busy as usual. There were many late nights of studying Italian vocabulary and developing a presentation for Art History. For my presentation I studied the typical life of a noble during the medieval times. I really enjoyed this topic because I was able to compare their life style to ours, especially the lifestyle of a woman. I could not imagine not having a say over who I married or having many of children knowing many would die from a range of diseases. Another interesting thing about this topic is that I learned about typical clothing. This has been helpful because I can now recognize it in various artworks we have come across in churches or museums.

Our next big excursion will be to Florence and we spent the majority of the week planning for this trip. The plan is to leave right after our class on Friday to catch our one hour bus to Arezzo. Once we arrive to Arezzo, we will then catch a one and a half hour train to our final destination, Florence. Once in Florence, we will then head to our hotel and get settled in. My biggest challenge so far will be narrowing all the amazing sights in Florence down into two jammed packed days. So far on agenda is visiting the Duomo, Uffici, Santa Croce, and Santa Maria Novella. More to come on how the trip to Florence went!!!

Ci vediamo la settimana prossima! (See you next week!)

Kayley

Il Carnevale in Venezia

2010-02-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

Now that I have unpacked all my belongings and settled in, the Palazzo is starting to feel more like home. Since I have started my classes, things are also becoming routine. My first day of class was on Wednesday, February 3rd. That’s the day I learned that this wasn’t going to be a relaxed semester soaking up all the great food in Italy, but instead, an intense, hardworking semester with many late nights finishing papers and continuously reviewing endless Italian vocabulary.

I usually have three classes a day. I start off with either Italy Today or Learn to Travel, followed by upper level Italian, and ending the day with Art History. Italy Today occurs on Wednesday and Friday mornings and is taught by Sara Andreni, a local resident of Sansepolcro. In this class we learn about Italy’s history, their culture, and current events. Later in the semester we will also have a service learning project were we go into the local schools one day a week and help the teachers teach English. I also have Learn to Travel, Travel to Learn on Tuesdays and Thursdays taught by Dr. Webb, our director, and her husband John Rose. In this class we learn the ropes of traveling: reading bus schedules, making reservations, organizing trips, and more. Dr. Webb and John Rose are frequent travelers, so they always have great tips to help prevent us from getting frustrated while traveling; not that traveling is ever unpleasant. Currently we are planning our future trip to Firenze on the 20th. After those classes, I have upper level Italian taught by a local professor from Perugia. Even though I have had three levels of Italian, none of them can compare to the intensity of this one. On our first day, I sat down in class, and our professor immediately says, “Solo Italiano.” Next thing I knew, she was off speaking miles a minute in Italian. If that wasn’t intimidating enough, there are only two people in the class including me, so there is no place to hide. We then go to our remarkable two hour lunches cooked by our astonishing chefs. This is followed by a one hour break to recuperate from our lunch. I then have Art History with Dr. Bailey, a professor from Meredith. The interesting thing about this class is that it is completely over Skype. If you are unfamiliar with Skype, we use a video camera in class, so she can see the students; and there is a video camera on her side of the world, so we can see her. We project her video feed onto the wall so we can all see her clearly. In class she lectures us and holds up pictures to the screen for us to analyze as if we were there in person. After getting used to a virtual professor, I’ve really started to enjoy the class. She gives us assignments that require us to explore the town for various art works to analyze. She also has assigned us to take lots of photographs of various buildings and bridges to create book containing all the different influences on Italian Architecture that we have learned in class.

Twice a week I also have what we call “language lab” taught by Bekah. She is our Residence Director and has studied abroad twice in college, once to Sansepolcro for a summer and once to Siena for a semester. So as you can imagine, her Italian is quite good and she is incredibly helpful. During this time, we meet up to learn basic survival Italian. We go into town and interact with the locals, we practice bargaining in the market, or other activities that help us use our Italian. Since I am also taking conversational Italian, I meet with Bekah for additional hour twice a week. During this period, the purpose of this meeting is to have me speak only Italian with Bekah for the entire time. The goal with this lesson is that I will become more comfortable with my Italian so I can speak more clearly, relaxed, and with a more extensive vocabulary. Even though I have had a year and a half of Italian, nothing can prepare you for having to speak on the spot and use the various verb tenses appropriately. The only thing that can help you is practice, which is what I try to do whenever I can.

During the first week here at the Palazzo, Dr. Webb and her husband John Rose kept teasing us about a surprise trip on Sunday where we didn’t know the destination. The only clue they gave us was that we would need rain boots, and of course, none of us complained at a reason to go shopping for new shoes! We had a lot of fun going into town on our own to explore the city. We went into almost every store we could find looking for the best deals and the most comfortable boots. We eventually all found appropriate shoes that we all enjoyed for reasonable prices and were ready for our surprise!On Friday morning in our Italy Today class, we learned about the Italian tradition, il Carnevale. It occurs up to two weeks before lent and resembles Mardi Gras in the New Orleans. At this time, everyone dresses up in masks and costumes, eats traditional pastries, and throws confetti on each other. During our professor’s presentation, she briefly mentioned that the best Carnival in Italy was in Venezia, and that’s when we all started to get suspicious about Venice being our surprise destination. After class, Sara treated us to some of the typical delicious pastries. My favorite were le chiacchiere, a flaky sweet cracker drenched in sugar and honey.Once Friday night arrived, we were all imagining going out on the town; however, jetlag and the exhaustion from the week led us to enjoy the wonderful movie Notting Hill and some delicious pizza from the little shop downstairs. I had the Pizza Alberti which was fairly unusual but extremely delicious. On this pizza, there is olive oil, melted mozzarella, prosciutto, zucchini, and sliced potatoes. I can guarantee I will be ordering this again in the near future! On Saturday we had a lovely walk around town exploring more unknown streets and shops. As it grew dark and our stomachs started to rumble, we quickly searched for a restaurant to eat. Being used to our delicious lunch meals always being prepared without a worry, we had completely forgotten about the possibility of needing a reservation. Fortunately, Hilary and Kelsey, some very nice girls from the program, found a restaurant that would seat us at 7:30 without a reservation because Italians tend to eat dinner starting at 8:30 or 9:00 and will stay all night. We had a fantastic dinner at Il Ristorante Florentino, one of the top restaurants in town. I couldn’t have enjoyed this meal more. We all shared a bottle of the house white wine. I ordered stracciatella soup, which consists of egg, parmesan, and nutmeg; and the cortelli di zucca burro salvia e noci, which are squash ravioli with butter, sage, and walnuts. It was absolutely delicious and I scarfed it down incredibly fast. I regretted this later because I would have preferred eating it slowly and enjoying the taste more. All the other girls who joined us for dinner had leftovers, but I didn’t even leave a walnut for the compost. I highly recommend this restaurant to everyone because it was high quality and original food for a decent price!

We were all extremely excited once Sunday finally arrived. We woke up bright and early to board the typical Italian mini bus at five in the morning. The destination of our bus was still unknown. I came prepared by bringing my pillow, so as usual, I was fast asleep. I woke up two hours later to a wonderful surprise as I read the road signs passing by that read Venezia 50 km. After that, the secret was out! We briefly stopped at a gas station for a quick chocolate croissant and a latte, and it was back on the bus. Once we arrived in Venezia, we parked outside of town and road a boat into the middle of Venice. Dr. Webb surprised us all with cute little masks so we had to take a group picture to commemorate the day.

After our photo, we were on our own, to burrow through the crowds and soak up as many memories as we could. As we walked towards Piazza San Marco we encountered a medieval band processing towards the square, and that was just a taste for incredible costumes and parades we would experience throughout the day.

Once we made it to St. Mark’s square, we were surrounded in large crowds consisting of all sorts of costumes ever imaginable. We saw a parade of all the different Italian royally dating back to what I imagine to be the years of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. We also recognized many traditional costumes that we had learned in class on Friday. Even though the costumes were beautiful, the crowds started to become a little over bearing.

To escape the crowds, we started wandering the streets of Venice to enjoy all the beautiful hidden canals and squares. We grabbed a few sandwiches from this lovely deli on one of the streets. I had this amazing sandwich with tomato, brie, fresh greens, and prosciutto. If only fast food restaurants would offer sandwiches of this sort, we would always be in heaven!

Venice was just as beautiful as I remembered. Every corner we turned, we stumbled onto a hidden court yard or gorgeous bridge. We paid no attention to a map or street name because we didn’t want to waste any time looking down at a piece of paper. Getting lost was not a concern because there were always small groups of people moving towards St. Mark’s square. The trip overall was more than I could have ever imagined, but everything was incredible. I feel so fortunate that I was given the opportunity to experience this once in a life time event. Hopefully, since I’m still fairly young, I will find myself back in Venice for the Carnevale because there was too much to see in one day. Since Venice, we have experienced snowy weather and traveled on to Arezzo. More on this soon to come!

The Beautiful Sansepolcro!

2010-02-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

I have had the wonderful opportunity to travel to many places throughout my life. I have visited Australia, Italy, England, Germany, Chile, Peru, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, and many more; however, none of these experiences prepared me for the full on task of packing lightly for three and a half months. Three days before departure, I had all my color coordinating clothes cleaned and nicely folded in piles; I had all my toiletries and electronics organized; and I had all my important travel documents nearby to insure they would not be left behind. From previous trips, I have never worried about my belongings being able to fit into my suitcase or being under a certain weight; therefore, I postponed the actual packing of the suitcase until the last minute because I had assumed it would not be an issue. Little did I know, this decision would result in an all nighter and a very sleepy raggazza. Thanks to my wonderful boyfriend who was willing to stay up and squish clothing into Ziploc bags unto the wee hours of the night, I was able to get a solid three hours of sleep.

The morning of the departure was also different from my usual experience with international departures. I woke up extremely excited about flying to Italy, which is quite normal, but I also woke up with sadness that I was going to have to leave my family and friends behind. After a quick breakfast, I said my goodbyes to my mom and boyfriend and I was off to the airport. At this time I realized I had not weighed my suitcase and a rush of concerns came over me when I recalled that our suitcases had to be less than fifty pounds. This normally would not have concerned me; however, my friend’s luggage was well over the allotted weight and I was sure mine would be as well. After arriving to the airport with my dad, we soon found the rest of the group starting to check in. Before I knew it, it was my turn to weigh my obscenely heavy bag, and I was pleased to find out it was only five pounds overweight instead of fifteen or more. This was easily solved by taking toiletries out of my suitcase and placing them into my carry on. Once we were all checked in and organized, it was time to say our final goodbyes. I gave my dad a great big hug and it was off through security and then to our gate. Once at the gate I had a few minutes to spare, so I visited the local news stand and bought some cliché North Carolina memorabilia to give to my future host family that I will meet in March. Once on the flight, I quickly fell asleep and did not awake until New York City.

One thing I have learned from flying is that if you are not pleased with your seat assignment, you can go to the front counter to negotiate a different spot. This is exactly what I did once I realized I was in a middle seat. The girl at the counter in front of me changed seats from an isle to a window, so I quickly followed her to snatch up her isle seat she had so kindly given away. Once on board, it was a fairly easy going flight all the way to Rome, Italy! After arrival, we were quickly thrown into the hustle and bustle of the airport trying to locate our baggage carrousel. It was not until I heard Bekah, our Residence Director, answer her cell phone with Pronto that I realized we were finally in Italy! This time, it was not just another family trip. This was going to be a learning experience of a lifetime.

After locating our baggage, we were soon following our short and stout Italian bus driver to our chariot which would take us to our beloved new home in Sansepolcro. I was hoping we would be riding in a roomy bus all the way to our destination; unfortunately, we were in a typical small Italian bus with next to none breathing room. I quickly reminded myself; however, how fortunate I was to have a bus driver and not to have to use public transportation since we were all extremely exhausted from the flights. Once on board, I quickly fell asleep and awoke to lovely views of the country side. There were wonderful rolling hills covered in green trees, orange grasses, and spotted with small homes resembling castles. Everything was just beautiful, and I knew Sansepolcro must be getting close. I watched as the signs started to change from Perugia, to Umbria, and then finally to Sansepolcro. The bus pulled up next to the wall that surrounds the inner city. We were pleasantly greeted by Dr. Webb, our Professor and International Study Abroad Director, and Sara Andreini, another Professor and onsite Director. We then piled up all our belongings and entered through the walled gate to our new home in Sansepolcro, the Palazzo Alberti.

If the brick wall surrounding the city did not blow me away first, it was the magnificent wooden doors that opened to the palazzo. I could not believe how beautiful and detailed they were and could only imagine what was inside. I had heard from the previous girls that we lived on the third floor which made me very nervous considering my obscenely large suitcase weighed fifty pounds and my carry on was a little over half of that. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that even though this building is from the 16^th century, there was a newly installed elevator to only be used for heavy loads. After sending our luggage up, we gathered in one of the two main lounges to discuss living quarters. We were given a quick tour of all the rooms, but then it was up to us to organize ourselves. I chose to live with my good friend Lilly, who was also my suitemate this last semester. We chose the room that looked gorgeous in the sunlight and looks out onto the main street which has its plus and minuses. We always can look out and see what’s going on and feel connected to the community; however, we also get to hear the typical late night Italians at three in the morning when they continue to party. This might be a concern to some; however, I am blessed to be a terrific sleeper and usually never hear any of their celebrations. The room is lovely with wonderful tiled floors and a wooden ceiling. Gorgeous arches over the windows and nice matching furniture courtesy of IKEA. We all have a set of sheets, duvets, towels, closet, bookcase, nightstand, and even a fancy bath robe. The palazzo is definitely fit to house princesses if there was ever a demand. Even though we needed to unpack, the delicious smell coming from the kitchen distracted us, so we quickly meet for lunch.

Our first meal consisted of pasta al Pomodoro, fettine di Vitella aua pizzalola, insalata, e crostata di cioccolato. These items were pasta with tomato sauce; sliced veil covered with cherry tomatoes, melted cheese, and mushrooms; a fresh salad; and chocolate pie. It was a delicious and wonderful meal. All of the food was very flavorful and I of course enjoyed every bite of it. The great thing is that I can enjoy it a second time if I would like for dinner because all of the leftovers go into the student kitchen. They do not cook us dinner, so we have to fend for ourselves. Although when we have such lovely food in our fridge, it’s not too hard.

The goal for Dr. Webb and her husband John Rose, was to keep us awake until 9:30 because they are certain that is the best way to get us accustomed to Italian time as quickly as possible. To do this, they took us on a lovely tour of Sansepolcro after lunch. The town was just absolutely beautiful! Every little detail is gorgeous, from the doors, to the walls, to hidden murals, and cobble stone roads.

On our tour we learned the four main entrances to the inner city, Porta Florentina, Porta del Castello, Porta Romana, e Porta del Ponte. We then walked up and down the main street, Via XX Settembre, to the main square, Piazza Torre di Berta. This square commemorates the tall tower that used to resign in the middle of it. We also learned the various locations of banks, grocery stores, and shops. We then walked outside the inner city through Porta Romana to the large shopping center called Pam. Here we were able to buy some school supplies, shampoos, and conditioners. It was a lot of fun looking for school supplies because they are very different compared to the ones in the states. First of all, the pages are longer and they tend not to have red lines for margins. The binders are four holes instead of three holes, and they do not have spiral bound notebooks. After making a selection of one binder and a notebook for my classes, we headed back to the Palazzo. On our way back, we encountered a group of people carrying candles and processing down to the main church. We followed them and found out they were celebrating the birth of Mary. They gave us candles and allowed us to join in on their service. Their singing was beautiful and the music echoed throughout the church in a wonderful way that you usually can not experience in the states.

When we made it back to the Palazzo, we ate some delicious pizza that Bekah had picked out for us from the Happy Bar, a local restaurant. We had pizza margherita and pizza con salami. If you order pizza pepperoni, you will actual get pizza with bell peppers instead of pepperonis. After pizza, John Rose surprised us with a wonderful treat by having his friends come over and serenade us with a beautiful song. Their voices echoed throughout the walls of the Palazzo. It was nothing I could have expected but was absolutely gorgeous. We then invited them upstairs for a chat and to have pizza with us. They were a lovely couple that sang duets and their relatives happen to produce olive oil; however, they only give their olive oil away to family and friends. It’s a good thing they consider John Rose a friend because then we get to try their olive oil! Finally, it was off to bed for some much needed sleep.

Living in Sansepolcro has been a dream and I love every second of it. Every day is an exciting adventure full of surprises, great food, and wonderful encounters with the people. We have just started our classes and are still getting to know the town. This past weekend we also had a once in a lifetime surprise trip to Venezia for the Carnevale! More details on all of these are soon too come!