Assisi

Che belissima!!!  Rocca Maggiore, a medieval castle

a view of Assisi!

Ciao!  How are you?  I've just returned from the most wonderful evening @ the ballet with an Irish friend I met at school.  We saw La Bayadere, with music by Ludwig Minkus.  It was absolutely amazing!  A perfect evening in Rome & one I will not soon forget.  The show was stunning & the music simply enchanting.  

Here I will share my trip to Assisi last weekend.  I found Perugia to be overrun with people as previously mentioned, so I popped over to Assisi, another gorgeous hill town in Umbria.  It is the birthplace of St. Francisco & Santa Chiara.  I am not a religious person these days but, it is impossible to tour Italy & learn about culture & history without exploring the religious influence.  I find it interesting & in churches you find a lot of wonderful art as well as a sense of peace.  There were many Franciscan monks around town wearing the typical brown tunic with a rope belt.  St. Francis is known to be the patron saint of animals, nature & the environment.  A christian environmentalist, if you will.  

Piazza del duomo.  everything in town is constructed of these white & pinkish bricks, simply gorgeous!

the main piazza

ancient roman temple of Minerva

friendly gatti

charming touches everywhere you look

Basilica of San Francesco complex.  This is a UNESCO world heritage site.    There are two separate cathedrals & St. Francis' tomb is down in the basement.  

upper view of the basilica of San Francesco.  this complex was amazing & the interiors of these churches were awe inspiring.   (no photos allowed)

a view up towards Rocca Maggiore

piazza & church of Santa Chiara

there are many steep alleyways weaving through the small town

these houses are built around an ancient roman ampitheater.  gorgeous!

I thoroughly enjoyed walking around Assisi for the day & then made my way back down to the train station to head for Rome.  I met some lovely Canadian nuns @ the station who had been touring religious sites of Italy.  Then...  I had to cram myself onto a completely full train full of mostly teens heading back to the city.  I had to stand the entire way & with a one hour delay enroute I was glad when the 3.5 hour trip was over.   If nothing else, it was fun to eavesdrop on the teens & listen to some Italian slang.  Despite the crowds the weekend venture was a huge success!

We have been having excellent weather in Rome, sun & unseasonably high temps!  I have completed my elementary level Italian classes with flying colors, having learned past & future tenses as well as l'imperativo!  My teacher has referred me some work, speaking english with a 7 year old boy!  He lived in New York for one year & his parents want him to improve his english.  He is adorable & I hope to meet with him regularly.  It is very different speaking Italian with a kiddo.

As far as the work situ goes... nothing new to report really.  I am planning to go to the US embassy tomorrow to consult with someone & get some advice on my situation.  As time passes I become increasingly concerned about my lack of proper visa.  Despite this stuff...  I continue to enjoy Italia!  There had been some major storms involving serious flooding in some areas.  Cinqueterre in particular, a destination in the Italian Riviera had been devastated by floods & mud.  Also, as you may have seen in the news, P.M. Berlusconi continues to be up to no good in terms of helping out with the Italian budget.  Don't get Italians started talking politics, no one is happy with the current economic crisis.  Did you know Berlusconi is 74 years old?  He looks good for his age.

I am missing out on Halloween this year!  It isn't really celebrated here.  I've always enjoyed carving pumpkins, roasting seeds & of course dressing up & going to parties!  I hope you all had fun this past weekend!!

Italy observes a national religious holiday on Tuesday & I begin my next level or Italian courses on Wednesday.  I really love my teacher Claudia, she makes our class so much fun & I feel over the past few weeks I have learned a ton!

I miss you!  Don't hesitate to email & stay in touch, just because I am writing this blog doesn't mean that I don't want to hear from you personally!!   :)  xx  baci

Baci di Perugia! (kisses from Perugia!)

 Last weekend I decided to take a little trip North to Umbria!  I have been feeling like I still haven't spent much time outside of Roma since being here.  I am always hearing a lot about the differences between northern & southern Italy & wanted to experience this.  Rome is about in the middle of the country.  So, I hopped a train up to Perugia, the capitol of Umbria.  It is a cultural center with a couple of Universities & an ongoing stream of festivals.

On this particular weekend, EUROCHOCOLATE fest was going on.  This might be the biggest chocolate festival EVER bringing about one million people into town!  Have you heard of Baci di Perugia?  They are lovely chocolate candies & are Perugia's biggest export.  (& wouldn't you know the company is now owned by... Nestle :(  The train was absolutely full of teenagers, I had to stand the entire trip!  And, unfortunately the quaint hilltop city was completely overrun with chocolate lovers, most of them teens.  The historical center was loaded with people & chocolate themed pop music was constantly playing.  I guess I should have done my research before setting out...

Luckily, those people did not venture far from the chocolate, leaving the rest of town fairly peaceful.  Umbria is beautiful!

all these hilltop cities were once walled in & you can see a section in the back

Umbrian Panorama

there are lots of stairways with little mini-steps

some of the chocolate people.  This is really a beautiful piazza.  For photos, the giant tents & climbing wall shaped like a chocolate bar detracted from the overall beauty.

people were lining up to take a photo with this, the largest chocolate bear ever. 

Perugia is considered an Etruscan city & you can see evidence of this in much of the architecture, including arches in the city walls.  I am not an expert but, I believe that the Etruscans were an ancient people that lived all throughout central Italy & were assimilated into the Roman Empire at some point.

the weather was pretty chilly, I had to buy some gloves.

It was all very charming & had a entirely different feel from the chaos of Rome.  

The city is closed to outside traffic very often.  Instead they have large parking lots & then everyone takes escalators (scala mobili) up into the center of town.

i always like seeing the laundry

the Etruscan style churches have a very different look.

Etruscan archway into the city

 I had a pleasant experience of going into this church in this photo below just before it closed for the night & getting a private tour from an old priest.  He showed me a chapel that included a painting by Caravaggio & one by Raphael.  Raphael's teacher was from Perugia.  The priest then left me there by myself to look at the frescoes.  We had been speaking Italian but at the end of our visit he said in English, "when finish, out with the lights & shut with the door!"  It was cute.

a lovely evening in Perugia

I stayed over in a hostel where the front desk employee was from... WISCONSIN!  Man, it is so nice to talk to a friendly American sometimes!  We went out for pizza & beer, midwestern style.  It was really refreshing.  The next day I decided to hit Assisi rather than fight the chocolate festival goers.  I am really not into crowds.

Next up... visit to the beautiful Assisi to commune with the pious! :)

Saluti!

My view walking to school everyday.  Not too bad.  

Ciao my friends!  I have been slacking on blogging out, my apologies!

Last week we had some weather, a wild TEMPORALE (storm).  It rained like crazy & there was a lot of flooding throughout the city causing mass transit problems.  I guess every fall with the first big rain there is an issue because leaves have been falling & covering up gutters & such.  All I know was that there was a big pile of mud, MANGO, on my street corner.  Since I walk everywhere I wasn't affected much, I thought it was a great storm including lots of thunder & lightning!

here you can see the Tiber level before the storm

here you can see it after the storm, right up to the bike path!

With the help of my sister's online research I was able to locate an exotic foods store to acquire some of my favorite asian delights including... sriracha!  I also found rice noodles, wakame, sesame oil, rice vinegar, tahini, green curry, coconut oil...  It was cheap & I was happy to see that seaweed.  

I have grown fond of gnocchi.  Here is my version, lots more veg than gnocchi.

The other weekend I bought a cute, used bike!  With the help of an Italian friend I purchased this sweet, old thing.  It is a FRANCHI, has anyone ever heard of that brand before?  It quite old.  I was told I got a good deal on the price but, in the US I think this bike would have been less.  I think it could still be a little taller but the merchant wouldn't raise the seat any higher.  I tried to explain to him about the length of my legs...

My dad is mailing some safety equipment for the bike.

So far, no problems biking in town.  Other than the fact that I am scared someone is going to swipe it.  It's just like I'm back in Oakland parking at the Ashby bart station.  I am frequently seeing locks that have been cut & U-locks with just the tire remaining...  Cars seem to be pretty aware of bicycles, it is the pedestrians in the center of town that you really have to watch out for.  In particular, the tourists!

I went for a nice bike ride outside of town on the Appian Way.  Appia Antica is a popular lane for strolling & biking on the weekend to get a feel for what an ancient roman road would be like.  Also, it is nice to get out of the chaos of the city to see some open expanses.  It is closed to cars on Sunday, the day I went.  I actually can't imagine cars can drive on those stones very easily.  I think the ancient Roman roads are like, the oldest roads in existence & it is an engineering wonder that they are stll around.  Also, the acqueducts...

Appian Way may have been the first "paved" road ever!  There are a few catacombs along it that I will get around to visiting sometime.  I guess that due to some Roman law christians were not allowed to be buried in the city & they shipped them out to these catacombs.  Unlike pagans who favored cremations, the christians preferred a proper catacomb with all their buddies.  

a ruin

here is what the Appian way looks like most of the time, cobbled with San pietrini stones.

It is quaint!  The ride is a bit bumpy though.

and in many places the cobbles are these big basalt suckers, a real crotch buster!  Many people were riding mountain bikes (good call) and in many sections there were also dirt paths alongside the "road". 

whizzing along on a busier, but still bumpy road.  

Nothing like an REI exists here as far as I know & it seems a lot more difficult to get any outdoor gear. And of course...  everything is more expensive.  Go figure!

In other news, it turns out that I am still on my unpaid, stressful vacation in terms of the work situ.  There has been a real big problem with getting the ok to start work in a couple of different locations.  It gives me a huge headache to tell you the truth!!!  We are now having to move the Xray unit here to a different location, actually an earlier proposed location for the clinic.  I likely won't start actual work until mid-December.  I am beyond frustration but, there is not much I can do.  I am at the mercy of Italians.  I feel I have at least negotiated a decent living wage until then.  Keep a good thought in your head for me.  I truly hope to persevere & make this venture a success!

Not to say that living here for the time being hasn't been a life success of some type, just not what I imagined.  I've been here 2 months @ this point.  On a happy note, I have about 3.5 friends & I love learning Italian!  And, I just took a nice weekend trip that I will share with you presently.

Grazie & baci! xx

In Pompei for a day!

Ciao tutti!  As promised, and eagerly anticipated I'm sure :), here's some news from my trip to Pompei!  I took the local train from Napoli and was at the ruins in about 30min.  It was a Saturday and, of course, there was a horde of tourists.  So many that it was irritating, tons of big groups detracting from the experience.  Everyone wants to see Pompei, myself included.  It is so cool to visit these places you've always heard about.  I remember going to a big Pompei exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota with my mom one time & thinking... how cool would it be to actually go??  So, I did!

 As you likely know, Pompei was a booming town on the coast that was destroyed by natural disaster.  Earlier that year there had been a big earthquake that caused great damage & a lot of people had vacated the city.   So, when Vesuvius blew it's top the city was not as full of people as it might have been, due to the earthquake.  The eruption occured over a few days, involving a huge plume of ash & also waves of pyroclastic flow.  What is that?  It is a fast moving current of super heated gas!  This is likely what killed everyone & incinerated everything.  Sounds awful!  There is a fairly accurate historical account of this written by Pliny the younger.  (I managed to find out who Pliny the Elder was btw, he was like the first guy ever to record natural history in the field!  Pretty cool!  He died from the gas of Vesuvius)

Here is the main forum.  Again, you can mentally reconstruct the cone of Vesuvius.  

And then I saw THIS!!  Just kidding, this is some computer generated thing I thought was pretty cool.  Called, Pompei on the last day

some reconstructions after that earthquake were not complete.  Here you can see primitive building techniques involving brick stacks.

with all the tourists you could almost envision the town full of people.  almost...

quite photogenic!

here is me walking around with guidebooks in hand, one in English, one in Italian

there were some crazy plaster casts of victims, some parts intact like skulls, teeth & fingernails.  During the excavations some human body shaped depressions were found & filled with plaster to recreate the victim.  

here is an old bathhouse

Only 3/4 of Pompei ruins have been excavated.  I met an archaeologist at my hostel who was telling me a lot about it.  I guess there is no budget to do more digging at present.  When I visited the site many streets/roads/buildings were closed off to the public.  I guess in the past much more of the site has been accessible to the public and some things are closed because they are falling apart & there is no money to make it safe for tourists.  Of course when you visit you don't really know what you are missing because the place is HUGE & there is a ton to see.

old frescoes still apparent

mosaic message like a doormat in front of a home.  HAVE means hail or, welcome!

la casa del fauno.  One of the largest homes in Pompei town.  Here you see a bronze statue of a faun.

and here is the actual faun & other art taken from that house in the National Museum that I visited the next day

intricate mosaics also from casa del fauno

old timey bakery.  those things at right were used for grinding grain and at left you've  got the first pizza oven ever!

vines take over & cause a lot of destruction

huge ampitheater!  here they would have plays and such.

most of the houses didn't have large kitchens for cooking.  back in these days you would come to a joint like this to eat.  those holes would be filled with big vats of food.  today in Italy you have the same thing, the tavola calda (hot table).

here is where gladiators would fight!

the weather was taking a turn making Pompei seem ominous!

pomegranites

After spending about 4 hours at Pompei I was totally Pompeid out.  It was awesome though & next time I'm down in that area I will visit the Herculaneum, another place nailed by that volcano & supposedly in better condition.  Pompeians were quite into art & their homes were lavishly decorated.  Very many artworks are restored & on display in the national museum.  Most of the frescoes contained themes from ancient myth.  Here we have Hercules & Andromeda.  

and this is one of the most famous portraits from Pompei.  

 Also notable was a large collection of lewd & erotic art.  In Pompei there was even a brothel called the Lupinarium (lupis- wolf), supposedly named for the wild sounds people would make there.  Racy!  It included some graphic frescoes as well as some comfy stone beds with plush stone pillows.

I'm having a nice weekend although, ho un po mal di gola.  (I have a bit of a sore throat).  Everyone keeps telling me THE INFLUENZA is going around, fingers are crossed to not get it.  I wonder if they have flu shots in Italy??  Not that I'd get one, just wondering.  People have a very different idea of health over here, western style medicine is the norm & doesn't seem to be much holistic wellness going on.  At least that is my perception for now.

My roomie likes to buy fresh flowers, yellow is her favorite!

Also, she brought me a ton of persimmons (CACI in Italy) that she picked at her parent's house.  

Have a great weekend everyone!  xo