Top reasons why I am absolutely in love with Italy

us with Iva's host family after lunch!

1. THE FOOD.   I know what you're thinking: "duh."  And I guess you'd be right in some ways, it's so be expected for the food here to be absolutely amazing.  I seriously can't find a bad meal here, at least in Tuscania.  But I'm not just talking about WHAT food they have, I'm talking about the quality of it.  Literally everything is fresh, and made right here.  Last week, Stacy, Noah and I went to Iva's host family's house for lunch.  It was like Christmas, minus all the Jesus stuff.  First, we had apperativo, which is pretty much like Italy's version of Hors d'Oeuvres.  Prociutto, fresh bread, bruschetta, sheep cheese, and these kabob type of things with lamb.  The bread?  Made fresh in Tuscania, actually in the bakery that our cooking teacher's family owns.  The bruschetta? Made here too.  Even the olive oil was made by Felice, Iva's host dad.  The cheese?  Also made by the family right here.  Same with the lamb.  Then we had lasagne which was DELICIOUS.  Then chicken, which of course was also raised (and killed) here.  The homemade poundcake filled with sprinkles and chocolate wasn't too bad either.  This is just a preview of the food here, in every restaurant all the food is just as fresh and comes from the area.  Even things you buy at the grocery store are natural (only like 3 ingredients at the most, all of which you know what they are...unlike stupid America.) Not only is it fresh, but you eat SO much.  It honestly still remains a mystery to me how nobody here is fat.

2. THE PEOPLE.  Everyone is so friendly!  And very patient if I'm having trouble understanding them or something.  Everybody in this town knows each other, and everybody says "ciao" on the street.  It's so cute.  In fact, perfect.  If only they didn't drive like idiots and yell at each other every 30 seconds when they barely avoid an accident.

3. THE HISTORY.  I just got back from Tarquinia on a school field trip for one of my classes.  We went to a necropolis and the museum.  Pretty much everything we saw was almost 3,000 years old.  No joke.  It's crazy.  In my classes, we're learning all about ancient history of the Etruscans and then the Romans when they took over...and its amazing how it all literally happened right on the ground I'm standing on right now.  Necropolises (cities of the dead...pretty much these caves where they've found a bunch of tombs) are found everywhere surrounding where I am, walls are thousands of years old, the churches have faded frescoes painted 2 thousand years ago...it's insane.  Today we saw old jewelry from the 4th century BC.  Some of the rings look just like rings that forever 21 or urban outfitters tries to put out as being unique and funky and pretend like they brought it into style...nope, sorry urban, you're a few thousand years late on that one.

What I see on my walk to school

4. IT'S SO PRETTYYYYY. For real.  I'll be just walking back home at night or something within the walls of the town and I seriously just can't believe where I am.  It's like a movie or a painting or something.  I still can't believe it!  My walk to school has the view of those rolling green hills one might see in "Under The Tuscan Sun" or something.  The cobblestone...so pretty.  Although, I must say, my feet are literally killing me at the end of everyday...and I do trip or twist my ankle a lot (but then again, that's no different than home.)  

Well, that's enough I guess. 
Last week in cooking class, I learned how to make fresh pasta!!  So cool, and tasted so good.  This past weekend we just stayed here in town, it was very relaxing.  On Saturday we took the bus into Viterbo and did some shopping.  There are a lot of cool stores there, yet I'm still on the prowl for a leather jacket...hopefully I'll find one asap.  Carnivale is going on right now.  It's pretty much like Mardi Gras, and Venice is the equivalent of New Orleans.  So, hopefully I'll get a chance to see it.  Although, there are a lot of parties and celebrations here in Tuscania.  Very excited for a masquerade-type party in a couple of weeks at a local bar!
I booked my plane tickets to London and Dublin for spring break! SOOOOOOO excited. Who knows where I'm off to this weekend.  Maybe Florence...but then again maybe Switzerland, or France, or Pompeii and Naples...or....who knows!  We'll see.
I miss home and everyone from it!  Love you guys.
Ciao tutti!

p.s. allison and erin: don't leave.  Rome is overrated, anyway.

Rome/Assisi

Iva and I in Rome!!

Ok, so basically I feel like an expert of Rome's metro system now.  But, of course, learned it the hard way.  Early afternoon on Friday, I had to take the bus by myself from Tuscania to Viterbo to meet Iva over there to take the train.  That was an adventure in itself.  I had to ask the bus driver if he could take me to the historical town center instead of just the bus station, and had to sit awkwardly on the bus alone with him (sitting at the station) for like 10 minutes until he could leave again.  All during this time, him asking me questions about how long I've been here, etc....all in Italian, of course.  Then at like 3:50 Iva and I caught the what-we-thought-was 1 hour bus ride to Rome.  And here is where it all begins.
    So, there was graffiti painted all along the windows of the train on the other side so we couldn't see the names of all the stops.  Thinking we only had a few minutes left until we reached "Termini," we grabbed our bags and went and stood in the little section between cars near the doors.  About 45 minutes later, with an incredibly sore back and tired of being stared at by creepy old men, we start to see the stops for Rome (there are a bunch.)  Do we see Termini? No. Of course not. That would be too easy.  Well, the train gets to the end of the line.  Faaaantastic.  So, we just get off not knowing exactly what to do or where to go...and figure we'll just take the B line metro to Termini where then we have to catch the A line to near our hotel. So, we buy a metro ticket and get on the B line.  After being on it for a stop or two, Iva points out that we are going the opposite direction.  So, we have to get off, then get on the other one, then catch the A line, then get to our hotel, all while being terrified of pick pocketers and carrying a heavy duffel bag on my shoulders.  Good lord. So anyway, our hotel was cute and quaint and it was time to do a little exploring and get dinner. VERY touristy.  Everyone spoke English, even when you spoke Italian to them first. All of the menus at restaurants were designed for tourists, and the food wasn't as fresh as I'm used to.  I guess I'm just spoiled from Tuscania.  The Colosseum was beautiful, though.  Because it was Valentine's Day weekend, everyone we saw was a couple.  Outside the Colosseum were like 20 different couples just strolling around or sitting....and then there was Iva and I.  How romantic.

St. Francis church!

    The next morning we had to meet some girls that are staying in Rome through Lorenzo de'Medici, along with Massimo (one of our advisers) at the train station (which was also a long adventure trying to find the store we were supposed to meet at).  Off to Assisi!  Before even really seeing any of Assisi, a van drove us to Deruta where we saw some pottery museum and got to paint our own plates.  That was fun, and kind of a coincidence, because just the other day I was talking to someone for the first time in like 10 years about how I missed Paint The Earth in Chapel Hill.  After this and like my 3rd cappuccino and pastry (mistake- felt sooooo sick), we went back to Assisi.

    I felt kind of like a snob, but when we were walking around Assisi, Iva and I heard all the Rome girls saying stuff like "oh my god is this real?" and "this is so beautiful" talking about the narrow streets of Assissi.  But seriously, in comparison to what we see everyday in Tuscania, this wasn't that breathtaking.  After a wine tasting and a HUGE dinner (one girl actually threw up from eating too much...literally haha) it was off to bed.  The next day, (due to the cold rainy weather, we decided not to go to Perugia as planned) was spent walking around Assissi seeing all of the churches and stuff.  The church of San Francesco was actually AMAZING.  It was so amazingly colorful.  Literally every single inch of space was painted with some sort of colorful fresco.  I wish I had some pictures of it to show, but of course they weren't allowed.  Underneath the main church was another section, and then underneath that was San Francesco's tomb.  It was all really pretty and peaceful.  OH when we were all getting gelato, there was this little dog just chillin out in one of the chairs at a table just like a human.  It was the funniest thing ever.  But anyway...Assisi was actually a pretty little town, and actually for some reason reminded me of how Verona looked in Letters to Juliet.  But, after this trip, I am now VERY appreciative of Tuscania.  I actually missed it when we were in Rome and Assisi.  Like, Tuscania has actual authentic culture and food...it's quite nice.

    My classes are actually really really nice.  Got a little tipsy in our wine and culture class last night before our girls Valentine's dinner...it was quite fun.  Went to a museum in the town in one of my classes today and saw a ton of 2000-year-old tombs, kind of cool.  Stacy and I are quite the little chefs in our apartment, and thank god we FINALLY have snacks now...chocolates, pringles, etc.  So good.  Sorry not too much happened this week, hopefully you found at least some of it exciting!  Hope everyone had a good valentine's day! gag.
Ciao, buona sera!!
Cam

From the land of the shiny, puffy jackets

Ok, but seriously...really italy? REALLY?  You're supposed to be a country with amazing fashion sense...so why is it that everyone,  I see is wearing those horrible shiny, puffy, jackets. Men, women, even babies...everyone.  Some even have fur on the hoods, or belts...or are neon colors.  It's awful, tacky, and trashy.  Italy, I'm very disappointed in you.
Anyway...I've had a busy busy week.  I really need to update this more often so the posts aren't so long.  Classes actually kind of sucked this week, they're a lot harder than I was expecting.  But, I ended up dropping one of my histories and picking up the cooking class, so that should make it a little more fun.  The italian class is so intense, but from that and from being out around Italy, I can tell that I'm getting better.
Friday, we went to Bolsena Lake, which is about 20 minutes away.  It was a trip the school planned for everyone.  Oh my God.  We hiked up this huge hill to look down on pretty view of the lake and stuff.  I mean it was quite beautiful, but worth walking up that extremely steep hill with the sun shining down and making it really hot and getting more exercise than I've gotten in quite a while?  Eh.  But I guess I'm glad I saw it.  The lake was really blue and the towns around it are adorable.  We then got to see this old St. Christina's church in the town of Bolsena.  Very creepy, yet pretty.  We went down underneath the church to see the catacombes, which in case you don't know are areas that used to be burial grounds.  Now, its just these rows of empty graves.  When one of our advisers was discussing the history I kind of wandered off from the group a little into another little hallway...and the lights went out.  So scary. Of course I screamed, like a baby, but it was all OK....I didn't die.

Soooo...now it's off to Pisa!!  Saturday morning, thanks to Stacy AND myself, we all missed the bus to take us to Tarquinia for the train station.  Oops.  Luckily, Massimo, the driver we use a lot through the school came to the rescue...40 euro later.  The train ride was actually really pretty.  At one point it was like the track was right on the edge of the cliff over the Mediterranean sea...amazing.   And then on the other side, were the beautiful picturesque hills of Tuscany.  THAT is the reason I really wanted to come to Italy- the beauty of Tuscany.  We arrived in Pisa about 3 hours later, and took our time eating pizza and gelato before getting to our hostel.  It was me, 3 other girls and a guy.  All in one room, but it wasn't that bad.  There were also 3 swedish girls staying in another room in the hostel.  After blowing a fuse in the building (oops) and having to have someone come and fix everything, we then went shopping around Pisa.  Who would've thought that Pisa would be such a neat town with tons of really good stores and lots of good clothes?  I loved it though, everything was so pretty and there were so many people.  After being in Tuscania for a while, I've missed the bigger cities with crowds.  Dinner wasn't too bad either.

my favorite statue at the graveyard

 Morning:  woke up and Allison went and bought us tickets and reserved a time slot to go inside the leaning tower of Pisa.  After breakfast, we went to the tower!  Literally 294 stairs...good lord.  But this time, I can say it was totally worth the exercise.  It was kind of cool though how when we were circling up the tower on the stairs, how on one side the stairs would be REALLY steep but then on the other side of the building they weren't at all.  Keep in mind, you're off balance the entire time because of the lean.  The view from the top was really pretty, and just knowing you're on the leaning tower of freaking pisa was pretty amazing too.  After that, we went into the duomo (church.)  It was soooooooooooooooo beautiful.  So much detail on the ceilings, walls, marble, floor, ...everything.  It was gorgeous.  They even had an actual mass going on when we were in there (it was roped off) so we couldn't see everything in the church.  AND we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, which was a shame because it was so amazing.  There was the baptistery after that.  This was a round building with a huge empty elevated tiled pool (where people used to get baptized...duh) in the middle.  This was really pretty too.  Every 30 minutes, one of the security guard comes in and sings for you so you can hear the loud echo of the building and everything...and we got to see that which was pretty cool.  Then off to this old graveyard.  Sculptures were EVERYWHERE lining the inside part, frescoes were everywhere on the walls....and then the floor was made out of marbled flat graves.  Someone who died in 2009 was buried there!  Who would've thought it was actually still in use.  There were a couple of sculptures on the sides that were just amazing, so intricately detailed and so beautiful.  I got separated from everyone else for like 20 minutes because I just stood and stared at this one forever.  I usually hate art and think it's bullshit how people hype it all up, but this was pretty cool.  After some more pizza, gelato, and cannollis...it was back to the train station and back to Tuscania.

Tomorrow I don't have any classes...YAY. but we're going to start teaching the kids at the local elementary school english tomorrow morning.  I guess we'll see how that goes...
Off to Perugia and Assissi next weekend!  Have a good week, miss everyone!
Cam