Ciao, Italia!

At the request of my big sister, I decided to write a blog about my experience studying abroad so that I could share it with my friends and family. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to update it once a week.  I have no idea how to blog, but here it goes!

For months now, I've been planning to study abroad in Perugia- filling out applications and forms, running back and forth to the Italian Consulate in NYC and trying to figure out what to pack.  But it’s been years since I decided that I wanted to study abroad in Italy.  After what seemed like the longest day of my life, I finally arrived in Perugia, yet it was nothing like I expected.  I was hungry and jetlagged, and I was growing impatient at the hotel, faced with yet another day of waiting for an experience to begin.  I didn't know anyone and it seemed like everyone already had already paired off with a friend.  It wasn't until after dinner that it started to hit me.  We walked into town up these narrow, winding roads that were lit with Christmas lights.  We finally found the fountain and the main steps, and the whole piazza was lit up with blue lights, and I definitely got the chills sitting on the steps, just taking it all in.

  

The next morning we were finally headed to our apartment, and the only thing I wanted more than gelato was to unpack.  It was really hard to find anything in the hotel because I had strategically crammed everything in the suitcase, you know, not the kind of packing that makes it easier to find things later on.  After asking us how many years we were planning on staying here, our driver somehow squeezed all of our suitcases into the car and we went up more winding roads to our apartment.  We live on the fourth floor, and the hardest part of the trip so far has been lugging all of our stuff up the stairs since there’s no elevator.  Thank goodness that Stefano, our landlord who looked like he was only twenty, was able to help us carry things.  A little old Italian lady came out to see who was making such a commotion, and the buzzer on the door next to ours says “Babbo Natale,” or Santa Claus.  Our apartment is pretty modern (despite the orange cabinets in our kitchen from the sixties/seventies), and it’s a really good size for four of us.  I share a room with Nicki, and Gina and Gina live in the other bedroom across from us.  We even have two bathrooms and a washer machine, and we’re all pretty obsessed with our plates and bowls (and the most adorable espresso cups!)

   (our kitchen)

  (my room)

The weekend orientation consists of placement exams, tours and an open house.  Saturday night we had a safety talk from the chief inspector of Firenze, and he was definitely the stereotypical “kick ass” Italian that I was expecting.  He started off by asking if we liked his English.  He said, “Welcome to Italy, here we speak Italian.  This is the best English you’ll hear from an Italian so don’t get used to it.” He asked what the number one sport in Italy is, and after a couple of people responded with the obvious answer of football (soccer), he smiled and said no, “Women is the number one sport here in Italy.”  He proceeded to give the females advice on Italian men, safety tips and how to hold our bags so we don’t get pick pocketed.  He explained to the girls that we shouldn’t talk to any of the guys that may approach us on the street, and should ignore them just like all of the other real Italian women do.  He then laughed and addressed the boys saying “Welcome to Italy, good luck with our women.”

The first week of classes here has been Intensive Italian.  I’m in the advanced course, and our teacher Barbara is the best.  She’s very expressive and has a lot of energy, and you can tell that she truly just loves teaching Italian.  We’ve been doing review on tenses, grammar, conversation and Italian history in our morning classes, and then in the afternoon we do Survival Italian.  The morning has been helpful to get back into the swing of Italian language, but our afternoons have definitely been the most useful for living here.  Monday we learned about our apartments, how things work, and different problems that we may need to tell our landlord about.  Stefano doesn’t really speak English, so we had Mauro, a genuinely great guy that works at the school (whose light-heartedness and smile reminds me so much of Moi in Guatemala), come and explain to us how to use the heat.  Our first night was freezing (which only made sense considering we live next to Babbo Natale), and we’re only allowed to have the heat on for seven hours during the day.  It was definitely hard at first, but now we’re getting a better handle on how to use it.  Tuesday, we learned about food and grocery shopping, and we took the Mini Metro to the big Supermarket.  Barbara had us asking the workers different questions, and she showed us how to order things (she even bought us different prosciutto and bread to buy).  It was hard at first because the Italians talk pretty quick and Barbara doesn’t permit us to speak any English in class, but everyone is really patient with us.  I’m glad that I’m in a smaller city, because the community here is definitely more welcoming to us than a bigger city like Rome would be, and they are really happy when we try Italian.  Wednesday we went to a bar, and we learned about the different types of coffee, and the bartender made us all of the different traditional l’aperitivo drinks and snacks.  Thursday we learned about travel, and Barbara showed us different websites to use to find trains and buses, and then we walked around the city and she pointed out the bus stops, where to buy tickes, and how to get to the main station.

 (espresso with a happy face- this is for you Cristina because it just is the epitome of your happy coffee face)

We don’t have class on Fridays!  Last night we had people over to our apartment and had a big potluck dinner.  It was so nice getting to sleep in this morning.  Today I need to take care of my Permesso di Soggiorno (Permit of Stay) and then I think we’ll walk around because it looks beautiful outside through our kitchen window.  Tomorrow morning I’d like to go to the market, and then we have a “Nooks and Crannies” tour, where Zach (an Umbra staff worker) is going to share anecdotes and point out his favorite places.  We’ve been forewarned- if we want to learn history of Perugia, this is not the tour because he may make things up on the spot (Mauro already told us not to take notes and not to listen to anything he says).  All of the Umbra Staff are really nice, and they’ve been really helpful at answering our questions about Perugia.   On Sunday, we’re having a lunch at a nearby agriturism (country house) and I’m excited for an authentic Sunday Pranzo.  All of the food here is so good.  I can definitely get used to having nutella with every meal, and it’s amazing how fresh everything is.  What’s even more amazing is how much walking we’ve been doing- it doesn’t matter where you go in Perugia, you’re always walking uphill.  The school isn’t that far away from our apartment, but there’s a huge set of stairs that we need to walk up to get to there.  It seems like we never talk in the morning as we walk to class because we’re still tired and too out of breath.  So we’ll come home with big bellies, but at least we’ll have nice legs! Ok, time to go get my paperwork ready for my meeting, ci vediamo!

The Fountain

Why don't we have nutella pizza in the United States? Let's fix that ASAP!