What a Great First Weekend :)

Ciao !

Theres SO much to tell about the weekend I'm really not sure where to start! Friday we finally got to sleep in which was exactly what we all needed. It was so nice to not have to worry about having any specific agenda! We got up and walked down to a few speciality stores to pick up fresh meat, fish, bread, and cheese. It was fun to just stroll through the town friday afternoon. After lunch, we walked around and looked at all of the local boutiques. And we did run into the newsreporters covering the trial of the murder that happened here last semester. Noone seems too upset about the entire thing. Theres just always a lot of reporters and cars outside of the courthouse. Turns out she was a student at the University of ForI really don't know a lot about it, but there are still alot of individuals protesting the bombings in Gaza. We've already run into a march for peace and today they had a tent set up with a lot of bloody awful pictures. I found it weird to see all of it because I kind of assumed we wouldn't run into any of that being in a small town, but apparently I was wrong. I was talking to an advisor and she said that sometimes professionals will just protest and you'll randomly see a group of doctors marching through the street with their scrubs on - that should be an interesting sight.

Anyways, Friday we just shoppped around and hung out all day. It was a pretty relaxed day of just getting to know each other. But! we stumbled across this delicious bakery where I finally had my first cup of gelato. It was the best gelato ever!! As for Saturday, we decided to head out to Assisi. A group of 8 of us went, which I think we learned is just too big of a group to travel with considering 5 of us stopped every 5 seconds for a picture while the others just wanted to get through it, slightly disappointing. We didn't get to see alot because some girls were really anxious to get back to Perugia. We misread the train times and ended up sitting on the train all alone from 1045-1130. Other than that the traveling went surprisingly well. We only got to see the tomb and basilica of Saint Francesco, but it was absolutely breathtaking. Since it was such a foggy day (which still made for some really neat pictures) we will be heading back for another day trip soon to see Saint Chiara and the beautiful views that we missed. We ate a delicious lunch at a cute little restuarant where I randomly picked a dish and I got egg noodles with tomato sauce - I was slightly disappointed to learn I didn't magically pick veal, but it was a delicious meal.

Today was yet another orientation, but it was the last one! yay! We had to be ready to go at 9 am (yuck) This orientation was through Arcadia University and buses took us out into the countryside. Once we got to this little farm, we learned all about culture and tradition of a typical family farm. We learned how to make pasta, baskets, and how they make olive oil. This area grows over 50 types of olive trees and each individual type has its very own needs. It was neat because the farm is completely self sufficient and we got to eat the pasta that we made earlier in the day! The family made us a four course meal and they were so sweet to us. You could see their passion for their way of life and their pride in their home/business. Turns out the olive oil that they produce was voted number 3 in the entire world! Pretty neat to say the least. After a long day at the farm, we arrived back in town around 6 tonight. It was one long day and everyone slept on the quick busride back.

Tomorrow starts classes but I only have Italian from 1030-12 and Human Development from 145-5 so it should be a pretty easy day (hopefully)! As for now, I have 6 exercises to complete and an essay about myself to write! Miss you all and hope youre staying warm! Ciao :)

PS - it was about 50 degrees again today :)