Overdue

So my second week of classes is almost over. It’s a strange transition going from working for six months back to classes (and in Italy at that). I have much more “spare” time on my hands, but more things to actually do in that spare time. Classes are going well. My schedule changes nearly every day, so it’s hard to get into a routine of making lunches and dinners, etc., although I suppose I should be used to that after working in the hotel for 6 months.

Anyway, today I did laundry for the first time. I have heard some horror stories from people who have spent upwards of 4 hours in the laundromat attempting to get all their clothes clean, so I was a little worried going in as I had to get to class in a few hours, but I gathered up my dirty clothes along with a book and headed out. The laundromat is just up the street from my apartment, so it’s in a convenient location. Everything was going fine until I tried to put money into the machine. For some reason it was refusing to read my paper money and I only had €2.59 in coins on me, but a wash cost €3.00. I went out to a small grocery store nearby and asked (in somewhat broken Italian) if I could have change for a €5 bill. They refused. I checked with a few other places and received a similar response until, finally, I asked the owner of the café below my apartment who gladly exchanged the money with me. Getting that over with, I started my wash. Several minutes later, a couple of other people came into the laundromat and put their wash in as well. A wash is supposed to take about 25 minutes. By some magic the other people’s laundry finished first and they put their wash into the only two driers in the place, but I took solace in knowing that surely my clothes would be cleaner than theirs, having spent more time in the washing machine. My wash finished a few minutes later, leaving me to wait around for their load to finish before I could get my clothes dry (and by dry I mean slightly warm…Italian driers don’t seem to be very effective). Once my “drier” finished, I gathered up my clothes and brought them back to my apartment where I spread them all over the open areas in my room to give them a chance to actually dry. All-in-all it was a relatively smooth experience and I finally have clean clothes.

La Prima Settimana Pictures

Taken from inside the MiniMetro with another MiniMetro car coming at us.

Most of the people in Perugia seem very friendly, especially the people in the stores. Despite my broken Italian, the vast majority of the store workers try their best to understand me and help figure out what I'm after instead of just resorting to using English, which most of them seem to know pretty well.

Next week actual classes start. I'm looking forward to them and hope that I enjoy them, although how could I not considering where I am.

The view from out my window.



The military installation across the street.



It's been raining a bit in the past couple of days.



The view out my window down the street.

The walkway in the center of the picture is actually the top of an ancient aqueduct.



The view from the road right near my apartment.



More of said view.

La Prima Settimana

The past week has been dedicated solely to Italian. We went to class for around 5 hours a day for four days and spoke Italian the whole time. It was a little mentally draining, but it definitely helped me to get back up to speed since I haven't taken Italian in well over a year. The teacher was very friendly and really helpful, even if he just keeps talking in Italian to explain grammar or vocab that you don't understand. During one of our classes, he took us on the MiniMetro, which is a bizarrely modern miniature subway system running from the center of Perugia to its outskirts, to a larger and cheaper grocery store than the ones here in the city center.

Today, Erin and I took the MiniMetro to the sixth stop, the very last one on the MiniMetro, to go to the huge outdoor market that takes place near the soccer stadium every Saturday morning. When we got there, we were a little surprised as it was a bit more chaotic and disorganized than we had imagined. They had everything from fruits and vegetables to clothes and toothbrushes all arranged on large tables. We ended up leaving pretty quickly as the produce didn't seem to be in very good condition and it wasn't that much cheaper than from the nearby grocery store. We hopped back on the MiniMetro and headed to the grocery store our Italian teacher had taken us to.

Pictures to follow...

Ho Arrivato

Finally! The long awaited moment has finally arrived. I am finally in Perugia to start my four month study abroad experience. Currently I am sitting in my room borrowing internet from the cafe below. My apartment is about a 10-15 minute walk from the main area of the city and where my classes will take place, which is a bit closer than I thought we were going to be based on the map that they gave us. The actual apartment is great. There are 5 of us in here and we all have single bedrooms. My bedroom has a view overlooking a small piazza with a cafe below. If I lean out a little I can also see up and down the streets. The furniture throughout the apartment is very nice. In addition to a bed, I also have a large desk with shelving above it, an armoire and two small end tables. The kitchen has granite counter tops and a granite table and even a small TV (granted all the channels are in Italian, I guess I'll eventually be able to understand somewhat). We even have two bathrooms with standing showers (and they don't drain into the middle of the bathroom!). I am very surprised at how good the apartment is. It definitely far exceeds my expectations.

At 2:00PM we had an orientation meeting in the city's town hall which was a gorgeous room with fresco paintings covering the ceilings and walls and, oddly enough, large, light blue, cushioned leather chairs. A good number of my questions were answered during the orientation, but there's still a bit to get done. At the orientation we got a heads up about a few things we need to get done still, received some practical information, and there was a humorous Italian police officer who gave us some safety advice. Once the orientation was over, a lot of the students went over to the nearby grocery store and got a bit of grocery shopping done since all the stores are closed tomorrow (Sunday).

Later on, Erin and I went to pick up our textbooks from the bookstore. I was surprised at how modern it was inside and seemed to have a decent selection of books, mostly in Italian of course, considering how small most of the shops in the area are. As a plus, as Umbra Institute students we receive a 10% discount on all purchases there.

One of my favorite parts of the city so far, not that I know much of it yet, is the panoramic view on the side of a curving part of the road just around the corner from my apartment. From there you can see the lower part of the city with a large staircase running underneath ancient aqueducts below, as well as rolling hills covered in stereotypical Italian buildings. Hopefully I'll have pictures of the view to put up soon, but I'm not sure if those will do it justice, though.

Paris

And now we're in Paris...

London

So we have just arrived in Paris after spending 5 days in London. London was very nice, but much colder than expected. The following is a little overview of each day:

Day 1
We arrived at London's Heathrow airport very early in the morning and, with the exception of forgetting what color my luggage is and subsequently worrying that I would have to deal with Virgin Atlantic customer service with far too little sleep, had a smooth trip into central London. The only tricky part of getting to our hostel was having to navigate the many flights of stairs between there and Heathrow airport. Erin would wait at the bottom of the stairs while I ran up and down transporting our luggage. This seemed to have been far too much stress for my tired suitcase as it decided that this would be prime time for it to break one of its wheels, requiring me to drag my fully loaded suitcase with stuffed duffle bag perched on top the half mile to the hostel. Despite all this, we finally arrived at our hostel, which ended up being clean and simple – perfect for what we needed.

Not wanting to fall prey to jet lag, we dragged ourselves through London, seeing Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Thames, King’s Cross (for Platform 9¾), and the area around our hostel. We also picked up a loaf of bread for breakfast in the morning.

Big Ben.

The Underground (Tube).

Actually in the Underground.

Posing with the ubiquitous phone booths.

Lunch across from the Thames.

Posing with the guards.

Day 2

We had a pretty early start and headed to Buckingham Palace first thing in the morning. The first thing I saw when exiting the subway station was The Ritz (picture below for Brian). We then entered through Green Park and followed the path to Buckingham Palace, which we would visit twice more in attempts to see the changing of the guards. After taking copious pictures of Buckingham Palace and the neighboring St. James’s Park, we heard the sound of drums beating in the distance. We decided to follow the sounds and soon fell upon London’s New Year’s Day parade in full swing. There were lots of different bands and performers all moving throughout the streets and thousands and thousands of onlookers. We followed the parade along for quite some time until we were too cold and went into a bookstore for a short respite.

Later on that day, we headed to the other side of the Thames (opposite Big Ben) so we could take some night photos of the Parliament building and Big Ben. We then crossed the river again to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey up close at night. I think that this area of the city (although very touristy, I’m sure) is my favorite.

The Ritz right outside of Green Park near Buckingham Palace.

Posing with a guard (a little braver this time).

St. James's Park next to Buckingham Palace.

The London Eye as seen from St. James's Park.

The beginning of the New Year's Day parade.

Little kid on stilts at the New Year's Day parade.

Lots of people at the parade.

More people.

Patriotism.

There were some odd characters there too.

Some onlookers trying to get a good view.

Big Ben at night.

Big Ben at night and a double decker bus zooming by.

Day 3

The next day we headed to the area just south of Kensington Gardens. There is a whole row of free museums there and we wanted to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Upon exiting the Tube, we were met immediately by Harrod’s, the famous British department store. We went inside for a quick look around. It was much larger than I expected and had pretty much everything imaginable. We then made our way over to the Victoria and Albert Museum followed by Kensington Gardens. Kensington was very nice and extremely large. I liked St. James’s Park (by Buckingham Palace) more, but I’m sure both would be gorgeous in the spring and summer months.We ate lunch in Kensington Gardens and headed over to Kensington Palace, but did not go in as it cost far too much and we still had a lot of other things in the area we wanted to see.

From Kensington we made the short walk up to Notting Hill, which, while at first did not appear to be what we expected, proved to be home to the world’s best hot chocolate (located at Caffé Nero). Later that evening we went to Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes is said to have lived. Despite its quaint name, Baker Street was not at all and we quickly decided to head back to the areas of the city we were more familiar with.

It was very clean in London, so it was very surprising to see this bit of litter

Day 4

This morning we attempted for a second time to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, but were, again, out of luck. We were informed, however, that the ceremony would definitely occur the next day (our last in London). This was the first day that we had blue skies in London, so we took advantage of that and headed over to the Tower Bridge/London Bridge and the Tower of London. It was quite odd to see a very old castle of sorts in the middle of a major city. While walking from the Tower of London to the Tower Bridge, we were met by a huge swarm of seagulls being fed by a man on the edge of the river. I took advantage of the feeding frenzy to get some pictures of the birds up close. We then headed over to the British Library, but were not able to see much because we were lacking a certain “reader pass” and a home address in the UK.

Swiss Re Building in the background with part of the Tower of London in the foreground.

Seagull squabble.

Ready to dive in.

The Tower Bridge.

The best hot chocolate in the world (to go).

Day 5

We were finally able to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace today, although it seemed odd that they were playing music from the Wizard of Oz during the ceremony. After enjoying a little bit more of St. James’s Park and the surrounding area, we headed over the British Museum, which is near our hostel and home to the Rosetta Stone and many other famous artifacts.

Changing of the guards.

Rosetta Stone.