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.