Way too much has happened since my last update to adequately catch y'all up, but I'll do my best. It's going to cover much more than just Perugia, as well, but whether I get through the majority of my recent events or not, I know one thing-- my dad already likes the title.
Perugia
About a week ago we went to Perugia, in nearby Umbria, and I think I was literally the only one who had a good time. It was a foggy, rainy, chilly day in the hilltop city, and nearly everyone (read: every girl-- since that's basically our group) complained about the weather. Most hadn't appropriately dressed for it, unlike me, so go figure. There's really no one else to blame but themselves, since the strategy I used-- 1. go outside, 2. see how it feels, and 3. dress accordingly-- is not a travel skill one has to have acquired on previous trips to Europe. So, naturally, I didn't feel sorry for them, because as I've said before, we have very little to complain about on any given day in Italy. Aside from having refreshingly cool weather, we had a lunch valued at 20 Euro provided for us at a restaurant overlooking one of Perugia's better panoramic views (and there are a lot there when the fog isn't too dense). We ate a three-course meal that consisted of a delicious local homemade pasta, the name of which escapes me (and not even our resident Italian ex-pat professor had heard of), followed by some kind of tender beef with really good assorted vegetables, and a dessert consisting of tiramisu and a fruit pastry. Towards the end of the secondi (translation: main) course, a waiter came over offering an extra plate of the beef dish, and after no one at our table and seemingly none of the others wanted to partake in EXTRA FREE FOOD FROM A FANCY RESTAURANT, I gladly took it off his hands, spoiling myself with only the meat and no veggies this time. I'll contend that my calves, quads, glutes, and any other leg muscles you can think of have never been in as good shape as they are now, considering our near-daily soccer matches and inevitable miles of daily walking up and down hills, so I decided a long time ago that I'd eat whatever I wanted on this trip if I could afford it. And even with late-night 4 euro pizza and occasional gelato trips (though less than most here), I can guarantee I'm already in better shape.
Anyway, Perugia didn't have a lot of obvious sight-seeing activities, and most shops were closed for the siesta period, so Cameron (a fellow member of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 2010 and like-minded traveler) and I wandered around looking for unusual things with surprising success. Outside some public bathrooms, Cameron was talking with a water color artist selling his work and obviously down on his luck. We found out that he was Iraqi and after being initially friendly, he unexpectedly transitioned to the subject of his dad and started to cry, ending his chances for a sale. It's not that we didn't have sympathy for him, but we didn't know how to talk to him in the first place, much less console him. We then moved on only to be confronted by what must have been an actual crazy person not five minutes later. A man in his fifties or sixties wearing a suit with excessive Christian accessories and dozens of obtrusive nose hairs (they literally could've been braided with the right utensils) came up, slowly asked us a few questions, none of which involved Christianity, listened to our responses, and never really stopped alternating shaking mine and Cameron's hands. Then, as mysteriously as he appeared, he was gone, leaving Cameron and I to wonder to each other "che pale??" (loosely translated this means "what the f***??" depending on the tone of your voice). Cameron was weirded out and immediately started looking for somewhere to wash his hands, but I was just happy to have one more story to tell, however difficult it would be to really illustrate the creepiness of the meeting.
The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. We waited for a music store to open after siesta only to find another one with a large vinyl record selection, which was fun to peruse for a while but with no room in my bag to bring any home and really no use for a vinyl record in the first place, it ended up just being a way to kill time before taking the tram back to the bus and the bus back to Castiglion. As with most days here, the rain eventually let up and the sun came out, alleviating a lot of the complaining by others. For me, a day in a city with a view of a far off town and a delicious lunch is usually enough to make it a good one for me. So that was Perugia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chianti Region Wine Tour
Last Friday was probably the best day of the trip so far. Along with seven other Ags, I took a tour of the Chianti region complete with about 12 (small) wine tastings, a trip to a castle built in 1000 A.D., and three other small towns unreachable by anything not traveling on four wheels. Everywhere we went there was a view that stretched far beyond the usual ten miles or so of visibility you get in Texas, and we were constantly surrounded by vineyards, large estates, and good wine.
The hilly Chianti region stretches famously between Florence to the north and Siena to the south, and we traveled seemingly everywhere in between. The trip from 1:30PM to 7:30PM cost 25 Euro and we had a local named Andrea (male) driving us around in a clean van giving us chunks of knowledge and general pleasant conversation in pretty decent English. What was nicest was being away from the group of 50 or so and just enjoying the environment in which we came to immerse ourselves. We didn't have to speak a lot of Italian, but for once we weren't traveling on a coach bus buzzing with female chatter or being forced to listen to an educational lecture. We listened to Andrea and were educated on things immediately relevant to the trip, rather than neo-classical, medieval, baroque, or any of the countless architectural eras that comprise most of our usual tours, and there were no headsets to directly connect the lectures to our inner ear either.
And then of course there was the wine itself. I was actually a little tired of chianti by the end of it, but it wasn't the only style we tried, and I might've had only one or two tastes that I didn't really care for. A lot of people bought bottles from Castello di Brolio (the 1000 year old one I mentioned) and Rocca delle Macie (which is usually distributed to Olive Gardens in the US, but which of course produces higher quality stuff, too, such as the Roccato we had at Christopher's when I first started), mostly with the intention of bringing home to family and friends, and I'm sure they'll all be successful gifts. At one point we stopped for gelato and I had my favorite flavor so far-- Dissaronno. Can you imagine anything much better? I still haven't found anything that trumps it. Maybe the pistachio in Castiglion or if Blue Bell tried to make gelato.
Anyway, it's hard to sum up exactly why the day was so much fun, but my difficulty in describing it might be an indicator of how simple and enjoyable it was-- free of distractions, deadlines, routine, and reality.
The rest of the weekend I slept in, saved money, which I ran out of before transferring more from savings, and just enjoyed the peace of Santa Chiara study center without the hundred or so occupants it usually houses, since most were traveling elsewhere.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Thoughts and Rome
I met some British tourists in a bar (translation: cafe) one morning about a week into the trip who asked me what our group was doing there, and I responded with our general study abroad outline. When they asked how long we were staying in Castiglion F.no specifically, and I told them five more weeks, they seemed puzzled and asked, "Five weeks...here?" as if there was nothing to do or enjoy for so long. I'm happy to say I contently told them that I'd rather spend five weeks there than just about anywhere I've seen in Italy so far, and even though they probably still didn't understand, I'm pleased that there will always be places like Castiglion that are exempt from the typical tourist comfort zone. The hour and a half I spent on foot searching for the laundromat outside the old town walls ended up being more enjoyable than my thoroughly average days in Rome, which I'm not even going to detail beyond the next sentence because anyone reading this can probably guess what we did in our giant group (I'll preface it by saying I'm still grateful to be anywhere in Italy, whether it's über-touristy or not.) Imagine the seven biggest landmarks in Rome and Vatican City and we probably hit them over two days, hindered by our group's size and overpaying for water, gelato, soda (for some), and just about everything else along the way. We never walked down a main boulevard without being hassled to buy really really crappy souvenirs or having to dodge throngs of tourists with said souvenirs and the invisible space five-to-fifty feet between their camera and subject. For those reasons, I can't imagine visiting Rome again, the exception maybe being during the off-season or if I'm with someone who hasn't been, because it's still a place that needs to be seen by a first and maybe second-time visitor. But if Rome is, as our guide explained today, a city that is always in transition, I'd much rather stick to the places that are steadfast in preserving the simple pleasures enjoyed by Italians who would prefer to never have to learn a somewhat more typical Roman phrase, "Would you like fries with that?"
No comments:
Post a Comment