Friday, January 30, 2009

The last couple days

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure! :-)


Don't you wish your front door looked like this? I do.

There was a street lamp in the sky!!

Had to include a vespa...not just any vespa, but an old, classic vespa.

This was one of only a few pretty graffiti in Perugia. Not a hundred percent sure what it says, I will get back to you on that.

The colors are so bright sometimes, although 9 times out of 10 the camera can't capture how rich they are.

And a random pigeon perched on his window.


So last time I made claims of an Indian restaurant..and unfortunately it had closed for business indefinitely (probably because they were an Indian restaurant in Italy) so instead we opted for Chinese food, which turned out to be quite good (fried ice cream for dessert!!!). Thursday we had a day off for the festival of the patron saint of Perugia, San Costanzo. There was a big market, and it was so nice out so me and Gabby did some more exploring. Thursday night we went to an Irish pub named Elfo's, which actually played a lot of classic rock (anywhere that plays Creedence Clearwater Revival is good in my book). Tomorrow is ASSISI which I am SOOOOOOOOO excited for. Hopefully the weather will keep up (fingers crossed, knock on wood etc.)
Ciao!

Oops I forgot the round church and the castle

And here is the famous castle tower! It's actually just the top of an arch leading into town...but still cool.
This is the famous round church that felt so medieval.

The round church, the castle tower, and the accordionist

This is literally a street in our backyard. You walk a little ways down our street, walk up a flight of stairs, and up this street and this is what you see.
I thought I should add a little Italian pride

This is the accordion man.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Medieval and Indian goodness

Today was the first sunny day in a few days, so after class, thanks to an extended break (cancelled letteratura!!) I walked around basically in the streets and areas in our apartments 'backyard' and discovered some really beautiful houses, huge backyards, forests and even a castle. Up a little farther was the round church that Perugia is also famous for. Gabby and I went inside and...you could smell the history of it. It is one of those structures that has remained completely unchanged since it was built (1500's or so) and inside smells like damp, cool, medieval rocky smell that none of Perugia's other churches have smelled like so far. Its very intense to walk into something so old. Right in front of it is a pretty little lawn with stone benches, and if you walk down the path you join Corso Garibaldi, which when you walk down leads you right to my school!
It's insane that people live in constant view of this church. I mean...we have the minutemen. Which are great and all, but they ain't no jousting knights!
I will post many pictures tomorrow.

In other, equally as important news: tonight I am going to eat at an Indian restaurant which serves....buffet. A buffet of Indian food which, for those of you who know me, will result in massive amounts of ingested food following a day of purposely saving space for this feast. As my friend Elisabetta put it "Oh I miss ethnic food". Pasta/pizza/gnocchi/bread is amazing, no doubt about it, but we crave curry.

Bisous!!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Did I mention....


I forgot to mention that on the form you have to fill out for the bank...it asks for your hobbies and practised sports.
I didn't feel like explaining frisbee :-)

For Italian Eyes Only...

this is the saga of Mistah M, also known as Marco from UniCredit Banca in Perugia, and myself.
it all started about a week and half ago, when I walked into the bank saying that I would like to open an account. sure, he says, you need a codisce fiscale.
A what? Obviously, I didn't have one, but he showed me on a map where to go, to the Agenzie delle Entrate, which would give me a codisce fiscale (something kind of like a social security number). So Monday a week ago, I go to this Agenzie (which mind you, is halfway down the MiniMetro line), and after a billion years of trying to understand this building/maze, I get to the secretary and say, I need a codisce fiscale for a bank account. She hands me a form I need to fill out, and says that I need to ask my landlord (?!?) for a Cession di Fabbrica, which I suppose is like a proof of residence (or something...). Obviously, I was annoyed, but I go back to the Umbra Institute to use the computers and ask if they know what it is. The housing lady says that she does, and she's sending paperwork in and that once its complete she will ask the landlord to send me a copy of it. "Come back in a couple of days". Yeah....right.
So I go online later, to look up this codisce fiscale, and I find a website that generates one for you. I fill out the information, and I get one. I was a little suspicious, so I fill out a new one with a fake name etc, and it can't generate one. Allright, so it's maybe a real one. I ask the housing lady if this is what some codisce's look like, and she says sure, why not.
Well, I wasn't sure, so later last week I come back to get my cessione di fabbrica, only to find out that it won't be complete because they are missing a copy of one of my roomate's passports (even though they had been in position of either her american one or her italian one for the entirety of the three weeks we'd been here). So I'd have to wait a little longer. Well, I decided I was not going to, so last friday I walk into the bank and Marco asks me if I got the codisce. I say yes, and show him my printout, which looks less than official. After some convincing on my part, he skeptically accepts it, and says to come back Monday morning because there will be more people working at the bank, and we'll do it then.
So this brings us to today, where I walk in, all ready to go. I hand him my information, he copies it, and then he asks me to follow him. We walk through a door, down a corridor, into this back room that looked a little like an interrogation room. I sit down, and he starts fiddling with the computer, filling out information and numbers and whatnot. I'm holding my breath because lord knows that all of a sudden something is going to happen.
But nothing does. He fills out the account information, the passport information, address, phone number etc. He clicks to confirm, and BAM. ERRORE. In bright red. He goes back, and re-submits. ERRORE. He goes back, re-submits. No dice. So he goes back and re-fills ALL of it. It finally works, and prints. Marco then has to go back and confirm some personal information, among them....the codisce fiscale. he clicks to submit, and my heart stops-!!!!!ERRORE-CODISCE FISCALE. those exclamation points are so unholy. so i say "um...is it saying the codisce is false?" and he says "well maybe. it might be because your middle name wasn't in the codisce". So he deletes my middle name from the ID part, and sure enough, it works. I could breath.
Now that it's all done, he goes to pick up all the paperwork that I need to sign.
NONE OF IT PRINTED. so it's back to the forms, and re-printing. 15 minutes, two computer freezes and one restart later, I walk out of the bank with my brand new card, a spring in my step, and in desperate need of coffee.

Grazie mille Marco for putting up with me!!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Mass, Amelie and Cafe

So last night Sara and I stayed in because we were so tired, and had a quiet night watching superman in italian and trying to figure out what we wanted to do for the next four months. Today we're sitting down with the roomies and making a huge gameplan for the next four months. Full, FULL weekends. At the carta giovane center we got tons of literature on what to do, and we will never have to leave perugia cuz there is so much to do (but we will anyways). Next week we plan to go to Assisi, which is a beautiful city with tons of gorgeous churches, and then we want to go to Deruta which is known for their pottery.

Anyways more about today. This morning Gabby, Sara and I woke up to go to mass in the main Duomo, which was really nice and of course filled with people. The service was all in italian which made it even more enjoyable. It was a gorgeous day out, so we walked around for a bit longer. Now in Perugia, there is a guy who plays the accordion almost every day (he's one of many 'characters' of Perugia). Now, he is Italian (I think) but teaches at the conservatory, and is one of those multi-talented people who has travelled the world and makes what you have done seem so small. But, thats not even the best part. The best part is that he plays the entire soundtrack of Amelie, and apparently- he helped Yann Tiersen on the music. Which is incredible, and there is nothing better than walking down Corso Vannucci on a quiet Sunday afternoon listening to Amelie.
After listening to him for a little while, we stopped this couple that had just been talking to him. They had just asked him to play for Attilio's (that was the man) festa that he was having. After talking to him for a while, we found out he was from Le Marche, the region that borders Umbria to the east. He was telling us about how beautiful it is, and which towns we need to visit (note to self: Aspelo and San Ginesio). So that is definitely one of the many places we need to go to.
Potential plans for the future include: a visit to the Umbra and/or Tuscany hot springs, a bike ride through Tuscany, hiking in and around the mountains of Perugia, a day trip to Firenze (assuming they don't decide to strike, which they did on friday from 9am to 5pm.), Assisi, Deruta, more Perugia fun and now a trip to Le Marche, among others. It seems like every day we discover new places and things to do.
After talking with the couple we went for a cafe at "Bar Medioevo", which is a bar tucked away which on the outside looks small, but inside has nooks and a slightly vaulted ceiling. A perfect italian Sunday!
Later, we are going to do some homework, plan out a couple trips and then maybe see a movie with Donatella.
A presto!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Saturday

I hate technology, and I hate microphones. The Skype microphone doesn't work which is why I can't call anybody because I will hear you but you will not hear me (add me if you haven't!).
So I hate technology.
Today we went to the open air mercato again, and I bought two scarves, which I obviously don't need. But they were so pretty! Its a rainy day today, and tonight my roomate Sara and I are going to make dinner and maybe watch a movie. A relaxing day because last night we had friends over for dinner, and then we went to a bar which was having a rock night...like I said, I missed AC/DC.
I have almost all my pictures posted up! I will update when they are all done.
I will leave you with pictures from after mercato...when the umbrella broke with the pouring rain :-(


gabby and I. we were more amused then mad.

and a little twirl!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Thursday Evening...

So tonight there are two famous journalists, Beppe Severgnini and another (oops...forgot the name) who are having a lecture forum thing about these books they have written. Beppe is a Corriere della Sera writer, and is relatively well known in the US as well (according to Prof. Francesco). Hopefully I will get to go!
In other news, I ate too much pasta today, as cliche as it sounds, and now I have to go buy salad for fear of exploding if I eat anything else remotely like pasta. Did I also mention that I drink coffee now? uh oh....

Tonight at 9 is the Devil Wears Prada in italian, which obviously me and the roomates are going to watch together. Whilst eating salad :-)

IN CASE anybody wants my address, here it is before i forget:

Chloe Greppi
Umbra Institute
Via Bartolo, 16
Perugia 06122
ITALIA

bisous a tous!

Tandem

last night gabby, caitlin (other roomate) and I went to Tandem, which is organized by Umbria in which americans and italians get together and speak italian/english. we met some really nice people, and afterwards we went to aperitivo at lunabar (a jazz/music/cafe place). some italians invited us to a serata at a cafe near school where the DJ plays rock and not silly techno...which is great. I miss AC/DC. the next meeting is in two weeks, and we are all definitely going!
on another note...we bought our roomates Donatella and Chiara a little bag of chocolates and wrote them a card wishing them good luck on their exams. They are studying engineering and math (respectively) and have been studying quite literally all day and all night. so we wanted to give them a little something-they were really happy :-)

bacci!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

This is the inside of Feltrinelli, which is their barnes and noble. they have school supplies, books, notebooks, music and movies. the staircase is a huge collage of movie scenes, and this one was my favorite :-)
This church is one of many in Perugia, but it's right by our school. at night the inside is lit up bright orange and is so beautiful against the navy blue sky.

This is the view from the mini metro station (their subway). those are the appenines (i think) over yonder, and although they are far away, we hope to be able to ski there.
In the courtyard of a church/apartment building, there were these flowers that had dew drops all over the leaves, and after many a try, finally got this picture. it was about 7 or so at night, and so quiet and pretty.

Our flinstones escapade, from left: Donatella, her boyfriend francesco, francesco #2 and andrea. Francesco due and Andrea both want to go to Miami, and we told them that they should go. they'll make pit stops at our places before heading down to the 'beech' :-) they are awesome.
At the fattoria on saturday 1/18/09, Gabby and I found a ginormous cactus, and decided to hide underneath it. it was bigger than this picture would have you believe..cactissimo, if you will.

three of the four (american) roomies: Sara, Me, Gabby. Sarah is from Maine, Gabby is from Maryland. they are wonderful :-)
This was the view from one of the school buildings at night...it took literally 20 photos before i achieve this.
Perugia at night....yes. its that beautiful.

DISCOUNTS!

so today my roomate gabrielle and i went to the center for 'young people' services in perugia, and got: a 'young person' ID card which gives us discounts to everything under the sun, a free internet ID card with password, a huge map, a book of places we can get discounts, the entire bus schedule, an agenda, doctor jekyll and mr. hyde in italian, and a list of where and what to do in and around perugia. needless to say- i have A LOT of reading to do now.

Today in class we discussed marriage, which was interesting because we got to share our different perspectives. i thought that marriage has become less of a necessity, because now both men and women can be easily independent, at least more easily than in the past. but according to people from other places (azerbidjian, germany and greece) it is still something that is expected. i know that in france people don't necessarily get married, and i know that in the US it happens differently depending on region. It was interesting, definitely.

Afterwards, before coming here, we went to a bar (its official guys- i drink coffee now. goodbye chai, hello espresso!!!) and the girl there, Flavia, chatted us up and invited us to an italian dinner she was planning on having. it is so easy to meet people here, and there isn't a stigma against foreigners (after all-this is a city of foreigners). on saturday our roomate Donatella invited us to dinner with her boyfriend Francesco and their five other friends. we went to a flinstones themed restaurant (no joke-ill show pictures) and it was amazing. they were so nice, we chatted about everything, from what italians think of americans (they think that the world sees italians badly because of their government....haha), to these two guys who want to go to miami (we told them they'd be popular-but to leave the speedo at home).

Sunday we took a tour to a fattoria, where the farm is run by family, and we made pasta (and then ate it). i'll post pictures of that too. Friday was a big exploration day, we (my american roomates sarah and gabby) took a TON of pictures.
that is the last couple days in a nutshell, monday was school as per usual (4 hours) and yesterday was school (7 hours..sadness) i will post up a couple pictures right now of Perugia, and the past couple days and soon hopefully, i'll have all my pictures posted up on ovi.com (i'll send a real address once it happens)

ciao ciao!

Monday, January 19, 2009

First Post!!!

After hours of toil....I finally have a blog whose colors aren't blinding or terribly clashy.
Just want to say that all is well, and that soon (hopefully tomorrow) I will be able to put up a long blog, or crash course blog, of the past ten days in PERUGIA!!!!!