Assisi

FINALLY WENT TO ASSISI YESTERDAY!!

Assisi, land of churches. A city where literally, there is no ugly alley, no ugly street, no ugly people, no ugly dogs, no ugly food. A city where also, there are TONS of nuns and priests. The city looks so clean, but mainly the churches were amazing. We took the train in the morning which was really easy, then took a bus up from the train station up to Assisi, and then we just walked around ALL day long.
I really can't do Assisi justice in words...so here are the pictures. Also, its nestled in the mountain side, and it looks like Minas Tirith in LOTR. I just had to insert that observation in there.


Chiesa San Francesco

The piazza right in front of San Francesco

Amazing doorway. JEALOUS ( kind of looks like a hobbit house)

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.

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!!

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!!