Perugia!

Well Thursday passed slowly, but I got a lot done. Once again got myself up and went to the library, finally getting out of the television coma. Classes were long but went well and lunch was the usual sandwich. I handed in my papers for Italian and Mythology, and then had a very interesting lecture in Religion. Dinner was strange; I accidentally took a bite of anchovy pizza which was the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted. The ham and margherita pizza slices made up for it though. Then we all got ready to go out!! It was the first time two of the girls were going out to Scholars, and it was an amazing night. Beret man was a crazy Italian guy who danced around us all night. He was insane and actually started biting a friend of mine's hair... Then three guys from South Africa joined our group in crazy jumping dancing to everything from Party in the USA to Cee Lo Green's big hit and YMCA. It was absolutely the best night out, and I am happy to say that after this first month, I have completely settled in and found an amazing group to hang out with. Thats actually the group I went to Perugia with, but we will get to that in a second.

Friday was good, slept in a little and then hit the library. Our group Northern Italy trip is next week so I will have no access to computers or books and mid-terms are right when we get back... I got all my notes typed and I am going to finish them up monday night so I can study while traveling. (I am going to upload the full itinerary for the week tonight!) Lunch at the hotel was some strange meatball dish with mashed potatoes, and a strange pasta that had fish on it that scared me (especially after the anchovy fiasco). Directly after lunch, we went on a cannoli run and then went to the train station to get tickets for Verona. Sadly though, upon arrival at the train station, we found out Verona was sold out so we got a map and Eurail passes so we could decide where to go that night. We went directly to the library again when we got back to pick a place to go and work some more. After intensive googling, we decided upon Perugia - the home of chocolate with a Nestle chocolate factory. We had a fun night of sitting in our friend's room chatting and watching movies before sleep.

I got up at 6:00 to meet everyone downstairs at 6:30. I was ready by 6:20 so I went to knock on the other girl's door to see if they were ready. It was a good thing I knocked because they had overslept! We managed to get on the bus at around 7 after getting some breakfast and got a train to Perugia that left at 7:45. The train ride was fun, we all talked and took photos off all the rolling hills along the way there. Umbria is gorgeous! It was a slow train so we didn't get to Perugia until 10:30 but it was really fun and we got some short naps on the way. As the train pulled into the station, we all looked at each other with the "where the heck are we and why did we go here??" face. It did not look good. The buildings seemed rundown, the train station seemed liked it was collapsing, and we had no clue where to go. Yay for pre-planning. We decided to go around to the train station entrance to get information and as we walked around to the front, everything started looking up! Literally. And figuratively. The town looked far better from the other side of the crummy buildings and the front of the train station was gorgeous, so we got excited. The walk to the city center took a full hour but the views along the way were breathtaking. Finally we reached a pretty statue in the center of a rotary so we decided we had to be close. Around the next turn was a sign for the centro pointing down into a strange dark tunnel but large groups of people were going in and out so we went on ahead. It lead through an area that was reminiscent of a subway entrance and dumped at us a line of escalators. After riding three consecutive escalators, we ended up in this incredible, yet strange, old building that looked like a castle. The room had a massive statue in the corner that spun and past that was a large doorway. The structure was made of stone, and they were stacked unevenly like you see in ancient buildings, with grand arches and extremely tall ceilings with windows along the top letting in sunlight. As we past through the door, two free exhibits about Perugia were to our left along with the stairs leading out and a museum on our left. We went right, checking out the exhibits before starting up to yet another escalator up. At the top, we were dumped in the middle of a stunning street with pretty old buildings and a large duomo in the distance. For the rest of the day, we explored everywhere finding strange staircases, cute restaurants, fun chocolate stores, and a very cool outdoor market at which I bought a gift for my parents and grandparents. We finally stopped in an information booth to find out what was open since every single church we passed was closed but apparently we hit it on the wrong day for indoor sightseeing (the worst part was the chocolate factory was closed). We were ok with that though, we had fun exploring all the nooks and crannies of the neat little city on a hill. I have so many stories from today that it would be hard to write them all down in such a short time so I will give you the cllif-notes version and I can tell you all the details over the phone - when we got there we were all starving so we went to find a restaurant and found a cute little place in an alley that served Hot Dog pizza with fries on it. Two girls ordered it and we all tried it. It was rather odd. I had primavera pizza which was delightful. We found a park with a tiny playground hidden away that was a bit run down, a guy was near the entrance burning a random cardboard box and then we found a hill that we climbed to find a large collection of stuff and sleeping homeless people (needless to say, we ran). Then on the way down we tried to find a shorter route back and got stuck in a car tunnel with no real sidewalk, but luckily it was a very quiet day (and it did end up being a whole lot faster). We also spent some time in a McDonald's waiting for our train, which was surprisingly similar, but delightfully different at the same time. We got happy meals and milkshakes, our third of four meals today. The train ride back took forever and we got back over an hour late which was frustrating but no big deal. We grabbed sandwiches and head back to the rooms. Now I am finishing up charging my electronics and getting ready for Florence in the morning! We may even hit up Pisa on the way back! I cannot wait! Arrivederci!