Hello everyone! Phew! Since a lot has happened since my last post, so I’m going to split this up into two separate posts; the first one is my scary story, the second one, about a trip I took to rural Umbria. Bear with me while I catch you up!

I can’t go any further until I tell you about my night before my first day of intensive Italian classes. My roommates and I went out for gelato and a walk at about 9 pm and then Natalie and I came back around 10 pm and went straight to bed. The other two stayed out with other friends and didn’t get back until midnight or so, but went promptly to bed after getting back. All of a sudden, we were all awoken by someone pounding at our door, and a man’s voice yelling at us in Italian! Naturally, we all are confused and drowsy, but also scared out of our wits, as then this Italian man tries to open our door! Thank god we have approximately five locks on our door, all of which we lock at night, but still! We weren’t about to open the door, and we don’t have a peephole, so we yelled through the door to see what he wanted. Apparently it was just our neighbor, informing us that we had locked the main door to the building from the inside earlier today and had locked someone out. Of course they blame it on the stupid American girls, and even though chances are, it was us, as the doors here are modeled after medieval times and, as I said before, have about five locks each, even though you only have a key for one . . . but even if it WAS us, the man didn’t have to scare the bejeezus out of us in the middle of the night!

So, finally, he left, and we went to bed, shaken, a little freaked out, but tired. About an hour later, I wake up to a BLOOD-CURDLING scream like someone is being murdered, and immediately my next panicked thought is about the British Study Abroad student who was murdered in her apartment in Perugia last year, for which her American roommate, the roommate’s Italian boyfriend, and a drug-dealer are STILL all in jail, waiting for the trial that actually starts this week. SOOOOO, after I check to make sure I haven’t wet myself in fright, I get up and it turns out it was one of my roommates who was having a nightmare about someone attacking her in her bed. So. Relieved it wasn’t one of my roommates going psycho and murdering someone, but successfully freaked out nonetheless, I attempted to go back to bed, but didn’t actually get to sleep until somewhere around three or four in the morning.

Of course I started class the next day, so I had to get up at eight. Class was fine – it will be a challenge to pack all the Italian in, but I’m excited for it, and am in the perfect place to practice using it! We had class from 9 until 12:00, when we had break for lunch, and I just bought yogurt next door at a convenience store before going back to class from 1:30 to 3:00. During that last hour and half of class, my vision started to get blotchy for some reason, then I started sweating inexplicably, and then a skull-splitting headache came on. Finally, a wave of nausea hit me full force – I had to excuse myself once from class to, well, you know. It was all I could do to not spew the rest of my lunch all over my classmates for the remaining 30 minutes, and I practically ran home to finish the job. It was awful. But no worries, after that, I took an ibuprofen, took a three-hour nap, and woke up feeling fine. Must’ve been the yogurt, I’m guessing, or the lack of the sleep, or the fact that my nerves were fried from the night before!

So that did not make for the best first days in Perugia, but since my mental and physical health have GREATLY improved! J

So the pictures accompanying this post are from a trip to rural Umbria, the province that Perugia is the capitol of. It was a big group of us who came here through Arcadia University in the U.S. Anyways, we went to a big azienda, or a big farm where they grow EVERYTHING! It was about 130 acres total, including rented land, and they grew olives, grape vines, hay, faglioni (a legume), horses, and pigs. The pigs they have are black with a white stripe down their front end – apparently they are a common breed here, and have to be raised in the open air, not a barn like in the U.S. Here, as you can see in the pictures, they put them in the vineyards and olive-tree fields because they are cleaners who eat all the weeds and such, and also because they fertilize the land. The owner just clapped his hands and a bunch came running for the food he threw them that you can see them all huddling around in one picture. We also saw a three-month-old colt named Gibri, (I think) which translates into desert wind. Another mare somehow got her scent on him, so his own mother wouldn’t claim him. The owner of the azienda feeds him from a bottle, and plays with him, since he says the colt thinks he is his mother. He even played calico (soccer) with the owner!

After taking a tour of the grounds, we went into the kitchen with all the Italian women of the town who taught us how to make some sort of flatbread – torta di testa, which is the name of the pan that it is cooked on. The dough just consisted of flour, salt, yeast, olive oil, and water, and after kneading it, you rolled it out and baked it on the stove-top on this pan. You can cut it open after it’s done and put cheese, tomatoes, olive oil, or anything you want in it. Then, my favorite part, they showed us how to make homemade pasta! The picture I have here is of one of the girls from our group cutting it after it had been rolled out and then rolled up. You have to let it dry out for half-an-hour or so before you can use it. If anyone has any interest, I’ll show you when I come home!

After all of this, we had a four course lunch with all locally grown and cooked food, consisting of more of the pigs we saw today, tomatoes grown in their gardens, along with the pasta and flat bread that we helped to make! They also had local wine for us to drink that they had made there. It was a red wine, pretty sweet, and relatively strong – reminded me a lot of port. It was a wonderful lunch – I completely understand why they only use the freshest and local ingredients in their food here – it all tasted so fresh and full of flavor! But after eating all four courses, and getting extremely tired, I also have a new understanding as to why they have la pausa here, which is basically an enforced siesta, when all the stores in Perugia and some other areas close from 1 to 4 in the afternoon.

This Wednesday we start our regular classes, and this weekend I am going to Napoli with a few of my friends, so until then, hope you all have a wonderful week, I miss you all, and I hope I didn’t bore you too much with all my stories! :) Ciao!