Visit to Montebello with Costantino and Marisa

After lots of discussion of the beautiful Montebello, Costantino and Marisa finally took me into the countryside where Costantino grew up (this was last week 2/29). The pointed out the farm where Costantino lived and then we stopped at their friends' house. I was able to see their huge pig, chickens, kittens, and rabbits! The countryside was definitely a beautiful sight. Their friend also showed me the Etruscan artifacts that they've found on their land: SO COOL! As we drove home, we pulled over on the side of the road, and Costantino and Marisa got out. I was a little confused. I asked what we were doing and they only replied with: FUNGHI (aka mushrooms). We climbed up the hill looking for mushrooms, but we were unsuccessful. Here is a picture of the Montebello countryside:

Orvieto and Umbria

Last weekend, we had our first out of three weekend trips included in our study abroad experience. It was great because we were able to meet a bunch of the students from LdM Rome including one of my sorority sister Liese!! We caught the train in Orte and made our way to a wildlife reserve in Alviano. Our guide gave us a tutorial on bird watching and we were able to check out the reserve. She brought me back to Gen Bio as she did water samples and inspected the critters under the microscope. We went to a cute little restaurant and enjoyed lots of pizza, prosciutto and Coco-cola on our own private floor with a deck overlooking the hills of Alviano. We then made our way to Orvieto, a town that reminded me a lot of Tuscania, but bigger. You have to ride up a little tram in order to get to the top of the "city on a hill." Orvieto is in the Italian region of Umbria. We had a bunch of free time and had amazing gelato. We found a tiny shop full of homemade leather goods. There were even slabs of leather just hanging across the bench ready to be crafted into purses, bracelets, diaries, etc. The shop was owned by a sweet older man. Later that night we met back at our hotel (which was so nice, called Hotel Corso), and we went to a palace to sample Umbrian delicacies including two of Orvieto's most famous wines. We hung out around the town and I later fell asleep in our boiling hot hotel room.

The next morning we had a delicious breakfast at the hotel: croissants, nutella, cereal, yogurt, fruit, pastries, etc. We then saw probably the most beautiful sight in Orvieto: the Duomo. Check it out:

This church was built in the 14th Century after a special miracle occurred in the nearby Bolsena (only about 20 minutes from Tuscania). A priest was traveling throughout Italy and he had doubts about whether or not the host and wine were actually the body and blood of Christ (a central belief of Catholics). While saying mass, this priest was shocked when blood starting pouring from the host after he broke it. The blood stained the altar cloth, so the Duomo was built to house this relic. As you can see, the front of the church is beautifully decorated with carved figures and frescoes. Unfortunately, not all of the frescoes are complete originals because they were touched up in order to be preserved, but all of the carvings are originals. They describe the story of Adam and Eve, and there is a beautiful rose window in the upper half. The sides of the church are striped, which I have never seen before. These horizontal stripes contrast the Gothic vertical columns in the front of the church in order to provide a balance. Our guide also told us that the church has both Gothic (extremely high vertical towers) and Romanesque features (round arches). He explained the history of Orvieto and how  there was discord among the aristocrats and peasants, so the aristocrats decided to call in the Romans to help put the peasants to rest. However, this was a bad idea because the Romans had wanted to conquer Orvieto for a long time, so they ended up killing many of its inhabitants and taking over. The survivors fled to Bolsena (this is the connection with the Duomo) and started their lives there. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that the descendants returned to their beloved Orvieto. (I'm not very good at history, so I think that I'm recalling this correctly. Sorry Mike, you're my history guy :)).

We also checked out St. Patrick's Well which people used to retrieve water, and it was extremely well designed so that there were two pathways: one to go down and one to go up. This way, people did not run into each other while getting water. Here is a picture:

The bottom was filled with coins that believe have thrown in to make wishes.

After this visit, we continued to explore and shop. I bought some chocolate covered coffee beans at a chocolate shop that were delicious!

We made our way home after a great weekend!

THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA!

The Friday after Carnevale, we decided to venture out to Pisa via the train. We woke up around 5:30 AM in order to head out by 6:30 to catch our taxi ride to the station. We made it to Pisa around 10 and explored the cute town. There were lots of shops and places to eat. We were starving so we stopped at a restaurant to have some pizza before taking loads of pictures at the tower. The tower was just as cool as it has always sounded. There were tons of tourists taking photos across the green. We tried to stake out a good spot and we practiced our poses. Check out some of my best moves:

Montebello, Capodimonte, Viterbo, Carnevale in Italia!!

Ciao! (I have been working on this post for a while so it's old. I apologize for my recent disappearance from the blog!).

So the past week or so has been busy as usual! The snow has finally all melted, and this weekend it's supposed to be around 63 degrees! Perfect timing for our rescheduled trip to Umbria and Orvieto. I can't wait.
The dessert featured this week in our house was ravioli....the sweet kind :). This is essentially a ravioli with sugar and ricotta cheese inside, topped with powdered sugar. Of course I was in charge of sprinkling the sugar and managed to get it all over my body. No surprise there. Unfortunately our cooking class was cancelled because our professor was sick, but in wine class we got to taste four wines instead of three. We are really learning how to pick out the exact fruit/herb/spice scents in the wines which I think is a very important life skill.

On Wednesday I went to Montebello, my host father's hometown (about a 10 minute drive into the country). He always jokes with me and tells me that the town is huge, just like Mount Everest. However, it is a beautiful countryside. We went for a mini-field trip to check out the museum of Cesetti and well as the work of a French painter who is living/working there. Check out this painting of a man who lives there and has been working on this painting for two years, and is still not finished! It was really cool to see an artist's work in progress.

This side depicts lots of famous figures and is almost in the form of a religious calendar. There were so many intricate details. He explained that someone pointed out there there were no women figures in this painting. So....here is the other side, depicting many women and signs of birth...

Friday we went to Viterbo and toured around the town with Massimo. For those of you who don't know...Viterbo is the capital of the province. Fun facts that I learned:

1. Viterbo was actually the host for the elections of of several popes in the 13th century. We were able to see the conclave.
2. There are lots of really pretty churches there including the Church of the Holy Trinity and St. Agostino.
3. Cappuccino gelato is unreal.
4. Never order a burger in Italy at a fast food restaurant. I was starving and we were in a hurry, so I decided to give it a try. I proceeded to pry the burger off of the cardboard box it came in. I had a feeling that something wasn't right when we proceeded to immediately hand me the burger when I told her what I wanted.

That Saturday, we went to Capodimonte for a quick little visit. It is on Lake Bolsena which is the largest volcanic lake in Italy. The view from the town "castle" was beautiful, and we saw a neat marina on the shore. We decided to grab lunch at a cute little restaurant. We had bruschetta and lasagna that was yummy. Here's a photo of me, Connor, and Allie at the marina in the town.

Then, came one of my favorite experiences so far: Carnevale in Italy!!! Carnevale is essentially Italy's version of Mardi Gras in the United States, but it is much more creative and exciting. On Sunday the 19th, I was in the Tuscania Carnevale parade with some girls from school. We were told that they needed more people on the floats, so we were more than excited to help out. We were told to dress like farmers to fit the theme of the float. When we arrived to the meeting point decked out in our farmer gear, we discovered that we were the oldest participants by about 10 years (besides the chaperones). Initially, we were wondering what the heck we got ourselves into, but we ended up having an amazing time. We filled our cowboy hats with confetti and rode on the floats all throughout the town while the music blared and we threw the confetti in the air. When we approached the main street, I could not believe how many people were there. I didn't even know Tuscania had that many people! I picked out my host family from the crowd as they smiled and waved back at us. We even rode through the historical walls (even though the float got stuck between the Etruscan stone a few times). Here is a picture from the festivities:

On Fat Tuesday (or Martedi Grasso in Italian), the festivities continued with a huge party at one of the local bars. I'm pretty sure that almost all of the LdM students were in attendance. We all wore masks and had a blast. The bar was packed....surprisingly with lots of children. And no not just little kids but infants. And of course they were dressed up too! It was a great night. Here's a picture of me with my mask and my friend Sara: