Yes, I am a 90’s child to the core… but some things can’t be
helped. So, when we go on our
weekly excursions, we usually take a bus, a nice charter bus, not a school bus,
but this week, I just kept feeling like we were on the magic school bus, but
instead of Mrs. Frizzle, we have Mr. Feeny (my apologies to those of you that
don’t understand those references…but basically it means that even a bus ride
can be awesome…)
Our “Mr. Feeny” is Filiberto, he knows so much, and we feel
like we have known him forever, and it is hard to picture our lives without him
around… He is also
hilarious. He uses a lot of puns
(very difficult to do when English is not your first language, but he
definitely does) and also throws
random things out like “We do have pretty good Chinese food here, but its not
authentic because we have different local ingredients, for example we don’t
have dragon in this country.” So
he sits in the front of the bus explaining the sites as we pass them, this
Friday we passed Lake Michigan (a lake caused by a dam in a river) and Lake Superior, same source, just
“higher”… Because we leave quite early in the morning, many people are asleep
for these lovely little moments, but because I struggle to sleep on
buses/moving vehicles in general, I am usually up to hear them.
Our destination Friday was Assisi, and I was thrilled. I am already making plans to go
back. Since I have been here, I
have become very interested in the life and work of Saint Francis of Assisi, so
obviously I was excited to visit his hometown. Assisi is a beautiful city, classically picturesque
Italy. We spent most of our time
in the Basilica di San Francesco, which actually has two churches built one on
top of the other, and it is built from the stone of Mount Subasio. These stones are pink and white, which
makes the façade quite striking.
Sadly however, the Basilica does not allow for pictures, so I only got a
few shots from the outside. But I
did walk around with my sketchbook in hand and sketched several things I found
interesting. I really enjoy
sketching while we are on excursions, but it does make it a little difficult
when the group keeps moving and I am still sketching.
The Basilica was full of wonderful pointed arches and barrel
vaults, the ceilings of which were all painted. Quite often the sails (pie like sections in the ceiling of a
barrel vault) are painted with stars, or other celestial images. Over time the blue pigment used for the
backgrounds decays, but it leaves this interesting mottled mix of dark and
light blues. I think it is even
lovelier than the few that have kept their even coloring. Some sails are painted with scenes of
saints, disciples, angels, and other things, and it has been interesting to see
how the artists deal with the challenges of working on a curved plain above
their audience’s heads. Quite
often, especially with paintings of buildings, they end up looking quite
fanciful more like something out of a pop-up fairytale book than the ceiling of
a gorgeous Italian church.
From the Basilica of San Francesco, we walked to the
Cathedral of San Ruffino, which was once the Temple of Minerva, in the Roman
times. Its original Roman pillars
are still standing in the front.
It was another reminder of how young America is… as I stepped through a
threshold that\ could claim millennia for its age, not centuries.
After some free time for lunch and shopping (Assisi has some
awesome shops, lots of things made with olive wood, which is gorgeous stuff) we
got back on the bus to go to the caves… and when I say caves, I mean expansive
limestone caverns inside of a mountain.
The caves were discovered about 40 years ago (September 27, 1971) by a
group of kids ages 16-21 that were doing some volunteer research in the
mountains…
In an effort to protect these gorgeous caves, photography
was once again disallowed… However, my friend Chelsea and I did procure the
tourist photo by the Giants, a
cluster of several stalagmites that are the biggest in the caves. And I took some picutres of the tourist
brochure they gave us… so you will just have to take my word for how amazing
they are. What makes them unique
is partially the pure whiteness of the stone, and they are very artfully lit so that you feel like the
whole room is glowing. It kind of
reminded me of Narnia, this otherworldly winter wonderland…except that instead
of fantastic snow formations, this was mineral deposits formed by millions of
years of gentle drops of water.
Friday, I got the chance to talk to a couple of friends via
Skype IM (the signal for internet in my room isn’t strong enough to video chat,
but it is in other parts of the apartment) But it was lovely to get updates on
life in the U. S. of A.
Saturday, I slept in, but had the intention to be very
productive with my day, as we are approaching midterms week. Lisa came over, and we were going to
study at the library after running a quick errand… well, we chatted, ran our
errand and made it to the library just before it closed. So then we went back to the apartment,
ate munch and chatted until about 4… so much for all that productivity, but it
was much more fun. Then
Saturday night, Erin and I made cookies (Miss Deb style, because they require
half the butter, and butter isn’t the cheapest ingredient…) But I would like to announce that I
could recall from memory, appropriate denominations of (nearly) all ingredients
in the oatmeal chocolate chip recipe from the “Dutch” cookbook that I grew up
with. I was off by a half of a
teaspoon of baking soda, and I could only ball park flour as 1.5-2 cups (it’s a
cup and ¾) so yes, I am just that good.
The cookie making process was just delightful. Erin and I put on some music and danced
around the kitchen. Despite my
excellent memory for the ingredient list, and ability to directly quote the
instructions…we ended up guessing on several measeurments, because we only have
one measuring cup (and it is for 1 cup), and no measuring spoons… so a lot of
it was just…that’ll do… But the
dough was delicious, and thanks to the timing of our little escapade, pretty
much dinner. We made the cookies
and sampled the finished product the moment they were not going to cause any
damage to our mouths. We brought a
cookie to Carlye as well, because she loves cooking, but is not as big of a fan
of baking. They turned out a bit
more crunchy than normal (probably do to oven, altitude, and imprecise
measurements…) but our brown sugar has such large grains that they didn’t fully
dissolve, and kind of gave a similar effect to a smash’em cookie.
This past Wednesday, I also did my first cooking class with
Marc and Gina, our professors from U of O. I learned how to make Spaghetti al Tono (that’s tuna, by the
way) And at this point I can say
that my opinion of fish has not really changed… still not a fan, but I did step
out and try it! Since I have been
here, I have had tuna 3 times, and shrimp once, I believe that is a greater
frequency of eating swimming things than has ever occurred in my life…
Anyway, embarking into midterms week, so I should probably think about studying some more...
Still basically a week behind on photos... but here is the facebook link :)
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150850802525705.739869.703125704&type=1&l=c34b564dd9
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