A Panini on the Piazza!

Mar 16-20th

This week we have been working on a giant end of semester project for Cultural History of the Renaissance which has eaten up all my free time that I had to blog so here are the highlights of the past couple days. Well first off this project is a paper written as a thirty-minute presentation to a tourist group about a specific fresco cycle. It has been a lot of reading research and a lot of writing, but I am almost finished with it. I think it is one of the first times I have not procrastinated on a paper and pretty much have it done four days before it is due. Ha. Anyway, so nothing too special during the week that pops out to me worth sharing.

This Friday morning though a group of eight of us took a day trip to Siena for fun. It was a sweet day. We got just fully experience the city. We enjoyed sitting on the Piazza del Campo, which is a huge Piazza in the center of town where tons of people are just laying and sitting in making it look like a giant beach. Ate a fresh mozzarella, tomato, and spinach Panini on the piazza. I took a bunch of pictures of people and the cityscape and the girls did some shopping. I had a mandorla gelato which is almond flavored…so good. I mixed it with chocolate. Wow. We found some cute little family owned restaurant off the beaten path for dinner that was pretty cheap and delicious. It was a good break from all the frescoes we have been looking at in class (not that I haven’t gained a significant appreciation for them…but we have just seen a lot of them. Ha) and a chance to get to know the group I went with a lot better. I really enjoy everyone in my program and it has been great getting to know them. We got back later Friday night and hiked up the mountain from the train station again up to San Paolo.

Then Saturday was the festival of San Giuseppe(Saint Joseph) and so there was a lot of stuff going on around town that everyone was out for. It was a lot of fun. In the morning I went to the market and got a giant bag of Clementine oranges for 1 euro and then walked back and forth down the via del Duomo trying to figure out where a parade was supposed to take place. I never did figure it out. Supposedly a statue and parade or procession was supposed to take place bring the statue of Saint Joseph from the church of San Giuseppe in the center of town down the via del Duomo to the Duomo. I saw a ton of people milling about ready for the festivities, but never did spot the procession so that was a fail. Ha.

I went back later that night though around 6 and was there for the procession of the statue from the Duomo back to the church of San Giuseppe where it belonged. It was pretty crazy. Tons of people everywhere. They had a band all fitted out with fancy red and blue uniforms and a group of guys all wearing some sort of brown thing evidently from a confraternity (kind of like masons, or rotary, or some men’s club thing that does charity and stuff). There were a lot of white robed clergy and the head priest of the Duomo who all walked out in procession carrying this statue of Joseph. It was a big deal and then the whole crowd followed them down to the Piazza outside the church of San Giuseppe and the band played on a stage set up there. You could buy tubs of these rice donut things that were delicious for only 1 euro. It was a great way to further experience Orvieto and get a feel for the pulse of the people living here. Once again I feel more and more like I am an Orvietani. I took pride in my city.

This Sunday morning Prof. Skillen’s wife, who had just come a couple days earlier and is an ordained minister, held a service here in the monastery and invited a few people from the community as well who have been long time friends of the program. I played guitar and another girl played violin for the worship. It was good.

After that service I went to the San Giovenale service as well and sang in the choir again. I really enjoy doing that. It makes me really feel like I am a part of the congregation and the people are very welcoming. It is a really good practice for pronunciation of Italian because I’m reading Italian words that I have never seen before and then I’m following along with a melody I have never heard before so it is really quite the challenge, but I enjoy it. As I learn more Italian I get to recognize more and more of what is being said in the songs as well.

I also forgot to mention that we are starting to do Bible studies on Tuesday nights in the monastery, which has been good. We alternate we leads the discussion and then I have been leading worship on guitar with another girl playing violin. :) We just kind of started, but it looks like it will be good.