Mar 27- Apr 4
Well, it’s been awhile since I posted. :/ I will try to give you the highlights of this past week and weekend and not have a super long post, but we will see. Ha.
So, a week ago we started the second semester/month of class, which is drawing studio for me. I have not had a legit art class since elementary school and so this class has definitely been pretty overwhelming for me. My prof said that the class will root us in the fundamentals, but it is also an upper level drawing class so at some points I definitely feel in over my head and lacking compared to most of the other students. It has been humbling and frustrating at times, but overall it has been a great learning experience for me. We do a ton of drawing. We spend 3-5 hours in class each day and then anywhere from 2-4 hours plus of homework each night. Please pray that I can continue to learn quickly and not get discouraged when things don’t turn out the way I want them to.
Ok, so after class was over this Thursday and after I had eaten lunch I went out and just wandered the city with my camera until dinnertime. It was amazing. I got to see parts of the city I had never seen before and saw different aspects of the parts that I had been in before. I love Orvieto and would not want to live anywhere else. This weekend was the first weekend that I have not left Orvieto and so it was super relaxing to just slow down and enjoy the beauty that is all around me.
On Friday I got up around 9 and went out with my camera again to check out the morning light and wandered the city again until 1pm when I went straight to lunch. After lunch I exchanged my camera for conte(oily black drawing utensil) and paper. I stayed out in the city drawing and exploring until 8pm for dinnertime. It was glorious. Between Thursday and Friday I was out in the city for over 12 hours!
Quick story about the end of Friday before I cam back for dinner... I was out drawing a gate into a driveway when the gate opened and a guy drove out into the middle of the street. He stopped and rolled down his window and asked to see what I was drawing. I came over to his window with my hands all covered in conte and I’m sure I had smudges all over my face as well.(a fact you just have to accept as the norm…you are always covered in graphite, conte, or whatever we are drawing with) ha. I stood there talking with him in a mix of Italian/Spanish/English for about 15 minutes or so with his car parked in the middle of the street (he was at the end of the street so he wasn’t blocking traffic, but it was still funny) and then he said the sun was in his eyes so he had me go around and get in the passengers seat so we could continue talking. I ended up talking with this dude for like 45 minutes to an hour! William was from Columbia and had only lived in Orvieto for 5 months. He was a Presbyterian priest and had his little shirt with the white collar on. He will be leaving in a little over a year to go back to Columbia. Anyway, I am not going to go into detail all about this guy, but it was a super engaging and stretching conversation. His English was not that great at all…he knew a few words pretty much. We talked primarily in Italian even though his native language was Spanish, but he realized that I wanted to work on my Italian so he stayed in Italian as he seemed pretty much fluent in Italian. It was so much fun though and so helpful with helping me learn Italian. Normally if someone knows a decent amount of English you can ask in Italian how to say a word and then say it in English or describe the word in English to get them to tell you the Italian word. This guy though didn’t know that much English so I was forced to use other Italian and Spanish words to describe the word that I was looking for in Italian. It was really sweet though and I hope to find more opportunities like that to practice my Italian.
On Saturday I decided not to go out in the city, but after going to the market and lunch I brought my blanket, pillow, Bible and a few books out into the courtyard of the monastery and just napped/read until dinnertime. So wonderful. The weather as you can imagine from the fact that I have been outside a lot has been simply gorgeous. The occasional breeze and 75-80 degrees…sunny…blue skies. ☺
This Sunday(yesterday) I had the unique opportunity to go on a 3 hour hike each direction to some hot springs. It was a great hike and the hot springs were great. I mean no big deal just hiked to some amazing hot springs and then hiked back. After we got back and ate dinner we had our first guys night out. My roommate, Prof. Doll, my RD (Josh), and I went to Alessandro’s (my Italian teacher) apartment to watch Roma play Juventus in football (soccer). Alessandro is a huge Roma fan and so we helped him cheer on Rome. It was a lot of fun and hopefully we will be able to do it a few more times while we are here. Sadly Roma lost zero a due (0-2). :/
Hopefully I’ll get a few more pics on here when I get the chance!
is juventus a spanish team?
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