May 10th – 15th
On the way to the restaurant where we eat every day there is a stationery/sporting goods store. Ha. Anyway, we have gotten to know the owner, Aldo, and he has invited to play volleyball with a group that meets regularly to play. I have played a few times and it has been a blast. There are usually 20 or so people both my age and some older people too. On Tuesday I was planning on going like usual, but only Carly and I were going. She left dinner a little early to go there and I show about 20 minutes later. I walk in the gym and there are about 10 middle-aged Italian women and a coupe older Italian men plus Carly lying on their backs in a circle on the floor. Carly sees my super confused look and whispers to me, “So….we are doing abs.” ha. I’m thinking, “Ok, have I roped myself into some Italian yoga session or something?” Anyway, it ends up being a super comical situation because it was just the two of us college kids and then all these older Italians doing random exercises and then random volleyball drills. We finally piece it together that we showed up for volleyball “practice” and not game night. Haha. It was hilarious. Needless to say we made up an excuse and got out of there as quickly as we could.
On Wednesdays our group has been playing soccer for fun the past few weeks and hopefully it will continue to be a weekly thing. This Wednesday there were only 6 of us Americans that showed up and so I ended up playing with some Italian boys that were around against the American girls plus Eduardo, the choir director at San Giovenale. It was fun.
Straight from soccer we hurried down to Piazza Cahen, which is the piazza directly down the street from the monastery where I live. Have you heard of Giro d’Italia? Well, it is one of the major cycling events internationally and it is on par with the Tour de France. Orvieto was the 5th or 6th overnight stop during the two-week race that goes all across Italy. In basically one day Orvieto was transformed. In the piazza they had set up huge barricades, a giant finish line, a TV set, grandstands, bleachers, and all kinds of vendors selling Giro d’Italia gear. It didn’t look like Orvieto at all. So we got down there right as the cyclists were coming in. It was crazy how many people were down there cheering on the cyclists. The Tour De France’s color is yellow and the Giro d’Italia official color is pink and so everywhere you looked there was pink. I got myself a pink Giro d’Italia shirt too. Ha. That night with a bunch of people who had traveled from all over the world in Orvieto and all the cyclists there were all kinds of festivities and craziness going on. There were live bands everywhere and the town was super crowded with people. In Piazza Republico there was some giant group spinning session with probably over a hundred stationary bikes set up in the piazza with music and crazy lights. Hilarious. In the Piazza del Popolo there was a semi truck with an open trailer transformed into a dance floor. The piazza was filled with people dancing and music. They even had a couple playboy bunnies brought in for this. It was crazy and totally didn’t feel like we were in Orvieto at all.
The next day around 1130 the cyclists left from the Duomo. It was packed, but I was able to make my way through the crowd and got a sweet spot right near the start line and was able to get some sweet photos. It was so unreal to have this major international event go right through Orvieto and happen on the streets that I walk every day.
That night we had a dance party in the monastery! One of the girls in the program is a legit DJ and so we set up lights and a sound system and had a sweet dance party in the refectory of the monastery. Everyone got decked out in crazy outfits. I’m sure some photos will be floating around on Facebook. A funny moment from that night was on our way to dinner in our outfits we bumped into a nun that lives in the other part of the monastery and her face when she saw us was priceless. She smiled once she processed it, but it was great. Ha.
On Friday morning three of us went to the farm I mentioned in a previous post. I went before with a larger group of people, but decided to go back again because I enjoyed it so much. We worked Friday from around 830am – 6pm. It makes for a wonderful day. La panorama e molto pittoresco, la lavore e salutare, pranzo e molto buona! The view is very picturesque, the work is healthy, and lunch is very delicious. The view is definitely amazing looking out from a valley near Orvieto to the surrounding mountains, vineyards, and olive groves. You feel good after a full day of work and my favorite part….you guessed it…the food. She stopped at a café in Orvieto scalo on the way to the farm and I got an amazing pastry filled with some coffee flavored crème and a café. Around 11 we got pizza for a snack and then an amazing pranzo. First we had ziti with tomatoes that she grows, basil and oregano from the farm, and her olive oil (literally the best olive oil I have ever tasted in my life!). I don’t think I understood what olive oil was supposed to taste like until I came to Italy and then I didn’t know what the most amazing olive oil ever tasted like until I had Roberta’s. Wow. Next she brought out a frittata, kind of like a super thick omelet or a quiche. This frittata was made with eggs from her chickens, spinach from her garden, and onions from her garden, and basil from her garden….amazing. Then for desert we had a blackberry crostata, which was delicious.
Yesterday was a super nice relaxing day. I spent most of the day in the courtyard of the monastery. I brought my blanket and pillow out and worked on my poem that is due tomorrow between a few naps. :) Yesterday night a few of us went to check on a gate to the underground caves that are under the cliffs that Orvieto is built upon. A girl on the trip thought that she saw one of them was unlocked and so decided to check it out. Well, it was unlocked and so we were able to go in with flashlights and check it out. Super sweet, and then we decided that it would be awesome to do some light graffiti in the caves. We ran back up to the monastery and got flashlights, colored tissue paper, and some sea glass that I had found on the beach in Venice. It was so much fun. I’ll have to show you the photos here soon when I get a chance to put some up. For those of you that don’t know what light graffiti is…it is when you take long exposure photos and then “paint” a place with lights. Sometimes people use glow sticks and other fancy lights, but we made do with the materials we had and a few of them turned out really sweet.
This morning I got up around 515am and went down to the cliff edge to do my devotions and watch the sunrise. It was gorgeous. I got a few photos, but I am sure I didn’t do it justice. Looking out across the valley, the town below, and the distant mountains was so beautiful. Well, that’s all for now!
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