Allora

So, this is the last post of the semester. I have so much to say. But I think I'll let the air take my thoughts. I need to reflect on these amazing four months. I will see most of you soon. I'm leaving early tomorrow morning (Sunday for me, Saturday night for you) and arriving in Philly at about 6:30pm on Sunday. Thank you for the prayers and for keeping up with my time here through these blog posts. Ciao ragazzi.

Sufjan

Today, one of our professors, Bruce Herman, who spent the last month here with us showed us a video he made with small clips of moments he had with us students around the monastery and Orvieto. He had a variety of great music playing along with it. When Sufjan Stevens' "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" came on, one of my favorite moments of this entire trip began. Let me remind you of the first week here, I wrote about playing my guitar under an olive tree in Assisi. I played that song. Bruce didn't know about that. This song started my time in Italy and ended it. Not only was that moving to me, but in that dark room as we watched the video projected on the wall, my peers began singing along and harmonizing with Sufjan. Our voices filled the room.

Passeggiata

Today, I went on a walk through Orvieto with Julia. We found some places we haven't seen yet, and realized that finding new places now doesn't mean much cause we'll be leaving in four days. At one point, we sat down on a bench on the main street and talked about things like babies, adoption, and abortion. During the abortion part of the talk, a man walked by us with a stroller. I turned my head to see a huge-eyed baby with the widest smile laughing directly at me and Julia. It was supernatural. We couldn't help our eyes from tearing up. Things like that are either unexplainable, or simply God.

Da Bolsena a Orvieto

On Saturday night into Sunday morning, I walked with some friends and Italian strangers from Lake Bolsena to Orvieto. We walked from 12am to 5:45am through fields and over mountains under the biggest, most star-filled sky I've ever seen. It's an annual tradition, a pilgrimage in light of the Italian holiday Corpus Domini. It's in remembrance of Saint Dominic. It's exactly one week before the celebration of Corpus Christi, which is a celebration of Christ's body broken for us. Apparently it will be a huge parade all weekend, a beautiful event to end our semester here.

This past week my friends and I started a new thing that we call "slumbo jumbo." Julia has had a single all semester, and the room next to hers has extra mattresses and blankets... so, we drag extra pillows and mattresses to her room and have slumber parties. We had slumbo jumbos four nights in a row, not counting the overnight hike. Last night, I slept next to my friend Karen. She sleep talks a little bit. Last night she said, "No, no thank you. Oh." I wonder what she was dreaming about.

Ciao

It's been quite a while since I updated you guys on the happenings in Italy. I have been bogged with painting and lots of other things going on here, so I apologize for the delay. There's so much I could write about right now and I don't know where to start. Part of me is too exhausted to try. I might save lots of stories for when I get home. I'm still taking pictures, so I'll try to keep posting them. I hope this blog isn't a disappointment. I'll summarize a little bit: since my last post I've visited a few lakes with my Maldovian friends and I went wine tasting with my American friends. Everyone's getting accustomed to the fact that we'll be leaving soon. Times have been slowing down and people are in denial that this is almost over. I have many mixed feelings.

Here are some pictures from the past week or so.


This is Lake Bolsena.


This is just a portion of the vineyard that we visited (Orvieto in the distance).


Here's Orvieto from the vineyard during sunset.


These are some Maldovian friends, Sergio and Vanea. They took us to a different lake (I forget the name) where we cooked our dinner over a fire.


This is Andrea, another Maldovian friend, cooking some sarsages.


Here's Julia lookin fine, Whitney in the background.


And this is Giovanni playing my guitar.

Amalfi Coast

This weekend, almost our entire group went to Amalfi by train and bus. I originally thought that we were going to be staying in Sorrento because that’s what we heard through the grapevine (there were two people that organized the whole trip). Apparently there was some miscommunication, cause we only saw the train station in Sorrento. No complaints, though... the place where we stayed was beautiful.

We spent about 4 hours total on the train and about 1 hour on the bus. We all got up around 5am on Friday morning and stumbled down the monastery stairs out into the dark but gradually brightening morning with birds chirping around us. We watched the sun come up from the train. I’ve never seen the clouds cast shadows upward into the sky. Each cloud had its own shadow-version of itself hovering above it.

Our resort.

The resort where we stayed was on the Amalfi coast and it was ascending a mountain, so the cabins looked like they were all on top of each other from the bottom parking lot. They were bright colors of blue, pink, yellow, and green, which my cabin was pink. We had four cabins all equipped with a kitchen, four or five beds among two rooms, and a bathroom. We felt like we were in our own little neighborhood cause there weren’t many other people staying there (it’s too early in the season). We talked to each other from shutter windows and we all cooked our dinners together. I said it felt like we were playing “house.” We really were.

The beach was a few flights of stairs down the mountain, and on the first day, the sun beckoned us to swim. Unfortunately, I don’t have a bathing suit with me here in Italy, so I just climbed rocks while my friends swam around boulders in the glassy, green-blue water. The one thing I didn’t like much about that beach was that there was no sand what-so-ever. It was covered in rocks from the size of a dime to the size of my fist. It was a bad day to choose to go bare-foot. Ouch. Julia gave me piggy back rides by the end of the day cause my feet felt like open wounds. They’re all better now, though.

We went to bed surprisingly early that night cause we got up so early. But, the next day people were planning to go to either Pompeii, Naples, or Capri (which was a boat tour). I didn’t have enough money to do any of those things, so I was planning on staying put and enjoying the scene there. Sadly, most everyone’s plans for Saturday got cancelled because of rain. It rained on and off the entire day, and there were moments of storminess that took umbrellas out of tables and put them into the trees above our cabins. It was kind of exciting. Half our group went to Pompeii regardless of the rain, but I was part of the half that stayed in Amalfi. I don’t regret it one bit. 

My favorite part of the trip was when a group of us went down to the beach during a rain and wind storm. We climbed some rocks and tried to keep our balance as the wind pushed us around. I found the tallest rock and climbed it. I stood on the top for maybe 20 minutes and watched the waves crash at my feet as the wind blew a thick layer of mist off the top of the waves. It was so powerful, my raincoat became a sail and I yelled at the gray ocean. We acted like children there. We found sticks and held them above our heads while we cursed Poseidon and Poseidon roared back. It was my favorite part of the trip. We watched the gray clouds part into blue skies and we sat under a dock and skipped stones. Then dark clouds swarmed the sky again and it was the same wind all over again, which caused the waves to soak my cuffed jeans all the way up to my waist while I continued to skip stones.

On Sunday, we left a little after 10 to head back to Orvieto, which we are always ready to return to after every trip we go on. We passed through Naples and ate at a restaurant where I had Sorrentine gnocchi. It was serious competition for Mauro’s gnocchi. But, I’ll take the easy way out and say that Naples has the best tomato sauce gnocchi and Orvieto has the best cheese sauce gnocchi.

Anyways, I think that’s enough detail for my weekend. I feel like it’s scatter-brained, but I hope it’s a clear enough picture. Of course, there’s more to say, but I guess I’ll save that for later conversation in person :). 

Sculptures

Flip through this photo album to see the kind of things we're making in plaster.

http://picasaweb.google.com/BruceHParker/2010OrvietoSculptureStudents?feat=email#

And here's a fun little photo my friend Courtney Melanson took of me and Julia during the Super Hero party we had last week.