I'm sitting on the balcony of my host mom's apartment which
overlooks an overgrown garden. A cool
breeze is blowing, whispering – if I listen closely – the first mention of
autumn and bringing with it a much coveted respite from the unrelenting Italian
sun. In the garden of the neighboring
apartment behind a small wall, a lady is doing laundry while her dogs lie
beneath a table, their naps disturbed only when their ears twitch at the buzz
of a fly. Somewhere near, I hear the
voices of three locals discussing whatever it is that gives their voices such
an enthusiastic trill, but I am privy to neither who they are nor what they are
saying. I can presume from the clinking
of utensils that their conversation is second in importance to the "pranzo"
they are enjoying during the afternoon "pausa." My classmates and I have quickly learned to
embrace the time between 1:00 and 4:00 p.m. as a time to enjoy each other's
company which in Italian translates into everything except restaurants and
cafes or bars closing for a three hour break each afternoon. I could get used to this… But before I enjoy
a stroll or rather a hike through the hills of the city, I will let you all
know how things have been since I arrived.
If time
ever blurs the details of my travels to Perugia, I hope that I can recall – for
memory's sake – the exhaustion that accompanied the first couple of days. After a seven-and-a-half hour flight arriving
in Rome at 9:30 a.m., I finally found others studying abroad. Leaving the airport by bus an hour later was
finally able to offer some rest. The
two-and-a-half hour bus ride proved to be a battle between my desire to sleep
and my determination to see every part of the landscape that whizzed by the
window, making my grand total of sleep in the first two days one hour. We spent the night in Perugia's beautiful
Hotel Gio (pronounced "Joe") where we were treated to our first
four-course Italian dinner. That
evening, many of the other students went in pursuit of grocery stores where
they could find cheap wine, but all I desperately wanted was water, and so the
first euros I spent were on bottled water, although wine would have been
surprisingly cheaper. Having visited
Italy before, the wine snob in me knew that the better wine would be worth the
wait…
The next
morning, we traveled by taxis and shuttles to the center of Perugia, higher on
the hill, where I met my host mom. I
will dedicate an entire other blog post to my adventures with Luciana, but for
now I will summarize by saying she is absolutely wonderful. With the help of her English-speaking friend,
we were able to make a basic introduction.
In terms of
class, the first week was spent in orientations, information sessions, and
intensive Italian classes. I was
reminded of my very first days as a middle-school student in Senor Sosa's
Spanish class where only Spanish was spoken and we were forced to sink or swim.
Thankfully, technology provides a bit of a safety net in that we can quickly muster
a very rough translation if necessary when no other way of communicating is
possible. Our other classes began this
past Monday, and I can already tell it will be an interesting semester. With Intensive Elementary Italian every
morning and countless opportunities to practice throughout the day and evening,
I hope to have enough instruction to be able to carry a conversation by the end
of my semester. Besides learning the
Italian language, I am also taking a class about the history and culture of
food in Italy and a class on the politics of the European Union. Instead of boring you with class material, I
will instead share that the professor of the former is from England while the
professor of my European Union class is from Italy. Both have accents as thick as their
enthusiasm for their areas of expertise.
I've had only two classes so far with both of them, but I am sure that I
will be writing more on this topic soon.
I see now
that the lady has finished hanging her laundry and hear no longer the clink of dishes
nor the excited voices of the elusive neighbors as the afternoon pausa nears
its end. This reminds me that even in
Italy, rest must be balanced with work and that I have one more class before my
weekend begins. Before I meet my
research advisor for my class, I will take a walk through town. Mustering the desire to climb the hills of
Perugia is easy on a beautiful day such as today. A presto, miei amici!
Blessings,
Sarah
Sarah
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