I’ve been around exploring Perugia for the past few days, and there are so many things to see that are hidden down narrow streets of side alleys.  Up some side steps on the way to school is a beautiful view of Perugia.  Through another alley near the apartment is a park that I had no idea was there until yesterday.  If you leave any small area unexplored you could really be missing something.

I didn’t originally think that my apartment would be big enough to have people over for dinner, but we had our first dinner and it was so successful! We might have had to pull my desk out from the room to have enough seats for everyone, but we made it work! We went to a friend’s apartment and made Tiramisu for the first time, and it came out great, everyone loved it (we were a little nervous for it while we were making it to be honest).

We bought all of the ingredients for it at this little store next to the school that we call Ciao Ciao since that’s how they greet you when you walk in (don’t ask me what the real name is cause I have no idea).  The owner Adelmo, or Ciao Ciao Man, is so nice and super helpful.  He gave us so many tips on how to make the Tiramisu, like what coffee is the best, which pans to make it in etc.

I went to a local market to buy some food for one of our dinners and saw an umbrella for 3 euro. I thought I’d lucked out, that’s the cheapest umbrella you could ever find. Unfortunately, the whole “you get what you pay for” rule applies here in Italy too. I went to check out and the man decided to take it out of the little bag to make sure that it worked right.  He literally ripped it in half.  I was so shocked I literally just stood there, desperately trying not to laugh.  Male fortuna!   

It gets better. Roughly twenty minutes ago we got someone trying to buzz into our apartment but we weren’t expecting anyone.  I looked out the peephole and there was a little old lady standing out on the landing. I thought to myself, “ohh she looks so nice let’s see what she wants,” so of course, I open the door. Bad move. True this lady was old, but she was not nice.

She started saying something about stairs and cleaning and she was talking so fast none of us could even understand the full sentences.  When she told us we needed to pay 10 Euro to clean the stairs we tried to tell her that we were never told by our landlord that we would have to do that.  She was clearly getting mad because a) we don’t speak Italian all that well, and b) we wouldn’t hand over the cash.  Then she asked us if we used the stairs to get to our 4^th floor apartment.   Since there is no elevator and unfortunately I cannot scale the outside of a building or levitate I told her that yes, in fact we did use the stairs. Then she says that everyone pays 10 Euro to clean the stairs, which is strange because she never rang our neighbor Babbo Natale’s doorbell. 

Basically I just kept saying, “Mi dispiace, non so [I’m sorry, I don’t know],” over and over until she went away.  All together this exchange probably took around 10 minutes.  And then laughing about it took another 5.  We’re going to have to ask the staff about this one tomorrow morning.

This morning was the last part of the Arcadia orientation.  We went to this farm called Azienda Agraria Orsini about 30 minutes outside of Perugia.  It is a family owned farm and about 60 acres large, which is very big compared to the average Italian farms which are only five acres.  They produce a lot of things including olive oil and wine.  The owner took us into his house, which was a lot smaller than we had thought and told us that it was built in the 17^th Century. Amazing.  He took us into one of the back rooms where there were two little old ladies (the nice kind) who taught us how to make pasta. I never knew it was so easy, just mix one egg to every 100 grams of flour you use and roll it out, cut it up, and then cook it within 24 hrs.  I’m definitely going to be trying to make it on my own.

They were machines at rolling out the dough. Rolling circles around everyone who tried to help out.  It was interesting to see a more rural and smaller side of Italy.  Everyone who took us around were volunteers, and you could tell that they loved sharing their culture with other people.  I bought a bottle of olive oil, because its phenomenal, so much better than the mass produced stuff.

I’m starting to really become comfortable in Perugia.  Learning the lay of the land and being able to get myself around pretty easily.  I must look like I know what I’m doing too because an Italian couple asked me for directions the other day.  I didn’t know where it was which was kind of a setback, but at least they thought I knew what I was doing!

I love the slow pace of everything; they don’t seem to stress about anything and just roll with the punches.  I could really get used to this.

Location: Perugia, Italy