As I sit in my host families house, trying to stay out of the rain, I figured it’d be a great time for an update on Todi.

We started our classes this week, and I must admit that getting back into the schedule of waking up early for class after a month break was not an easy task. Our classes seem to be fun though. We have Italian in the morning, form 8:30am – 10:30, a 45 minute break to get coffee, shop, or whatever you like, then Art History from 11:15 – 12:45pm. All of us go back to our houses for ‘pranzo‘ (lunch), then return for Art class in the afternoon from 3 – 6pm, and then go home for dinner. We only stick to this schedule for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thursday’s, we have Italian in the morning, then a couple hours break, and then we take a day trip to a nearby town, returning that evening. On Friday’s, we will be taking all day trips to towns which are a bit further away.

Last week, we went to Perugia on Thursday afternoon, and took an all day trip to Siena on Friday. We were only in Perugia for a few hours, but we got to visit a pretty cool art gallery. We went to the Galleria Nazionale Dell’Umbria, which showcased tons of paintings from the 13th to 18th century. It was neat to see the art in person which we had studied during the week in Art History class. We then had about an hour a free time before, so we got to walk around visiting some of the cute stores they had, and of course, got some gelato. Perugia was a really cool town, and since it was just about 30 minutes away, it is a great place to visit again on one of our free weekends.

perugia!

Thursday night, my roommate Serena and I went with our host mother to an archery tournament at a castle that was about 25 minutes away. Our host father and brothers are a part of the Todi Archery team, so we went to see their tournament, which was really cool to see. I had only ever done archery in high school gym class, yet my experiences with it here seemed to be much different. Tuesday and Wednesday after school last week, Serena and I went to the local archery practice field where our host father and brothers go everyday to practice. Our brother Lorenzo set us up with our own bow and arrows (which they happen to carve and make themselves, no big deal), and Serena and I shot arrows for about an hour. It was so fun! Hopefully we’ll be able to make it back there a few times during the rest of our trip.

not the clearest picture, but this is from the archery tournament!

Friday, we took an all day trip to Siena, located in the heart of Tuscany. We met at 7am (so. early.) to leave Todi, and just about two hours later we had arrived. We visited the Duomo and Palzzo Pubblico. We had free time for lunch and shopping, which we took full advantage of. We got back to the bus in the afternoon just in time, as it started pouring as soon as we drove away. 

so intense!

After our trip to Siena, our whole group went out to dinner at a pizzeria here in Todi. We got at least 10 different types of pizza, one more delicious then the next. I keep forgetting to take pictures of the food, but I definitely need to start doing so, because there hasn’t been a single dish that hasn’t looked incredible. After dinner, we came home, relaxed a little, and went to bed early, it had been such a long day   
 
This was a kind of lazy weekend, which is exactly what I think we needed since we’re usually always on the go. Saturday was the perfect relaxation day. We got up and had a later breakfast, did a little studying, had lunch, then studied outside and relaxed a little more before dinner… sounds stressful, right? After dinner we went into Todi with our family and got gelato…. so. good. We were going to go to the Tango Festival, but it ended up being kind of expensive, so we just went to a local bar and our whole group hung out for a little while. On our walk home, we always pass Santa Maria de la Consolacion, or the Consolacion as we all call it. It is a local church in Todi, and is the dome-shaped building on the left side of the picture above. It was super foggy last night, so when we saw the church it looked almost creepy with all of the fog hanging around it. So we obviously had to take a picture…..

see, isn’t it kinda creepy looking?

Today, we had a delicious lunch (as per usual), and we’re now studying and watching movies with our family. This week, we have regular school Monday – Wednesday, & then we leave for a four day trip to Florence on Thursday! I think everybody is pretty excited to go, it is supposed to be beautiful there. I’m not really sure what we will be seeing, however I’m sure our days will be full of visiting incredibly amazing places! Can’t wait! 🙂

Location: Todi, Italy