Tag Archives: Perugia

first day in Perugia, Italy

50 Shades of Mozzarella

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to present: PERUGIA, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITALY! Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

People, let me tell you, Perugia is an absolute dream. When I pictured Italy, it is exactly what I imagined. I have to pinch myself every time I walk outside my apartment because everything is so beautiful and I am so so appreciative of all my surroundings. I am a big eater, as you will come to read, and I cannot even begin to express how amazing the food is here. I knew it was one of the best things about Italy before I even arrived, but I did not truly understand it until I came here and tried it for myself. Everything is so fresh and delicious. Not yet have I ate something that I was not pleased with, and it seems to just keep getting better and better. I have ate pizza everyday so far, and probably more than once a day on occasion. There is not one pizza here that is the same as another. Each is in its own way different but always delicious. It is actually very funny, my Italian teacher Francesco asked me yesterday in class what my boyfriend’s name was. I laughed and responded: mangia aka food. Just to get your salivary glands in action, I have some pictures of my boyfriend to show you:

The last picture is of the best tiramisu I have ever had in my entire life, and it was served in a bowl that would put America’s fame for obesity to shame. I am actually getting really hungry just looking at it.

Italy itself

Aside from the amazing meals, there are so many things that set Italy apart from the United States. Something that I find extremely different and interesting are the toilets. The water tank is usually separate from the actual toilet, mounted high above on a wall. There is the closest thing to a button that you press high above on this tank to flush the toilets. I know it’s not that big of a deal, but it looks so much more sophisticated than American toilets. I quite like it.

Italians do not seem to have breakfast, a simple espresso and brioche at most suit them perfectly fine. I am still adjusting to this way of life by beginning to make toast in my apartment before class and buying an espresso at school with my class during our morning break for 70 cents. For lunch, a slice or two of pizza seems to be the most common meal – I don’t think this is something I will ever complain about. However, dinner is served at the earliest, at 8:30 pm. It is customary for people to go to bars and order apertivos which are drinks with company an hour or two before dinner. This is something I am having a great deal of difficulty adjusting to. As much as I love vino rosso, red wine, I am trying to limit my intake before dinner due to being on an empty stomach. Some places have buffets that you can snack on while enjoying your libations, however my friends and I have been really hungry during these times and ended up eating an amount from the buffet equivalent to a large meal. This doesn’t seem to be the right way of going about it, but we are still trying to adjust.

The Language

During my 20 years of existence, 12 of them were spent studying Spanish. From kindergarten to senior year of high school I always had a Spanish class. Because I took such a large amount of one language, I was exempt from my language requirement at Penn State. Therefore, this is the first time I have taken a language since I was 17, three years ago, and it is the first time I have been in a country whose primary language is not English. My hardest transition to Italy has easily been the Italian language.

This past Tuesday, we started “Survival Italian” class. Every student in the Umbra program, 90 of us from the United States, have been required to take this week of intensive Italian before the semester began. Organized by experience level, I am in a class of other students who have never taken Italian. Most of us have taken Spanish or French, but it is reassuring to know that there are others in the same boat. Interestingly enough, I wish I had taken Italian sooner. I enjoy this language so much more than Spanish. My background in Spanish has definitely helped when learning Italian for the first time, because lots of words are almost identical in both languages but usually with a slightly different pronunciation. However, I like Italian so much more than Spanish because in Italian you have to pronounce every. single. syllable. in. the. word. And not only that, but you must pronounce them in a dramatic and loud manner. This is great for me, because I am “slightly” dramatic and already kind of talk like that. Also, I am much more interested when learning Italian because it benefits my immediate future. I constantly am interacting with native Italians here, and most of them surprised me by not being very proficient in English, if at all. Therefore I am eager to learn the language because it makes my time here so much easier by already knowing a few more words and phrases every day. I think it also helps that my professor is a native Italian, whom not only teaches us the proper form of the language but also the everyday dialect of the Perugian people.

We also do fun activities to make the lessons we do in class, more applicable to every day life. Yesterday we went to a typical apartment in this city and had to label all of the furniture and items around the house with the Italian vocabulary we learned that day in class. Today, our professor showed us how to ride the city’s metro and brought us to a supermarket outside of walking distance from our school and apartment. We all were given assignments to analyze a specific type of food sold there in the market, and note the differences between brands, prices, and places of production. Our last day of survival Italian class is tomorrow morning, and there we will present what we found interesting from our shopping trip. We were all given half an hour to browse the market and shop for our own apartments during this assignment. My roommates and I went grocery shopping a couple days ago to get basic food items at the local grocery store in our town. The only thing we recognized in the entire store was Ritz crackers and Coca-Cola. I was probably the happiest girl in the world today when I found lactose free milk, because I am lactose intolerant, and Frosted Flakes at this larger market. To hold me over for dinner, I ate a bowl of it while writing this post and it brought me so much joy to have a bit of home here in Italy.

I already miss a few aspects of America such as my native language, bigger breakfasts, and using cars as a main source of transportation. But I wouldn’t trade this view in for the world. This my friends, is Perugia.

Location: Perugia, Italy

Ciao dall’Italia – Videoblog 1

CI SONO TANTI SBAGLI.

THERE ARE SO MANY MISTAKES.

Haha, I guess you won’t be able to tell… Anyway, it took a lot of time to film, edit, and upload this thing, not to mention that it turned out a lot longer than I expected, so I don’t know how often I’ll be doing this. I’m still hoping for once a week and that I’ll just get more efficient at it (plus when/if my speaking ability improves, it’ll be smoother), but we’ll just have to see.

I know I said I was going to post the text to the videoblog, but I just don’t feel like doing that right now. It’ll take a long time. Hopefully I’ll get around to it at some point.

I edited out my pauses and mistakes just using jump cuts. Hope that’s okay.

Well, I hope you enjoy! Again, if you don’t have a Penn State account, you can leave comments on the YouTube video itself.

Location: Via Pinturicchio, Perugia, Italia

La Bella Vita

I have been joking, with a small, awkward chuckle, that I will be traveling from one university town of conflict to another.

For the next semester, I will be studying abroad in Perugia, Italy–the town that was shaken by the murder of Meredith Kercher and the Amanda Knox trial. In fact, I will be attending the exact same school that Amanda Knox attended: L’Universita’ per Stranieri (literally, “The University for Foreigners”). It is strange to go from State College, Pennsylvania, which was recently shaken by the Sandusky scandal, to another town that is now recovering from the aftershock of the Kercher-Knox ordeal.

I have been told that I probably won’t be hearing too much about it while I’m there. This relieves me, because Perugia seems like an incredible town that is so much more than the media hoopla. Just like State College is.

Really, Perugia does kind of seem like State College in Italy. It’s a small university town, nestled in the region of Umbria (which is right next to Tuscany) that has about 40,000 students living in it. It’s a pedestrian town with cobblestone streets and a whole lot of history. Additionally, it’s very hilly; an alumnus of my program said that he walked uphill both ways to and from his classes. Well, at least I’ll be burning off all of the calories from all of the delicious Italian food I’ll be eating. That is, if I decide not to take advantage of the escalators that are built into some of the steeper roads.

I read in the Collegian the other day that at Penn State, Italy is the most popular country to study abroad. 530 students studied there last year. I don’t tend to pick the most popular thing to do, but ah, La Dolce Lingua Italiana, mi fa una serenata!

For the past several years, I have swooned over the beauty of the Italian language, so much so that I decided to begin teaching it to myself through a computer program in high school (and no, it was not Rosetta Stone, which is not nearly the best program, by the way; it was called “Tell Me More,” and I highly recommend it). I poured over vocabulary lists, conjugated verbs in the margins of my Spanish homework, and memorized grammar rules. It was only natural for me to choose it as my minor.

So I travel to Italy not to jump on the bandwagon–I really, really want to get fluent in Italian. I am participating in a “full-immersion” program; the only subject I will be studying is Italian. Additionally, since so many students come to study the language from all over the world, not only will I get to interact with Italians, but them as well. The program even rooms you with students who do not speak your native language (with the prevalence of English these days, I’m wondering how hard or easy it will be to pair me with a non-English speaker), so that way, you are forced to use Italian as your lingua franca. Is that not the coolest thing ever?

I am really getting pumped. So pumped. I’m going to be jumping out of my skin by the time January 5th rolls around!

So, a little bit about me. I’m a junior in the Schreyer Honors College here at Penn State. I’m originally from York, PA, which is about 2 hours south of State College. I am majoring in Film-Video with a dual major in International Studies, and, as I mentioned, minoring in Italian. I participate in a student-run news show and game show through the PSN-TV club, and I am also a proud member of Springfield THON. I have sung for a large part of my life and I sing with the University Choir here on campus. I have a huge passion for travel and have visited over 20 countries, including Eastern and Western Europe, China, Israel, Costa Rica, Canada, Mexico, and all over the US. I enjoy long talks on the beach, that moment when you eat really good food and drop your fork, and wasting ridiculous amounts of time traversing the Internet.

Mi chiamo Ariel Siegelman–e mi sono innamorata d’amore.

Location: York, Pennsylvania

Todi Lovin’

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

My neighbor, Babbo Natale

After almost 24 hours of straight traveling from New York to Zurich to Rome, I finally arrived in Perugia, Italy on Friday night. Even though I had a red eye flight, sleeping on the plane was impossible; no amount of airline blankets, pillows, or snack mix would make that happen. When our bus got in it was already after dark, but after a 4-course meal at the hotel (which was absolutely amazing) I walked up to the piazza. The Fontana Maggiore was lit up in a bluish light, and Christmas lights hung across Corsa Vannucci, the main street in Perugia. At that moment it began to hit me that I was actually in Italy.

Saturday morning we moved into our apartment on Via Pinturicchio, named after the artist Bernardino Pinturicchio who studied under Pietro Vannucci (who also taught Raphael). The building is four stories high, and we’re on the top floor. Four American girls struggling to carry our luggage up the stairs drew the attention of one of our neighbors on the second floor. This little old Italian lady poked her head out of the door to see what all the noise was about, gave us a huge smile and a friendly “Ciao!” as we passed by. For the four of us there are two bedrooms and two bathrooms both with bidets (which I can guarantee will never be used the whole semester), and a little kitchen, which is a bright shade of orange. We have a beautiful view of the outskirts of Perugia and the surrounding areas from our kitchen window. I had another realization that I was actually in Italy when I looked out.

There is one other apartment on the floor, and is home to one Babbo Natale, or Santa Claus as they call him in English. Babbo Natale is meant to live at the North Pole, and that’s what our apartment felt like the first night. I slept in covered in Under Armor from head to toe, with a sweatshirt and sweatpants on top. We thought the apartment was freezing because we’re only allowed 7 hrs of heat a day. Turns out it was never on. Whoops. Thankfully today we got one of the Umbra staff members, Mauro, to help us out and teach us that the picture of the snowflake actually means heat, and the sun means AC.

Everyone says that the food in Italy is amazing, the best in the world, and I have to agree. Everything is so fresh, and you can buy all of the fresh meats, cheese, bread and produce you could want in a covered market near the center of town. I’ve spoken a lot of Italian so far, mostly ordering food and coffee or asking for directions, but I can already tell that I’m improving and getting more comfortable with the language. Some people are having a little more trouble. I’ve heard stories of people drinking applesauce thinking it was apple juice or ordering full trays of eggplant parmesan instead of individual portion sizes. Typical mistakes I’m sure.

We explored the town the day after move in, and I didn’t see a single Starbucks, McDonalds, or any other American store chain anywhere in town. I loved it.So far so good here in Perugia, and I can’t wait to find all that the small city in the heart of the Umbra region has to offer.