Thursday morning, I went on my last run of Cortona. I know this now because I am typing this so late. It was my last run because sadly my running shoes are completely worn through thanks to Italian cobblestone turf, causing my feet to be on the verge of stress fractures. Nonetheless, it was an epic last run. Beautiful views, no scary dogs, no creepy kidnappers…After that, I had my (second to) last Molesini’s sandwich which I ate with other Cortonians out on the steps in the main piazza in town. It would have been a perfect lunch, except that somehow I managed to sit on a GIGANTIC wad of pink bubblegum. It would have matched everything I owned except the outfit I was wearing that day, and it got all over the place. I had to hurry back up the hill to change before the art ed exhibition show at the elementary school which was about to start. The art ed exhibition ended up being ADORABLE. Each of us set up our grades’ artwork in the front hallway of the school. A large number of the kids came with their parents and siblings. It made me so happy to see the kids be so proud of their artwork. The principle came, who I had actually never seen before, and gave a long speech, which I really do not know what it was about because it was all in Italian. Then the students presented us each with flowers. I found it amusing that each of the flowers was tied with red, white, and blue ribbons. Yay America! My art ed class had games prepared to play with the kids which ended up being so fun. I had never seen such intense three-legged races or games of duck duck goose in my life. The Italian children took them so seriously. It was hard to leave the school…teaching my third graders has definitely been one of the most delightful parts of Cortona.
After dinner that night was Rick’s (our director) 64th birthday celebration taking place in our favorite Lion’s Well Pub. As I said before, we had to dress up as a Beatle’s song, and it was quite exciting to see what everyone came up with. I was thoroughly impressed with everyone’s creativity, especially with the limited resources we had to work with. I ended up being Sgt. Pepper (without my lonely hearts club band, but that’s okay). I borrowed my friend’s military jacket (identical to what they are actually wearing on the album cover) and borrowed my other friend’s red pepper keychain to dangle from one of the buttons. I also decorated the back of the jacket with the handmade pepper paper that I made in paper making. Needless to say, I was proud of my costume. The whole night we sang along and danced to Beatle’s tunes. This type of party should happen more often in my opinion. At about one a.m., some friends and I decided to return to our building. We were on our way when we smelled delicious bread baking in the air. We were aware that bakers started making bread in the middle of the night for the following day. We decided to follow the scent with our noses to see what we would find. After following some extremely narrow ally ways, we found a little bread factory tucked away with three guys inside busy making bread. They let us inside so we could watch; I had never seen such gigantic mixers or monstrous sacks of flour. It was definitely one of the most exciting things I had ever seen so far and it smelled AMAZING. Before we left, the bakers gave us some fresh focaccia straight out of the oven. It melted in your mouth.
Friday was rainy and gross, which made it a good packing and organizing day. It felt so strange to actually be packing to leave Cortona. I remember unpacking three months ago with the feeling that we would be staying in this fifteenth century convent forever. I guess that was not the case. That evening was our FINAL dinner together as a program, also being our last dinner at our restaurant Tonino’s. The angels (the ladies who make our beds and clean our rooms) were invited and they, in addition to the staff of Tonino’s, were each going to be honored and receive a present from us. The whole evening felt kind of surreal. Everyone looked nicer than usual and photos were snapping everywhere. The dinner was ELEVEN courses, instead of our usual three: antipasta, two pasta courses, salad, meat, potatoes, eggplant parmesan, two vegetable courses, beans, and dessert. This is in addition to lots of wine throughout the meal. We could barely move when dinner finally finished (it lasted almost three hours!) It was definitely a dinner we would all remember.
Saturday I woke up early to ship home my box of homemade books along with other things that I accumulated along the way, so I did not have to lug them around with me for the rest of my traveling. It also gave me a chance to enjoy a lovely Saturday morning in Cortona, which also happened to be my LAST one. I got to wander through the Saturday market and all of my favorite little shops. Afterwards, I went on a wonderful walk outside of town along the mountains, ending with some quality gelato in town. I did not eat out that night because I needed to use up all of my vegetables and cheese. However, I did join my friends for a dessert at one of our favorite restaurants, Mario’s for tiramisu, which we may be able to get the recipe for…
Sunday: our last full day of Cortona. A lot of people in my program were starting to get emotional about leaving our beloved town. Personally, it has not hit me yet that we are leaving; I am in a state of denial. There was a program-wide Bocci tournament that started in the morning, and ended up lasting right until dinner. I did not participate in the actual game, but I did enjoy cheering on the teams and eating the complementary delicious snacks. Later, I went on my first long walk of the day. I returned to be joined up with Jeanette, Katie, and Ally to go on a final walk to Le Celle, the Franciscan monastery. It definitely worked up our appetites for my last gelato and dinner of Cortona (it still had not hit me yet that we were leaving). We picked a new restaurant hidden away in the narrow allies for our last dinner. Once again, it was a quaint tiny place, and I order some wonderful gnocchi with fresh tomato and basil sauce…I cannot get enough of that stuff. Our way back up to the school building would be our LAST walk up the mountain!
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