Friday was another long day of classes filled with art ed planning, book making, and art history. We somehow got on the topic of gruesome stories in book making and my book making teacher told us the most disgusting story of a time she was stitching a book while in bed but she dropped her needle and could not find it. Eventually she went to bed. The next day, she noticed a sharp pain in her shoulder and felt a prick on the surface of her skin. Apparently, she rolled over the needle in her sleep, and it got stuck in her body! She ended up having to get major surgery because it began moving around inside her body near her heart. I could not stop shuddering for the rest of class while stitching my own book. After dinner that evening, a group of us was taking a walk when an American family (a husband, wife, toddler, and baby) behind us heard us talking and asked us if we were vacationing. After we explained that we were studying art here for the semester, the man excitedly exclaimed that he was a painter who had come to Cortona to paint landscapes for the next month. He teaches art at a University in California, but brought his family here for a painting sabbatical of sorts. His name is Bryan Mark Taylor (look up his artwork, it is beautiful) and he agreed to come visit our painting class in the upcoming weeks.
Saturday we went on our field trip to Assisi and Perugia. Assisi is known for its famous cathedral dedicated to the Franciscan order, where St. Francis (my personal favorite saint of all time) is buried. The church has two levels, and on the upper level, there is an ornate fresco order illustrating the life of St. Francis. The town itself is very touristy, but probably for good reason: once again, I loved wandering through the stone alleyways, staircases, and streets. I decided to buy my one and only touristy item here, which was a set of St. Francis salt and pepper shakers (I could not resist). In the churches we explored here, I was fascinated with not only taking in the breathtaking artwork, but also the numerous rituals performed by the many nuns, monks, and other people praying in the church. There are so many different gestures and movements that go along with the prayers that it was hard to keep track of them all from my people watching.
At noon, we boarded the buses to go on to Perugia. The buses took us to a metro station. To get into the city, we had to take these tiny mini-metros. They were adorable small individual metro cars that move on what looks like a roller coaster track from stop to stop, until we made it to the older part of Perugia. Perugia is famous for being the birth place of Bacci chocolate, a very popular type of chocolate in Italy. Because of that, there were fancy chocolate shops every few feet, displaying beautiful chocolates in all varieties, in addition to giant chocolate eggs for Easter. (These chocolate eggs are everywhere, not just chocolate shops…grocery stores…even produce stands!) Although I did not end up buying any chocolate myself (some people bought a lifetime supply it seemed) it was fun wandering in each shop. I actually got in trouble in one of the more snobby stores for touching cute little chocolate boxes, thus ignoring the Do Not Touch signs. Later in Perugia, a group of us ate a delicious lunch at a restaurant. Tables were set up in the middle of a wide street, with shops lining up along the street on either side of us. It was fun to eat in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city going by. I ordered an AMAZING grilled pepper pizza…maybe the best pizza I have eaten so far? It is a tough call. I also had some amazing gelato in Perugia…it was a combination of fresh pear (basically, it was like the experience of eating a frozen pear) with lemon…so refreshing! We did a lot of wandering: we stumbled on a book store with a huge English section, the biggest pastry shop I have ever seen, and a candy store (Perugians apparently like their sweets) with an exciting wall filed with a million different varieties of colorful fruity gummies. After taking the mini metro back to our bus, we headed back to Cortona. I was really anxious to get back because Elli was coming to visit for the next couple days and I had no idea when or how she was arriving. In Cortona, I thought that every curly haired person walking along the streets could be Elli. I told some girls from my program to ask around for Elli just in case. Later, from the limited communication we had, I was worried she would be stuck forever in Camucia, the town adjacent to Cortona, but all the way down the mountain. Luckily, a wonderful taxi driver picked her and her friend Lauren up from the train station and they made it to Cortona safely. Phew.
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