Jenny Goes to Umbria

I have returned this past weekend from a journey to the Italian region of Umbria. The trip was organized by the Rome Center as a part of our orientation, and for me, the weekend passed by in a blur of eating, bus-riding, and sight-seeing (and maybe a little more eating). I thought I'd share some highlights from the trip, so here it is, in convenient day-by-day format for your viewing pleasure:

Friday: We left early Friday on coach buses and drove a few hours to our first destination, the town of Deruta. It was my first time out of the city, and I thought the scenery - all the rolling hills, sunflower fields, and general country-side panorama - was delightful!

Delightful Italian countryside

The town of Deruta has been known for its ceramics since ancient times, thanks to the local clay which is apparently very good. We toured a ceramic factory, where they revealed to us the mystical secrets of creating world-renowned pottery. A friend and I debated quitting school and apprenticing ourselves to a master ceramics maker, but we were loaded onto the bus again before we could make any plans.

Master ceramic artisan showing off his mad skills

I had the urge to paint some pottery like these women while I was in Deruta

 After Deruta, we drove to this beautiful little country house called Posta dei Donini and had lunch Italian-style (meaning a few courses and a few hours).

Fancy Italian villa

It's like Where's Waldo. Can you spot me?

Lunch was followed by a visit to the capital of Umbria, Perugia. We spent a short time there in search of the famous Perugian chocolate, but, alas, it eluded us since many of the shops were closed for siesta by that time. The town was really cute though, if I'm allowed to say that about a place several centuries old...

 

We had to take these funny little mini metro trains to get up to the city, since it's high up

  

We got back on the bus for the last time to drive to Spoleto, where we checked into our hotel and had some time to change for dinner, which was another several hour affair. Afterwards, a group of friends and I went out to explore the town a little, where we happened to just run into an ancient castle (you know, no big deal).

 

Okay, okay it's actually a fortress, but it's from the 12th century so that counts for something, right?

Nighttime view, the cathedral is in the distance

Saturday: Breakfast was served Saturday morning at the hotel, and while this may seem like an inconsequential detail, let me just say that it was a highlight of the trip for me. Italians aren't really big on breakfast here, so I've been missing my favorite meal of the day!

We began the day by taking a tour of Spoleto, which included some fantastic sights:

 

Ponte Sanguinario, a Roman bridge, 1st century BC

Italian photobombing bicyclers, 2013 AD

I told you the views were amazing.

The Duomo (Cathedral) of S. Maria Assunta was especially amazing; the cathedral was built between 1175 and 1227, it contains a manuscript letter by St. Francis of Assisi, and these beautiful frescoes by the artist Filippino Lippi, who happens to be buried there. The main frescoes behind the alter depicted the life of Mary and were just amazing. 

The inside of the cathedral

A detail of the fresco; the coronation of Mary

After the tour we had lunch at another picturesque little place called Spiritodivino (which translates to 'Divine Spirit' but also 'Spirit of Wine' if you separate it - my friends and I congratulated ourselves for understanding the Italian pun). Every time they fed us on this trip I was convinced that I could never eat again, there was so much food!

Following lunch, we then drove to the town of Bevagna, which is an extremely medieval-looking town known for its medieval artisan shops. The town has volunteers who work at some of these shops and give demonstrations in order to preserve the culture. We saw medieval silk, candle, coin, and paper makers. It was extremely fascinating.

Medieval candle-making

Medieval paper-making

Medieval silk-making

We returned to the hotel from Bevagna to eat more and spent the rest of the night hanging out in Spoleto.

Sunday: More breakfast (yay!) followed by checking out of the hotel and getting on the bus where we traveled to Spello, another ancient town situated on a small mountain. We did a lot of hiking up hills while touring the town (I guess they wanted us to work out after all the eating we did) but the views were incredible. We could see the city of Assisi from Spello, and I was a little disappointed we weren't stopping there, but maybe I'll get a chance to come back at some point. Following the tour, we walked to an olive oil mill, where we had lunch among the olive groves. I think this was one of my favorite meals of the entire trip.

Stuffed with food, and exhausted from our mountain-climbing excursion, we finally departed for Rome, and made it back to the Rome Center in the early evening, where I promptly passed out for the rest of the day.

Other random highlights of the journey that I did not mention:
- Meeting backpacking Franciscan brothers
- Running into a random Italian concert on the streets of Spoleto at night
-Seeing (actually running from) a really huge beetle
- Having our coach bus pulled over by an Italian cop and listening to our program director argue vehemently with him in Italian

In conclusion, it was quite a journey. Also, I think I ate too much...

Come Tour the Rome Center!

In case anyone was curious, I thought I'd show some pictures of the John Felice Rome Center (affectionately called J-Force) so you can all see where I'm staying.

View of the dorms from the courtyard

Center of the courtyard (I love this place for sitting and reading)

The olive grove (apparently there's a harvest weekend in the fall)

The library (which has really cold air conditioning)

Another outside view of the campus

The laundry room. We all have to hang our clothes on lines to dry!

We are finished with classes for the week (yay for four day weeks!) and we are headed to Umbria tomorrow for our orientation weekend trip. I think there will be a lot of tours and sight-seeing, so I'll be sure to update when I get back! Miss you all!

Ciao Amici

We're halfway through the first week of classes, and let me just say, it has been preeetty tough getting back into the routine of doing homework after feeling like I've been on vacation for the past several days. I am taking some really interesting classes though, so that makes it easier. I think my favorite is going to be my Art in Rome class. We have class on-site, meaning we get to go to all sorts of places in the city to actually view the art and listen to the professor lecture. How awesome is that?

It's art! And it's in Rome!

I got some really exciting news the other day that the research scholarship that is allowing me to be here in Rome is also paying for the JFRC study trip to Greece over fall break. The itinerary for the trip looks amazing; Delphi, Corinth, Mycene, the Mykonos, Delos... I feel like I won a game show or something: "Here's your all expenses paid trip to Greece!" Is this real life?

I've been getting better at navigating the neighborhood around campus. I went to the grocery store yesterday to buy some breakfast food since it's not served in the dining hall and bought some Italian Special K (which is actually better than its American counterpart). I also went to another local store to get a hairdryer, and another place to get a few school supplies. The stores in Italy are very small and specific to a few certain items, like electronics, housewares, etc; there's really no place like a Jewel Osco or Walmart where you can get everything at once, so it's a little tricky tracking everything down, but it's making me learn the neighborhood, and some Italian shopping terminology!

I also met for the first time with the professor in charge of the Ricci Scholars projects here in Rome and she told all of us some general logistics for getting our projects started. She has apparently picked some mentors for us outside of the Rome center whom she believes will be of help to us as we get started with our research. I'm really looking forward to getting started; I feel like this is going to keep me very busy, but I'm so motivated to put together a really great research project and actually learn what the schools are like here.

Here are some pictures from my past few days:

On the outskirts of St. Peter's Square during the scavenger hunt

Our fancy Italian dinner last Friday (the main course was lasagna, which you can't tell since we ate it all)

Dramatic ruins!

Rome at night

In Which A Lot of Walking Occurs

I have been in Rome less than a week, but the amount of stuff I have already seen seems incredible (and by stuff I mean ancient ruins two-thousand-some years old). Saturday morning was spent listening to a lecture by one of JFRC's professors about some of these ruins and then actually going and seeing them in person. And seeing them in person just absolutely blew my mind. I can't even describe what it was like to step into the Colosseum for the first time, or walk among all the ancient ruins in the Roman Forum. I'm hoping to learn more about all these places in the classes I will be taking; it's definitely some hands-on learning.

The inside of the Colosseum (gladiators sold separately)

Some of the many ancient ruins in the Roman Forum

Some of the slightly less ruined ruins

After spending several hours exploring the Colosseum and Forum, a group of friends and I decided to take a stroll around the city (and by stroll I mean a twelve-hour marathon of sight-seeing). We did a lot of church hopping and got to see some of the many absolutely gorgeous churches in Rome. We also wandered around many of the piazzas, and had some more gelato (and yes, I will proceed to document every time I eat gelato - this time I had strawberry and lemon which is ah-mazing).

They have been feeding us very well here in Roma; Friday night JFRC sponsored a dinner on the town, and we had an authentic 5-course Roman meal which lasted hours. I have also had some pretty good pizza while I have been here (though I'm told I need to go to Naples to get the best stuff) and a very good capuccino, compliments of a picturesque little cafe nearby campus. I unfortunately don't have any touristy food pictures, but at least I won't make anyone hungry.

Today was the last day before classes start, and they took us all to Maccarese Beach on the coast of the Mediterranean. It was beautiful weather and we basically just relaxed all day (and got fed another delicious meal). I'm afraid these past few days in Rome have made me quite spoiled.

I attended mass in the JFRC chapel tonight, but I'm looking forward to going to some of the churches in the city and seeing what that experience will be like. And of course I plan to make it to the Vatican. I have to say, going to the Vatican museums and walking to the top of the dome is one of the things I am currently most looking forward to doing.

I'm sorry I haven't been able to Skype with anyone at all, but these couple days have been a whirlwind. Also, I have very bad wi-fi in my room. Hopefully this week I will be able to make some time for it now that classes are starting and I'm getting on a better routine.

Me doing a touristy pose with an ancient landmark

First Day of Rome!

Hello family and friends!
I am hoping to use this blog to document some of my experiences abroad this year as a way to stay in touch and keep everyone updated. I am going to be in Rome for the fall semester and Bejing for the spring semester this year, so hopefully I will have lots of stories to tell by the end of it all!

Today marks my first official whole day in Rome, and I already feel like I have a lot to tell! I flew in Wednesday on a group flight which took about 10 hours. The trip having been only my second time on a plane (and my first long international flight), I found the experience to be very novel, if a little long. I was a little sad because I didn't get a window seat, and was instead sitting right in the middle of the plane, so it was hard to see out, which was too bad since I was looking forward to the view. (I did get a quick glance of the Alps at one point though, which was pretty exciting.) We had a three hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany, so I can technically say I was in another country, even though I'm not sure that counts! We finally got to the campus around the afternoon and they have been keeping us busy with orientation activities ever since.

Loyola's John Felice Rome Center where I am staying is lovely, though it's pretty old - I believe it used to be a convent and was converted sometime in the 1960s. The neighborhood we are in, Monte Mario, is also lovely and charmingly Italian. I've done a little exploring already, and hope to know my way around by the end of the semester!

The view from my window.

Today, after our orientation activities we had a very nice convocation dinner out on the courtyard, complete with some really authentic Italian food and champagne! Afterwards, the school facilitated a scavenger hunt of the city - we had a list of places to see and things to take pictures of in Rome. The list consisted of mainly the big landmarks, such as St. Peter's Square, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, etc; we had two hours with which to complete the scavenger hunt, so I basically did speed sight-seeing with a group of people. While I wish I had had more time to spend at each landmark, it was honestly surreal to see so many amazing sights in one night. It's just a taste of what's to come, I guess! The best part is, most of these places were no more than a 20 minute bus ride away from the campus.

I'll have some cute group pictures to share when I get them from my friend, but for now here are some of the things I saw (try not to be too jealous!):

St. Peter's Square

My first gelato! I especially loved the dark chocolate!

Trevi Fountain

The Tiber River - Il Tevere in Italian

Castel Sant'Angelo

The Pantheon

Colosseum!

I'm still getting over the jet lag a bit and getting used to the time change, so now I plan to do a lot of sleeping!