Nutella sulle Scale

Ciao famiglia e amici,

I'm writing to you all during an unbelievable rainstorm that hit Italy yesterday. My train ride home to Venice was really wet - and it didn't stop when I got home. I got completely soaked on my walk through the streets from the train station to the vaporetto station on the other side of Venice, even with an umbrella. The fact that the city is prone to flooding didn't exactly help - I had to use the wooden platforms in Piazza San Marco, which were covered with both rain and tourists. I did make the boat, though, no problem.

Before all this weather happened, however, I have to let you know that I had an amazing weekend! Maybe one of the best in Italy (I know I had one of the best meals EVER). I think I remember writing previously that I was planning on going to Perugia and Assisi with my VIU friends Emily (from BC) Vanessa (Georgia State) and Clare (England). Well, they actually left for Umbria (that's the region where Perugia and Assisi are) on Thursday afternoon. I opted to stay in Venice for a little longer, and that afforded me some time to hang out with friends on thursday night. I got up around 9 on Friday for my 10:43 train to Firenze, and then I would catch a train to Perugia from there.

Friday was amazing. I really like some parts of traveling by myself - you can do what you want, when you want. The only one in charge is you. So I rode the vaporetto into Venice, called Emily to check where they were (biking in the Umbrian countryside) and then took a leisurely walk through Venice to the train station, where I took an espresso and a brioche at the bar inside. It was just so nice - I just had a backpack with a couple shirts, toothbrush, you know, that stuff (and an umbrella, haha). Traveling light is the way to go, I'm serious. I stamped my ticket (I don't know if you guys know, but if you haven't traveled to Italy, there are these yellow machines, and you have to stamp your ticket in it before boarding, otherwise you're subject to a fine).

I got on board, not before buying a copy of Il Gazzettino, the regional newspaper of Venice. It was sooo nice just reading the paper on the train on the way to Firenze. And I had no problem reading it either - some of the articles were really interesting (and funny). A lot of them were about the Italian governmental institutions and the slow-burning disease of bureaucracy (in the justice system, especially). I read another one about Obama and his plans to pull out of Iraq - an interesting article, being from a non-US perspective. There was another one about how the stage in Piazza San Marco during Carnivale damaged the stone surface of the piazza. Finally, and most ridiculously, there was an article about a Sardegnan family that wanted to visit their son in Treviso - but they weren't allowed on the plane... why? Because they wanted to bring their pet rabbit with them. Odd, huh?

Anyway, I got into Umbria around 4:30pm, and I got off at the Magione station (it's a tiny little town with not much to do). I asked the lady in the cafe where the hostel I was staying in was. She knew of it, but she told me it was about 4 km away. But I called Gian Giacomo, who runs the hostel, and he sent Cristiano to pick me up. Cristiano spoke no English, so I got some practice - although it was difficult understanding the Umbrian dialect right off. It's slower and he kind of mumbled too. We spoke about Boston since somehow he knew I was a BC student (not really sure because Emily didn't remember telling anyone she went to BC). His brother works in Boston, so he's been to Fenway to see the Sox play the Yankees, and he also has been to 3 or 4 Bruins games. He actually has a Boston Bruins hat! Haha, I thought that was hilarious and I thought Klish would laugh at that bit of news.

So I asked Gian Giacomo when the next train to Perugia was, because thats where the girls were (meaning my friends from VIU, not in general), and it left in 4 minutes, luckily. The train took 20 minutes, and when I finally got there, I had no idea where I was. I mean, I knew I was in Perugia, right, but the old city is surrounded by urban sprawl. So I checked for some pay phones to call my friends, but unfortunately they were all BROKEN! So I did the only thing a guy could do: start walking up a street, having no idea where I was going. All the other phones I passed were broken too. I felt like Neo trying to leave the Matrix but Agent Smith broke all the telephones first. Fortunately I found a nice lady in an orange coat holding some groceries, and I asked her how to get to the center of Perugia. Straight, she said, up the escalators. Escalators? I thought... this was getting interesting.

So I followed her directions, and I ended up at the bottom of this rocky cliff with a tram heading straight up to the top. I took the tram, and sure enough, ESCALATOR! I was finally in the old city of Perugia. And wow it was beautiful. It was just about 6:15, so the sun was going down. Great, I thought, now where's a phone? It had been great asking directions and practicing my Italian, but now I just wanted to find my friends. And I also knew the last train from Perugia to Magione left at 8:20 (weird, I know) so I wanted to find Clare, Vanessa and Emily before that. So... I found a phone booth, and it was amazing because it worked! But Morpheus didn't answer, it was Emily, and she said they just got out of the movie "Diverso da chi" (Different from Who?) and they were just walking around. And I found them!

We admired the view from the top of Perugia down onto the Umbrian countryside. Beautiful. But it was getting dark. We really just walked around and talked, and both Clare and Vanessa are really good at Italian so we spoke in Italian. Emily has just started studying it, but she's learning pretty quickly. I really wish we could've spent more time in Perugia! There's a really famous chocolate factory where they make the Baci Perugina, but unfortunately there wasn't time. We had to settle for buying some Baci Perugina instead. Which was a good decision. We also got a giant tub of Nutella (now you're seeing where the title of this piece comes in a little bit) - we wanted to get 2, thinking they were 2.10 euro a piece. But they actually weren't on sale, so they cost 10 euro. Rip off, I know, but we still got one.

So we got back to the hostel, where we ate dinner – yeah, they provided us with a pasta dinner, incredible. And we all ate together, all the people staying in the hostel. The one other guy in my room was from Greece, I didn’t really get to talk to him though. I spent most of the time speaking in Italian with Cristiano and Vanessa. Cristiano told us more about his travels in the United States – his favorite city was Chicago, which is apparently the architectural capital of the world. After dinner, Clare, Vanessa, Emily and I went to get a gelato at this place down the street. Cristiano came with us, and we talked about the local atmosphere in Perugia. It’s a really small community in Magione and Torricello, he said, and everyone knows everyone. Actually there’s a famous soccer player who lives not too far from the hostel. And he said that Gian Giacomo’s father was a famous racecar driver in the past. We talked more about sports, and he explained that obviously soccer is most important (and Perugia has had a really bad team for quite some time) but also basketball. Siena has a really good team in both sports, apparently. And hockey is fairly popular in the north – especially in Torino.

The next morning, on Saturday, we started the day slowly with a nice long breakfast of – what else – brioche, toast and Nutella. I’m just saying up front that we all overdosed on Nutella. After breakfast, we took out the bikes that are available to guests, and went for a little ride along the trails beside Lago Trasimeno. It was so beautiful – I really can’t explain how amazing it is to ride on a bicycle through the Umbrian countryside. We rode past little farms and plots of land owned by locals. The lake was so picturesque, the sky so blue – it really was a perfect day.

We were planning on taking the train from Magione to Assisi at 12:40, so we got one of the hostel people to drive us to the station. The woman who drove us said we could buy tickets for the train while onboard, so we waited for the train to arrive only to be promptly met by the angry ticket controller woman who said we had to get off. This caused us to have a nice hour or so visit through the center of Magione. We were getting hungry and there weren’t many choices in terms of eating – everyone just goes home at 1, and everything closes. So we were starving on a hill town in the middle of Umbria. And I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but because I eat so much here, my stomach hates me when I don’t eat as much as usual. So. My friends went into a grocery store, which was actually open – I just sat on the stairs and thought about things (housing lottery, places I want to travel, people I wish could be with me, food) while gazing off into the Umbrian distance. Then Clare, Vanessa and Emily came back… with fresh bread and Nutella, as well as pretzels, bottles of water and a few other snacks. Basically, it was incredible. And… Nutella on the stairs (sulle scale), so that’s how the title came about.

We caught the next train to Assisi. When we finally got up into the old city, we were amazed at what a well-preserved hilltop town it is. The buildings are constructed mainly out of stone, which is whitish-tan, and there are narrow streets that made me think of Venice, although huge hills. And so many churches for such a small town! It was actually quite similar to Perugia, but the religious history of Assisi has made it more famous. It’s all about San Francesco (St. Francis), who you all definitely have heard of – there’s a main basilica there in his name, where his tomb is, similar to the Basilica di Sant’Antonio in Padova. We didn’t get to see the tomb because a mass was taking place. However, the Giotto frescoes in the top level of the basilica were incredible. Some of the most famous ones include Francesco renouncing his family wealth and clothes and declaring himself a follower of only God, Francesco communing with nature, and of course, Francesco receiving the stigmata from the angel. In the Basilica Santa Chiara (Saint Clare), there is a whole set of religious relics said to belong to Francesco and Chiara. For example, there’s a shoe that legend says Francesco was wearing when he received the stigmata. Weird, huh? The tomb of Santa Chiara is in the lower sanctuary, and we saw that too. For Clare, it was a bit of a pilgrimage to her patron saint, haha. Assisi was so incredible, and fortunately the rain held off for a while, and didn’t really start in earnest until we left.

We got back to Magione and Torricello, and were hungry. It was right around dinnertime. The hostel staff recommended il Giardino (the Garden) a really nice restaurant just around the corner from the hostel, not far from the lake. We were the only English-speaking people inside and the menu was only in Italian. It was no problem though because between the four of us, we knew what was going on. The food was incredible. Definitely one of the best dinners I’ve had in Italy, maybe ever. We all got fresh salads and I ordered the risotto with mushrooms and sausage, and the sauce was just amazing. After two or three hours, we got a gelato at the same place we went before. It was really a perfect ending to an amazing day.

I spent Sunday on the train returning to Venice. Vanessa, Clare and Emily got off the regional train at Arrezzo while I stayed on until Firenze, where I changed trains. I arrived in a very wet Venice at 3:25.

I’m just doing some laundry now – I think I can hear it downstairs, actually. The next couple days should be fun – one of our friends Kim just turned 21 today, and on Wednesday Italy plays Ireland in their last World Cup qualifier match until September. It’s going to be a good week, I think (if my BC friends and I can just get this housing stuff straight!). Where am I going this weekend? Well, I originally thought about staying in Venice, but I may end up traveling to Parma with my friend John to link up with some other BC students. Or I may go to Siena, also in Toscana (Tuscany). Some of my other friends want to go to Trieste, that’s in the north – so that’s an option as well. Unless I want to cool off here in Venice. Other exciting news – I may have found a flight to Trapani, Sicilia (not far from Palermo) for 20 euro, that’s there and back. So we may do that.

Ciao for now,

Andrew