6th Week of Classes

This week was another pretty standard week as far as classes go. We had a paper due in Cross-Cultural studies that I typed during class and handed in, which I got an A on. For Art & Science, we had some longer readings about really boring stuff that is almost completely irrelevant to what we had been learning before. Art History was fun because we got to go out and learn about the big fountain, Fonte Gaia, instead of sitting in class. Then on Wednesday we went to the Piccolomini Library, which I was really excited to go to because it is a library. Unfortunately it is not known for its books, but for its amazing artwork, which was pretty cool, I guess. In Italian we are learning things at a pretty good rate and we had our midterm and oral midterm this week, which I think I did pretty well on. We have to start writing journals for Italian and Matteo, my teacher, wants me to write almost a page a day to keep my improving and trying new grammar styles out. It has finally started to warm up here, so that is nice. We spend most of our time between classes hanging out in the Campo and getting gelato. I went and saw a movie in Italian, Ironman, and could understand most of it, so I was pretty proud of how much I have learned so far. I have been going to the Tea Room a lot lately, and the manager is really cool guy that I have been able to speak to in Italian quite a few times. On Friday we went to Monteoliveto and Pienza. Montooliveto was a cool monastery that had a drawbridge and a big spawning pool for fish. It had a huge renaissance refrigerator and a nice library as well. On Saturday we went to Assisi, where we saw the upper and lower church of St. Francis. The churches were cool and pretty, but I have seen so many that they just kind of run together for me. The town of Assisi was having a reenactment that day so there were tons of people dressed up in period costumes. It was funny to see them all hanging out on break because they were just smoking and talking on their cell phones. We also went to the church of St. Clare, who was a contemporary of St. Francis. We saw many of both of their relics, including tunics and both of their bodies. Their influence on Christianity was their focus on poverty and humanism. So instead of having all of the riches of the Catholic Church, they gave everything away, and focused on the humanity of life and how everyone and everything is equal in God’s creation. It was really interesting to learn about this departure from the norm. After we got back, everyone went to buy tickets to go to the beach on Sunday. After two days of traveling with everyone I decided that I was not going to go again. Liz and I decided to have a picnic at a park near my house. We went to Conad on Sunday and bought a bunch of food and just hung out all day at the park with Italians being very publicly romantic with each other. You can’t escape it anywhere you go, in the campo or anywhere. That night I went to the Tea Room again.