Hello friends and family! At this very moment I am sitting in a breezy yellow kitchen in front of a big window looking out over an empty cafe courtyard and the rooftops of Orvieto. A couple somewhere nearby are having a conversation in Italian. The late afternoon rain just finished so everything is a little glossy. I’ve had more than a few glasses of wine. Life is good.

I’ve never written a blog, or even kept a consistent journal, so this will be a bit of an experiment… so I think I should start this out with a disclaimer. After only 5 days here in Italy I can already tell my life is going to be a whirlwind; and most days end in blissful exhaustion. I’m sure my posts won’t be entirely consistent- some will be long and needlessly wordy (can you already tell I like to write more than is necessary?) and others might just be some photos with a quick caption. If I’m being honest, sometimes I’ll likely go a week or more without posting. Grammar/spelling mistakes and typos are inevitable. But I am excited by the prospect of keeping my very first blog to document my time here in Italy- even if no one reads it but my parents. 🙂 So sorry in advance if this is a mess, but thanks for bearing with me!

20 August-     After 24 hours of traveling and traipsing through the airport in Rome, we were picked up by a bus which took us all directly to Orvieto- about 1.5 hours of driving through Rome and eventually through some beautiful countryside as we got closer and closer to Orvieto. About 5,000 people live on the cliff in Orvieto, but the majority of the population, about 15,000, live down at the bottom surrounding the cliff. We are staying up on the cliff, where the views are incredible and there is lots to do! Views became more and more incredible as our bus climbed to the top of the cliff and stopped in a shady piazza where our respective landlords were waiting to drive us to our new homes. I was admittedly really worried about what our living situation would be like here. I’d heard that power outages, no running water, and cramped spaces were common for the student apartments; so leading up to departure I tried hard to set my expectations low and make peace with the fact that life in Italy won’t always be quite as comfortable and convenient as the (spoiled) life I live in the States. So when our landlord stopped the car in front of a beautiful old stone building and we began unloading our bags, I tried to fight some of the excitement. We walked inside to an interior courtyard with arches and a stone staircase leading up to the apartments. Up the stairs and past statues along the way, we opened the door into a spacious, brightly colored apartment with modern amenities and a killer view. Worries gone.

There are 5 of us living here- Kelsey and I share the largest room with an en-suite bathroom, and Sam, Jubilee, and Julia each have their own bedrooms and two bathrooms to share. All these photos were just taken today (the 24th) to show how the place looks after we’ve all settled in.

 

 

After settling in, we went to a restaurant called VinCaffe for a welcome lunch where we were served Italian meats and cheeses (mmmm prosciutto), salad, zucchini Alfredo lasagna, and white wine in abundance. Our Italian program director, Serena, gave us an excited welcome speech and introduced us to a few other Orvieto residents who would be involved in our program while we’re here. Full of food and exhausted from traveling, we took a quick tour of the city in order to point out the grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, etc., and to get a feel for the city. Orvieto is built on a medieval grid- very different from how most US cities are set up. And as someone who regularly gets lost in Manhattan, KS, where I’ve lived for four years, this kind of terrified me. Thankfully I’ve learned that there are some big landmarks and piazzas in the city that really help with navigation. During this tour we also finally got to see the famous duomo. More on that later, but… wow! 

That was about it for the first day- after the tour we came back to the apartment, unpacked, and passed out at 7pm.

21 August-     Day two in Orvieto started with an orientation presentation from Serena inside Centro Studi, our studio space and home base. Afterwards we had some time off for lunch before meeting up for our grand tour of Orvieto. First I hauled my out-of-shape butt up 300 steps to the top of Moro’s clock tower in the very center of the city. After catching my breath I was able to appreciate the spectacular views across the entire city. We stayed up there drooling over the views while Serena gave us some history of Orvieto’s past as an Etruscan fortress city. We were then released for lunch on our own, and after walking allllll the way back down I realized I had left a jacket at the very top of the tower. So I wheezed my way back up the tower, back down, and met some friends at a pizza place in Piazza Republica. I was too late to order pizza so my first meal in Orvieto was a really simple salad. Still pretty tasty though! All my stair climbing and my light healthy lunch had me optimistic that I’d return back to the US skinny and fit! Then that night I ate bruschetta and half a pizza for dinner.

After lunch we reconvened for a tour of some tunnels and caves under the city. We were told that this fairly small city has over 500 caves and tunnels under it, which was summed up well by a friend who whispered “damn, this bitch is hollow.” The caves were originally used for olive oil mills, wine making, and keeping pigeons. After all day in the summer heat, none of us were eager to leave the cool dark caves. Since AC in the apartments isn’t too great, I considered moving my bed down there for a few weeks.

 

The last tour was the one most of us had been waiting for: the Duomo di Orvieto. We learned from a tour guide that the cathedral is dedicated to Mary, and the frescoes and murals depict her life. There are also a lot of murals depicting the Last Judgement. One painting inside a chapel showed the whore of Babylon being carried by a demon over men being dragged into hell by other demons, and she was apparently painted to look like the artist’s cheating mistress. Men are petty.

The cathedral was built in honor of a miracle in which a priest who doubted transubstantiation went on a pilgrimage to restore his faith. During the trip back he broke bread which dropped human blood onto the altar. The Pope had been staying in Orvieto at the time, so the priest stopped here to tell him about it and the Pope ordered a cathedral be built to hold the cloth onto which the blood had dripped. That cloth is still in the duomo, but unfortunately was sealed in behind doors just three years ago in order to better preserve it. 

Finally, that night the 5 of us roommates, plus our friend Priscilla, ventured out for dinner at 8:00. We had been told that dinner doesn’t start here until 7:30 at the earliest. We walked around for over an hour past completely full restaurants, being turned away, or just being too intimidated by the Italian speaking staff to try and get a table. We finally ended up at a pizza place back by our apartment, waited another hour for our food to arrive, and began eating at 10pm. Lesson learned: make a reservation or show up earlier.

22 August-     Wednesday started with a watercolor lesson from K-State’s Dean of Architecture, Tim de Noble. It’s pretty common for students to watercolor for studio projects, but the last time I recalled watercoloring was in elementary school with the little Crayola pack that came with a plastic brush. And now I was about to paint in front of the dean. We sat in a quiet street by a church and Professor de Noble gave some really helpful advice on on-site sketching, and we started by sketching the church facade in elevation, then painted it. Turns out, watercoloring is fun! The dean stopped by a few times to comment on how well I was doing, and even picked mine out at the end as one of the best- such a great feeling! 

Afterwards we were free to get lunch, relax, and in mine and my roommates’ cases: nap. Later that afternoon we met with Professor Norheim, our K-State professor for the semester, for our first seminar. We talked philosophically about architecture in Orvieto, geeked out collectively, and Norheim gave us the run down on what we’ll be working on this semester. The past seven semesters in the architecture program were basically an experiment on how long a human can go without sleep, food, or a shower; endless workloads that had me questioning my will to live. So when Prof. Norheim said that our projects this semester would be creating a movie and a book about our time in Italy, I almost shed a tear of joy. Looks like our main obligation for the next few months is a fun creative project that doesn’t include tedious wall sections or 18 hour renders! And you know what? We deserve it.

That nigh the 5 roomies plus Priscilla and Cat had our first family dinner. 🙂 We made a pesto pasta, Alfredo pasta, caprese salad, and garlic bread- props to our awesome head chef, Sam! So the night ended with a fantastic meal with great friends and red wine. It was a good day. 

23 August-     After three days of amazing experiences, Thursday was my favorite yet. At 9am we met in Piazza Republica where the Orvieto market is held every Thursday and Saturday. There were stands everywhere with local fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, nuts, beans, and also clothes, shoes, and purses (which will be dangerous for me every week). We were all given a grocery list in Italian and a woman (can’t remember her name, ugh!) was there to show us around the market and teach us how to buy things. She was possibly the most fun, energetic, and genuinely nice woman I have ever met! After shopping we walked across the city to a bus which took us to Neri Winery in a different part of Orvieto about 20 minutes away. The views from the winery were so incredible! We could see for miles and miles over Umbria and all the way out to Tuscany, as well as the entire Orvieto cliff. 

We all split into two groups and mine went with the woman who had helped us in the market and who is also the head chef at Neri Winery. Using the ingredients we bought from the market that morning, we started the process of making zucchini goat cheese tarts, roasted tomatoes, and a chocolate pear cake. Then, the next group came in to finish the tarts, and to make salad and pesto. While they cooked, my group went on a tour of the winery and wine cellars and learned about the history of the winery and about the wine-making process (something I already knew a lot about thanks to my wine-loving family). 

Finally, we all came together for dinner and wine tasting. We were served a three course meal of the food we helped prepare. Two days before we sat in a classroom being told that alcohol consumption is discouraged in general and not allowed at all during school-sponsored activities… then at the winery we were given 5 generous glasses of wine in the name of education. Confusing, but I’m certainly not complaining. I wasn’t crazy about the goat cheese in the tart, but I forced it down and was rewarded by delicious pesto pasta with roasted tomatoes, followed by the chocolate pear cake with hazelnut ice cream. YUM! I very generously helped my friend who didn’t like dry wine by finishing off two of her glasses, so by the end of the dinner I was maybe stumbling a little getting back on the bus.

All 5 of us passed out immediately after returning to our apartment for a nice long wine nap. Later that night almost the entire group came over to our apartment to drink some more wine, then head out to a bar right outside the duomo for… more wine. Essentially the entire day centered around food, naps, and wine. No wonder it was my favorite! We all stayed out until 1am enjoying the cool night in Piazza Duomo, talking about all the exciting things we have ahead of us. 

24 August- Whew, finally all caught up to today! We had our first free day today, so it’s been a nice relaxed day. We started by having one more watercolor lesson with de Noble at La Fortezza Albornoz, near the edge of the cliff. This one was definitely more difficult since we worked in perspective rather than elevation. I messed up the perspective on my initial sketch and took a while fixing it, so by the time everyone else was finished watercoloring I had barely started. I missed out on getting feedback from the dean this time, but decided to stay behind and finish my painting since we didn’t have any plans for the rest of the day. I’m glad I did because it was fun to see locals and other tourists stop to watch me paint and comment to each other about my work. These comments were always in Italian or French, so there’s a decent chance they were saying “wow, she sucks,” but I’m choosing to believe they were positive comments. One woman came up to me and said “buongiorno” followed by a lot more that I did not understand. In English I apologized and said I didn’t speak Italian, and I guess she didn’t speak English either because she just looked disappointed, said “grazie,” and walked away. Another time a little girl stopped for quite a while watching, then ran off and returned with a friend, then they ran off and returned with three more friends. Eventually the first girl stood close and said “que bella!” (at least I know that’s a good thing!). Honestly this painting turned out pretty rough and I was a little disappointed in the final product, but the overall experience of sitting in the grass painting while people stopped to watch was really fun and satisfying. 🙂 No regrets. 

When Kelsey and I walked back to the apartment to meet the rest of the girls, they were in the middle of cooking fried chicken, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and a salad for lunch. Last night we talked extensively about Popeye’s chicken, so I guess the cravings for American food had to be satisfied somehow! After dinner Kelsey and I cleaned up while the rest went to nap and relax in their rooms, and since then I’ve been working on this blog. So there ya go, all caught up!

 

Now the restaurant below my window is preparing for dinner and getting louder, and some kids are playing loudly in the courtyard, which if you ask me is annoying in any language. My wine glass is also empty, so I think it’s time to call it quits for now. Sorry for the ridiculously long first blog post, but it’s been so fun to recall everything and have it all written out. I’m excited to continue!

Caio for now! 🙂