Day #8 in Orvieto

March 2, 2013

Becky and I set our alarms for 9:30 this morning because we were so tired from last night and we couldn’t fall asleep! So we woke up late, moseyed on down to breakfast and had a little bit to eat before we went for a run. Orvieto is like 90% hills (and it always seems like you’re going uphill) so we ran for most of the time, but there were some hills that were way too steep to run up. Maybe at the end of four months, we’ll be able to tackle them. We stopped by the open-air market on our way to pranzo at 1pm, but a lot of the stands were closing up. It was good to see what you could buy there though, for future reference. They have this market every Thursday and Saturday from 7:30am-1pm, so we can go again. There were some clothes, scarves and mittens, lots of fresh fruit, treats, and random other things.

For pranzo we had some sort of asparagus sauce on the farfalle pasta. It was sooooo good. We also had eggplant/cheese and some beans. After lunch, most of us headed to the palazzo to start our homework. For this assignment, we had to go out and draw and landscape (these homework directions are always very vague… it can cause a bit of stress. There’s never any instruction on how long it should take, what size paper to use, or what type of material to use).

Jenna and I went back to “sunset park,” which is on one end of Orvieto – Orvieto is one big cliff so there’s definitely a lot of landscapes as you look out from the city. After a few minutes of frustration and grumbling, Jenna and I finally found a suitable spot to draw. It was a little windy and cold by the cliff, but we eventually stopped complaining and began to draw. Two hours passed and we hadn’t made a ton of progress, but we then called it quits and went to get gelato. This was my first time getting gelato since I’ve been here, and I got bacio (chocolate hazelnut) and cappuccino (pretty much coffee) in a cone. Even though I was shivering as we walked along the street as I ate my gelato, it was THE BEST.

We made out way back to the Villa to relax and use some Internet, but other than that, we didn’t have any more plans for the day, other than cena at 7:30pm (It’s weird to say that an early dinner is at 7:30pm…).

For dinner we had mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes on foccacia bread. And apples for dessert.

After dinner, we played some games in the palazzo and now it’s Internet time and then bed soon! Overall, a nice and relaxing Saturday with lots of free time. :) Tomorrow should be church, spending time in the studio, picnic lunch, maybe a run, and then dinner cooked by our RA and TA. This was a nice weekend before an upcoming week of classes and a trip to Rome on Thursday for class!

View during the run!

My roommate, Becky, at the end of our run. We were happy to be done with those hills...