Day #9 in Orvieto

March 3, 2013

This morning I woke up late, rushed down to breakfast because I’m always afraid I’ll arrive too late, and then I had a slow morning, as I got ready to go for a run by myself. For the most part, Orvieto feels safe, but it felt like a big deal to leave the city and go run around the perimeter of Orvieto by myself. For the most part, everything went well except I had a full 2 minutes of slight panic when I returned to the city and couldn’t find my way back to the Villa. This is what happened: I made one wrong turn and then suddenly went down whatever side street seemed to be the brightest and lead to a palazzo. Then after like a minute (it might have even been shorter than that), I turned around and saw the library, then walked a few seconds down the street to see the duormo. Seriously… I felt so silly. And now I know exactly what went wrong! It was just that one turn at the beginning. I’m pretty sure you can only be “lost” in  Orvieto for a few seconds before you see something familiar. It’s so small!

Anyways, after my run I got ready for the day and then the whole group went on a picnic! It was great to sit in the sun with everyone and share all of the food that we each brought. In the afternoon, I went for a walk through town by myself because I’ve wanted to check out all the shops around town, but I’ve always been in a group that doesn’t feel like shopping or has something else to do. So I wandered in and out of the shops, practicing my basic Italian (Ciao…). I actually asked one of the shopkeepers what “Attenti al gatti” meant because it EVERY STORE there was an assortment of ceramic signs with a cat and that phrase. She told me that it means “attention to the cats” which still didn’t make sense to me, but I said thanks and moved along to the next store, passing a few cats on my way. So strange.

I worked in the studio for a while in the afternoon because it got a little bit colder.  Then a few of us went to the Catholic mass in the duomo. They have four masses every day, and we decided to go to the 6pm one now. It was a little bit confusing (because it was in Italian, obviously) but definitely an interesting experience… the duomo is so cool though. Normally it costs money to go in the duomo and look around (with the exception of the worship services) but since Gordon has some sort of deal with them, we are allowed to go in and look around anytime! I want to go back soon and wander around because there’s so much art and stuff to look at.

We went back to the palazzo for dinner (pasta, bread, salad) and that’s pretty much it! Once again, it was a nice, relaxing day and a good end to the weekend.

Took a break to stretch.. and take this picture

FaceTime with Emily and Rocket. He loved it