Day #45 in Orvieto

With our favorite cat! It loves Laura

April 8, 2013 – Monday

I had to wake up a little earlier this morning because it was a 15 minute walk from the B&B to the monastery. Kelly and I went downstairs for breakfast where there was a whole spread of pastries, bread, fruit, yogurt, cheese, etc. I made a little sandwich with the fresh bread, some ham, and what I THOUGHT was cheese… I thought I was spreading some sort of soft cheese onto the roll because it kind of seemed like cheese, but after I ate half of the sandwich, I realized that I may have made a butter sandwich with a little bit of ham. It was good though because everything with butter is good.

Anyways, I began the walk back to the monastery and it was weird to be out in the town so early in the morning! I hadn’t been out that early since we had class in the palazzo. But now that we have class in the monastery, there’s no need to leave before 1pm!

So I abandoned Kelly and went to class, then we had chapter meeting which was the best chapter meeting yet! We had cake because it was Tyler’s birthday yesterday, and then we were talking about community life and then suddenly Prof. Doll had us get up and try to stand in a perfect circle in the courtyard (he always does metaphor stuff like this, which is good, but you never know where it’s going to go at first!). He had Hannah stand in the middle so she could tell us when we were in a perfect circle. Then Prof. Doll asked us which buildings are perfect circles that we’ve seen in Rome. So we made a few (wrong) guesses and finally someone guessed the Pantheon. Then he said YES that’s what he was thinking of, and he continued to talk about the beam of light that comes through the top of the Pantheon. He then said that Hannah (who was still standing in the middle of the circle) had a “beam of light” or something like that and then she held up her hand and everyone saw her engagement ring and started all 18 girls started to shriek while the two boys didn’t… well they were exciting but they weren’t jumping up and down like everyone else was! So long story short… Federico (Hannah’s Italian boyfriend at the time, obviously) proposed to her yesterday in her favorite spot in Rome, the Pantheon! Anyways, it was an exciting chapter meeting and everyone was so happy and excited and couldn’t wait to hear the story at lunch.

After lunch, Laura and I met up with Kelly again and walked around Orvieto with her for a while. Laura and I then quickly went to Italian class for an hour which was a little bit funny because Alessandro used my hair as an example for “frizzy.” He was trying to explain to us the difference between fizzy water (or “frizzy water,” according to Alessandro) and regular water and he was like “You know, FRIZZY. Becky’s hair… very straight. Megan’s hair… fizzy-frizzy.” I think he was trying to say “curly” but at the same time, maybe not. It was really humid yesterday so my hair was definitely more on the frizzy side! It was funny though.

Anyways, after Italian, we continued to hang out with Kelly and browse through some shops. We went in one of the leather shops (twice) so I drooled over all the leather bags and purses… I want them all. I’ll probably only choose one to buy though before I leave. It’s a good thing I have a few more months to decide though because I love them all!

Laura and I had to leave Kelly again for dinner but thankfully it was a short dinner so we then went back to the La Casa di Tufo again to pick her up before going to Montanucci’s. We had some snacks and dessert and soon it was 10ish. We went back to the Bed & Breakfast for a little bit, but I had to walk back to the monastery (before it was Laura’s turn to stay at the B&B and have a luxurious breakfast in the morning). I was dreading the walk because it suddenly began to pour and I had my big backpack on with my laptop in it. THANKFULLY I had my umbrella so I leave La Casa di Tufo and took off at an awkward walk/run back to the monastery. The main street in Orvieto has never seemed so long. After fifteen minutes of trying to run in the wind/rain with my umbrella (it continued to flip up so I had to stop and punch it back into it’s normal shape), I finally reached the monastery! I was chatting with Sara for a bit because I hadn’t seen her in like two days because she’s sick so she slept for 20sih hours yesterday. After talking with her for a while, I decided to go to bed even though I should’ve worked on my essay… oops.