experiences...

So in the last week or so…

I experienced a home-cooked Italian meal on Friday night. We split up into small groups and headed to the houses of several families who live in Orvieto, support the community and were willing to invite some Americans into their lives for the evening! I went with two other girls and the program RA (thankfully she speaks Italian so it made conversation much easier!) to the director of the program’s parents’ house. Anna and Jaquamo were very sweet and excited to welcome us in! We were served a four-course meal—beginning with pasta, ending with dessert, with meat and vegetables in between! I experienced the art of trying different wines that best coordinate with the course being served. We stumbled (in translation) through small talk, sports talk, and politics, but the best part of the evening was looking through photo albums! I felt like I experienced a whole new aspect of the Italian culture hearing about how this couple (probably in their early 60s) met in their teens and seeing pictures from throughout their life.

I had my first weekend in Orvieto! I spent most of the time drawing, enjoying the outdoors and enjoying the company of everyone in the program! We played a game of futbol to get in the true Italian spirit—and my is it an interesting combination to play with a handful of Italians who are very good and take the game very seriously and a bunch of English and Art majors who haven’t played soccer since middle school! It was a good time though. On Sunday morning I, and a few others from the program, began rehearsing with the choir at the small catholic church I attended the last two Sundays. The choir director speaks enough English to help us during practice, and they gladly welcomed us in. The music is beautiful (though I’m still working on understanding it!) and it was great to participate in a choir again.

I handed in my first drawing assignment. Over the weekend we created seven small drawings of churches, walls, arches, trees, etc. around the town. We also restarted, worked on and perfected the cityscape of mock Orvieto, created from cardboard boxes in our studio. The studio project took up most of Monday but once it was done it felt good to have accomplished the task!

this is my drawing... this was the model of what i was attempting to draw...

Tomorrow we head to Roma! We’ll spend Thursday through Sunday in apartments right smack in the middle of Rome and have a verrry packed schedule! I am anticipating a weekend where I am smacked in the face with history, blown away by beauty and can encounter the art and architecture of this ancient city in ways I would have never expected! I am SO excited. J

Thanks for your prayers!

The evening is when I find the Duomo most powerful and breathtaking--when the busy buzz of crowds of pedestrians and tourists has faded away and there's no one else around. The building pops out of the sky, with the moon shining down and I stand before it humbled and amazed.