Assisi and Perugia

I found the beginning of a blog post that was never posted, and I was inspired to finish it before my last meal here. I'm sitting outside on the terrazzo with a group of Italian card players, and with my favorite Dei Duchi hotel workers passing by. All of my favorite workers were scheduled today. I am such a lucky girl! :)

As I sat down this afternoon to write out my weekly schedule, I realized that I only have about two weeks left in Italy. I can't believe it's gone by so fast. Today was a busy day, with scales class, orchestra rehearsal, quartet rehearsal, and personal practice time. Tomorrow is even busier, since I'll be playing in a string masterclass for Dr. Yim, a violinist on faculty here in Spoleto. There's a choir concert tomorrow night, and then Dr. Yim is having all of the violists over to his apartment for dinner!

Today was a bit rough, considering that I was recovering from an awesome concert Saturday night, and an absolutely lovely day trip to Assisi and Perugia on Sunday. Concerning the concert, it went well, especially considering our limited prep time. It featured several famous scenes from different operas, with an overture at the beginning and a Smetana Polka to showcase just the orchestra. This concert was the conducting students' big night, as each of the conducting students had two opera pieces to conduct with soloists and orchestra. Working with a variety of conducting styles was certainly interesting, and with our Maestro there, critiquing each one, I learned a lot about the art of conducting. I definitely learned enough to know that I'd never want to do it! :) The concert was almost two hours long, AND we started 20 minutes _after_ nine. I didn't realize we'd be THAT true to Italian concert tradition, but apparently, if you want Italians to attend the concerts, you don't open the curtain for at least 10 or 15 minutes after the printed time. Depending on the situation and how you look at it, Italians' complete disregard for rules, times, and even road signs can either be hilarious, infuriating, or anything inbetween. Every single time I hear a vehicle coming, I jump in the nearest doorway or behind the nearest dumpster because I constantly fear for my life. The tight curves and narrow roads in this town give the locals no amount of concern, and luckily for the drivers, pedestrians always give motorists the right of way. Anyway, the concert went well, and the local bar down the street opened up its doors for an afterparty, complete with discounted drinks and food.

My trip to Assisi and Perugia was absolutely wonderful. Assisi is about a twenty minute train ride from Spoleto, and it is home to the famous St. Francis (Francesco) of Assisi. I traveled there with an assortment of my singer and instrumentalist friends and with the violin professor, Dr. Yim. Many festival participants chose the same day to travel to Assisi, so the train was full of familiar faces. When we arrived in Assisi, we headed up to the main cattedrale, where Francesco lived and studied, and we attended mass there. Distracted by the fact that: 1)I'm not Catholic,2) I don't understand Italian, and 3)there was a constant stream of tourists not so silently passing through the chapel during mass, I spent most of the time listening to the words of the priests echo through the hall and staring at the beautiful frescos. The sheer square footage of preserved frescos in the chapel is impressive enough, not to mention the paintings themselves were absolutely beautiful. The crypt housing Francesco was located right under the chapel, so as soon as mass was over, we ventured under for a look. I could tell by the size and setup of the crypt room just how important Francesco is to the people of Italy. In the crypts that I've seen, St Francis' is second only to St Peter's in Vatican City. It's also pretty high on the creepiness scale. The only other bodies in the crypt are all labeled as "the companion of St Francis." It's cool that he and his friends can hang out down there together.

Our Assisi trip was a short one, since we were all trying to hit two cities in one day, so we zoomed through a Rocca tour at the top of the hill(fantastic view!), and explored a couple beautiful churches and an even more beautiful pastry shop (yum yum!). Despite a missed train, a delayed train, and a very grumpy ticket worker, we made it to Perugia in time to enjoy one of the best meals I've ever had in my life(I think several meals have earned that title!:) To travel to the top of Perguia from the train station, we had to take a "mini metro," which was BY FAR the cutest and most exciting public transportation I have ever taken in my entire life. The track looked like a children's rollercoaster, the boxcars were red on the inside, there weren't any obligatory seatbelts, and there was a metro every 5 minutes. What more could you ask for? The minimetro deposited us at the top of Perugia, and Dr. Yim led us to his favorite restaurant. We literally spent all of our time in Perugia eating. And let me tell you, there is no better way to spend the day when you're at the seat of Umbria and at the home of some of the world's best chocolate. I ate more there than I should have in one day, but I'm still pretty sure that my cat has me beat in the vacation weight gain competition, thanks to my dad's indulgent care. :)

We passed a few good hours at the dinner table in Perguia, realized the late hour, and scurried around the city to take some quick snapshots and find the local chocolatier. Unfortunately, the main chocolate shop was closed that day, but we found a pretty satisfying substitute, and we ate it as we ran to the minimetro. At this point, we had ten minutes to buy tickets for the mini, ride it, buy tickets for the train, validate them, find the right binario, and board. On our way down the "rollercoaster," we contemplated the most efficient way to get on the train, and as soon as the doors opened, we ran. We sprinted towards the train station like the very stuffed and clueless American tourists that we were, fumbled through our wallets to buy the tickets, and raced to the train. The train pulled up as we validated our tickets and ran to the track, and after finding the second class boxcar, we all hopped in. I think those few moments may have taken a year or two off of my life, but I don't think I could've picked a better place to tarry than a Perugian dinner table.

The Grand Finale!

I can't believe I haven't updated in two weeks! I can't believe our last concert was tonight! I can't believe that the festival is over! I can't believe we're leaving on Tuesday! I have so much to blog about from the past two weeks--For anyone who is interested, I will continue blogging until all of the last two weeks are documented!! :) But tonight, I just want to write what is on my mind from today. As I type this post, I'm listening to Nat King Cole's "I Love You for Sentimental Reasons," and, considering my emotional attachment to Spoleto, it's definitely appropriate! :)

Tonight was our last concert here in Spoleto. It started twenty minutes late(in the usual Italian way) and went for about two hours. We played an assortment of opera scenes, accompanied by the solisti, studio, and opera program singers. The big hits were from Bizet's Carmen, Donizietti's Don Pasquale, and several Mozart selections (Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, and The Marriage of Figaro). For our "encore" piece, and for a little thank you gift for Spoleto, we closed the curtain with a rendition of Verdi's "Va Pensiero," a truly moving tune that has become a kind of national anthem for the Italians. Considering the history of the piece(it's also known as the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves), and the fact that it was our last night in Spoleto, there were a few tears shed in the music-making process tonight!!

Tears were also shed at Lo Sfizioso, the sandwich shop in Piazza del Mercato that I visit everyday. Sabrina doesn't normally work on Sundays, but she came into work today just to say goodbye. I gave her and Clara some tasty dark chocolate as a thank you for being such sweet friends to me during my stay, and they pulled out a gift of delicious cookies in return! It was a special moment we had today, appreciating the friendship we've had, and the fragments of broken English and Italian that we both used to bridge the language barrier halfway. I wrote a card for Sabrina and Clara, completely in Italian (with horrendous spelling and grammar, I'm sure!!), and Sabrina teared up because I'd learned so much!! :)

Finding the right time to say goodbyes has been difficult, since most businesses are closed on Sundays and tomorrow for some special Italian holiday. (I'm still not quite sure what's going on!) Tomorrow, I'll be saying goodbye to Filipo, Alessandra, and "Filipo due" from the gelato shop. I tried to say goodbye today, but my camera died, so we're going to have a rerun tomorrow afternoon! I hope that there will be some restaurants open tomorrow, but I had the most delicious meal of my Italian experience tonight, just in case I won't have the opportunity tomorrow. I had a three course (basically four) meal tonight at a restaurant called barcaccia. We had the house bread, a vegetable platter of green beans, peas and tomatoes(YUM), handmade ravioli stuffed with ricotta and some delicious greens and drizzled with an olive oil sauce, a warm chocolate fudge cake, and complimentary watermelon. It was literally some of the best food I've had in my entire life. I'm certainly not looking forward to returning to my limited cooking skills, but I do have some new ideas to try out.

As much as I'm looking forward to coming home, I'm truly torn! Five weeks is a long stay, and I feel like Spoleto has become my little Italian home. Tomorrow, I'm planning on simply walking around the city, speaking in my broken Italian, and eating as much as I can. ^^