1/14/10

FACTS
-The University of Macerata was built in 1290 AD.
-Within the city walls: less than 3,000 people
-Manufacturer of Prada is here
-Locals are courteous, but skeptical of foreigners until they meet you at least a couple times
-Italy is a country of immigrants – 4.8 million


NOTES
Filiberto (our director) gave us a list of essentials (food, pharmacies, shops, etc) – the night life places to go was put together by students from Kalamazoo College. How ironic.

I feel like I’m dreaming and I should wake up at any moment. It’s the weirdest feeling. I also had 2 cups of coffee this morning…bad idea.

Apparently, at discoes (clubs), girls get in free because we attract boys and confused Americans get freebies because we’re hilarious to watch.

I guess we should get used to being cold; doesn’t get hot until June-August. Spring is “nice” says Filiberto. I don’t know what that means.

I heard the hostel used to be a building for children, and I think it was an orphanage.

Pietro Belusci (spell check?)
-born in Ancona (nearby city)
-architect
- Sears Tower, Bank of America in California, and others…

Sono strainera (spell check?) = “I’m a foreigner” in Italian.

This whole day was a big blur of walking and more walking and trying to learn our way around the city. I can’t say I know my way yet. I was always following someone, but I do recognize places and landmarks. I ache all over and don’t even want to think about the knots in my shoulders from my pack and the cold.
It’s about 2:30am here and I’m nodding off but I need to finish summing up this day or I’m afraid I will forget and the days will start to blur together. The main things were the one and only guy arrived this morning, without his luggage, and met up with us and a tour. He’s outnumbered 12:1 I think, but handles it well so far and is from Paw-Paw, Michigan and goes to Alma along with 2 of the girls here. There are a lot of us from Michigan. The other thing was we found out where are apartments are that we’re moving into tomorrow (Friday). I’m living with 2 other girls, Grace and Hsuan Hsuan (you pronounce it like “shin shin”). We actually walked by our apartment today and we are really close everything, and we were told our apartment is very old, but beautiful and even has frescoes on the walls. It’s overwhelming being so exhausted and excited at the same time. I was sitting there listening to them describe our apartment today, and I wanted to jump up and down one moment and then was nodding off the next. The third thing I need to write about before I crash is we went out tonight to a mum and pop restaurant. The one Dr. Caristi was telling me all about at Ball State. An older Italian couple own it and the wife hand makes all of the pasta. They are the sweetest people you will meet and the food, the very best probably in the city. All the meals are about 4 courses: Pasta, Meat, Vegetable, Salad, Desert/Fruit. And then Coffee. They served wine at the tables. I tried the white and liked it a lot better than red because it’s sweeter. The pasta was amazing. We had tiramisu for desert and they served it with a desert wine which they cooked. It kind of tasted like whiskey and was very sweet and really good. Then they made espresso.
I had three. I couldn’t help it, they were amazing.
Sugar. Buzz.

After everyone wanted to go out and find a bar or the discoe. We found a bar and ordered beers or pesca lemon (which is what I got) which was like an iced peach vodka. It was pretty crowded, even outside. So we hung around there for awhile, there was music inside. It’s funny how we don’t fit in at all here. Macerata is a pretty small town and everyone knows everyone. So people stare. So we walked around a lot after that. And it’s a work out. The whole city is up and down, with stairs everywhere. We have to move out of the hostel tomorrow by 9.
Buona notte.