The ascent is scarier than the descent.

So yesterday celebrates my first official travel day in Italy. The roommates and I were going to visit Florence, then we changed it to Assisi, and it finally ended up being a small town called Gubbio. The name reminded me of booger.

Gubbio proved to be a good choice the moment we stepped off the bus. I can't describe how cute the town was because any of the words I might use seem so typical. So take a look at the pictures and hopefully one day you can come here and find out for yourself.

While you might not think much of Gubbio when you first hear the name, you would be surprised. It’s such a charming town with loads of history behind it. It’s a medieval town. (This you can tell by the pictures of the buildings, they look castle like.)

It might be weird to say but one of the things that attracted us to the town was how the guide book claimed that the town had museums of chastity belts and medieval torture devices. Okay, I know that sounds sick, but if you were one hour away from this town, you would want to see these attractions too. So, we didn't find what we were looking for but we did find other museums with pretty good stuff. Here are about a quarter of the pictures that I took. I tried cutting them down but I like them all. : )

In the pictures you'll find a beautiful park, a beautiful town, historical things, Tina and I becoming certifiably insane, and a birdcage ride.

We woke up early, about 6:30 am, and took a bus about one hour away from our town. The guidebook said that in order to get to Gubbio you had to drive on this gut-retching windy rode, but I had no problem with it. (My roommates, on the other hand, were a different story.) It was rainy Saturday but we decided that we weren’t going to let a little water stop us.

I decided that I loved Gubbio, after walking around for just a moment. It’s such a picturesque town. As we walked by apartments, I could hear the town getting up and making breakfast in the kitchen through the shutters. It was cute to see the little cars and vespas parked in front of the apartment doors and the flowers growing outside the windows. The local church people helped their church as it was undergoing some construction. Old Italian men loitered the front door of the bar (a bar in Italy is called a café in America). They chatted, read the paper, looked out at the rain… a typical Saturday morning.

The old men were friendly and opened the door for us when we walked in to get our coffee. Even the lady who made our cappuccinos was curiously asked us where we were from. Gubbio is a bit on the small side but a great place to have a family. I also think I was partial to it especially because there wasn’t as much graffiti here. (I’m a bit annoyed at how much graffiti Perugia has.) But anyway, one of the first pictures I took was of this nun walking in the rain.

You can see the medieval architecture.

I was excited because I found a window in the door, like in the Wizard of Oz and the Lord of the Rings. I tried to open it, but no go.

On the right are my roommates walking up the street.

An Italian lady shaking off her rug out the window. I saw a lot of people do this.

In between the doors and the vespas, you can see rings that are in the wall. This is such an old country that many small historical details like this are still on the buildings. My roommate Tina told me that this is where you used to hitch your horse, but I’m not sure if she was just saying that or not. (I’m pretty gullible.) But she’s a history major so she should know.

I want to live in this little house thing. I heard people making breakfast upstairs and I wanted to join them. Or be them. But they had a cute little garden that I didn’t get a good picture of to the right.

We found a park. We felt like we had found a secret garden or something. It was just so beautiful and there was no one else in sight. It was such a treasure.

We also found a hobbit hole. I thought Frodo lived in the Shire…not Gubbio!

It looked like this would have been a good place for a statute to be. So I filled the void.

It was a very romantic park. Obviously other people thought so too.

Me and Metra being silly.

I wish I could live here someday.

These next two pictures are for my cousin Lillian. She likes small cars.

So, one of the things that we read in the guide book was that in Gubbio you could become certifiably insane. They said to just walk into any little store and you could get a certificate that says so. All they’ll make you do is run around the fountain a couple of times. Well, most shops were closed on this Saturday and we didn’t want to have to pay for an actual certification, so we decided to certify ourselves.

I would like to live here too.

Here are some museum things. I’m not really into that kind of stuff, but here is what caught my eye. The first is what looks like a prehistoric tea mug. (Top left.) Okay, I know it’s not prehistoric but it is really, really, old yet also looks like something that I would drink out of now days.

This is an old toilet.

Okay next is the best part of the trip. (Top sign.)

The guide book also said that Gubbio offered a chance to be thrown in a moving bird cage by an old Italian man. We were all totally down for that. But this is what it turned out to be:

I’m squinting because it was VERY windy. I was so scared going up (the ascent) but going down was AMAZING (the descent). I seriously felt like I was flying. I was standing in a tiny bird cage flying over Italy. Great stuff.

Check out the amazing view

And I could see the soccer field!!

And after coming down the mountain it began to really pour rain. It was about 3pm, but we were tired from walking all around town. We were wet and decided to head home on the 4 o’clock bus. On our way to the station, we found this elaborate little nativity scene in a church that just had the door open to the public. Try to zoom in on the picture.

Anyways, that was most of my day. I hope you enjoyed the story because I enjoyed telling it.

Now here is today’s blog:

Today is Sunday and one of the things that I really wanted to do while here was to find a church for when I was in town on Sundays. This week, I checked out a list of them and blindly picked one. All I knew about Chiesa Evangelica Valdese was that it started at 11 and that I knew where I could find it. (Just down the street from my house.) It was another rainy day, so I grabbed the wool coat, boots, and umbrella and found the church just in time. I was nervous going in because I was suddenly not comfortable with my Italian. I sucked it up and found a seat at the very back.

Let me tell you what I found. Chiesa Evangelica Valdese was such a humble little church. It was in one room, and the room just looked like any normal room, not necessarily a church. There were less than twenty people that came that morning and there was room for about thirty. The minister of the church came up to me before service and asked me my name. (In Italian, of course.) I answered the right way and then she asked if I was from England. I told her that I was from America and then she asked me something else that I didn’t know. So she understood that we needed to switch to English at that point, and I was relieved that she knew it. Her name is Kathrin and she is from Switzerland. But her accent was so thick that you would not be able to make out ‘Kathrin’ from it. I didn’t until she wrote it down for me. Kathrin was such a sweet lady and introduced me to another person in the congregation named Laurella who is actually an English teacher in Perugia. Laurella was just as sweet and she interpreted everything for me! (I didn’t ask her to!!)

When I first heard Laurella speak, she did not sound local at all. She had the British English going on and it was apparent that she had spoke it for a long time, because it was a thick British accent. I was surprised when she told me that she was born and raised in Perugia, Italy. She teaches English at a high school here in town.

It turns out that this small church is kind of on the Methodist side of denominations. We stood up and sang hymns in Italian and stood up and prayed. A large part of the congregation was from Africa and speaks mostly French. Apparently Kathrin is giving them Italian lessons on Thursdays. I felt better that I wasn’t the only one there that didn’t understand Italian. Well, I was also kind of embarrassed because at the beginning of the service Kathrin introduced me to the congregation as American and then provided adequate pauses in between what she was saying for Laurella to interpret. *So embarrassing. But I suppose that it was just customary to be that sweet because she didn’t seem to think anything of it! At one point even, Laurella didn’t quite catch what Kathrin said and Kathrin noticed that an interpretation did not follow, so she looked up at Laurella who said that she didn’t follow what she meant, and Kathrin repeated herself! Oh my. It was not a large room and I’m pretty sure that the whole church was watching. Ahh.

Originally I had planned to sit in the back and leave church early at noon because I wanted to go on a tour of the Nooks and Crannies of Perugia that Zach was leading. But I obviously couldn’t do that anymore! I don’t think that this church gets many visitors. I remember doing a country report on Italy in the 6^th grade. I think like 95% of Italy is Catholic. That is why not many people go to this church. But Kathrin was proud to tell me that this was the oldest protestant church in Perugia.

Yet they keep going. The organ player, an old Italian man, encouraged the congregation at the end of the service to become more involved with the church as Kathrin would not be with them for too much longer. (Apparently she has to go back to Switzerland soon.)

After church two other people introduced themselves to me. A girl who was the most darling thing ever named Mirria. She is from Cameroon and has lived in Perugia for the last 10 years. She came here as a student for three years and got a degree in Information Technology. She then got a job here and lives in Perugia with her husband and children. She was really so sweet. She told me that she is practicing her English because the people that she works with now speak English. She said that what she knows she taught herself from TV and books. I hope I see her around town.

The other person I met is Joseph. He actually told me a different name when he first introduced himself, but after I couldn’t understand what he said, he told me that in America his name would be Joseph. This guy was an older Italian and he knew a few languages. I guess I began to talk too quickly because he told be slow down because his English was not so good. But it seemed excellent to me. I’ve observed this with many people before, even back in the States. They tell me that their English is not good, but I think it’s perfectly adequate. I don’t get it.

Well, I’m not sure that I’m going to keep this as my church to go to for the whole semester, but I do want to go at least one more time to say hi to everyone.

Anyways, this morning was an adventure and after church I decided to go on a walk and treat myself to a croissant and café Americano. On my walk I ran into Zach and my tour, so I made it anyways.

Tomorrow we begin general classes along with Italian, so it’ll be a very busy week! I hope to start the morning with a run at the track, so I’d better get to sleep. Goodnight, I hope all is well back home.

Love you! Jackie