Castles, Conversations and Mohawks

The view from San Ginesio was superb. We got an amazing group shot with everyone together at the top of the city walls over looking the mountains. San Ginesio is higher (altitude) than Macerata, so it was a little colder there…we even got a glimpse of some frost! We toured the city which was similar to Macerata, but on a much smaller scale. We visited a church in San Ginesio too, and got to walk down below the church into the crypt. There were fresco’s discovered down there that had been painted before the plague… so quite some time ago. A fresco is basically a painting that is drawn on a wall. But here is a picture of one on the wall of the crypt.

This is the Abbey. It’s a monastery just outside of Macerata. It used to house nearly 80 monks, but now only about 7 I think. The corridor on the second flooris where the monks sleeping quarters are located. Below it is the chapel where the pray. Then below that are all these tunnels that lead out of the Abbey, so in case soldiers were to attack the monks could get out. We made our way through them… it was kind of creepy.

We ate our lunch at the Abbey. I guess the monastery is a popular place for tourists, but since it was the off season there was really only about one restaurant open so our options were limited. The food was very good, but I felt like since there were so many of us, I didn’t get enough to eat. Lately, I have realized that’s how it is here: I am either starving or stuffed. There is never a nice medium. Oh well, not mad.

Our next stop that day was Castle de Rancia in Torentino. The castle was very nice, and had a long spread of rolling hills around it; very picturesque. In the castle occured a famous pact where Napolean and the Pope made an agreement for Napolean to occupy land in northern Italy in exchange for the Pope to rule the area of Le Marche. They were also setting up a wedding show while we were there, where different wedding planners can show off what they have to offer couples. Some very interesting things and lots of rushing people! We got to see the dungeon where people rotted and were beheaded, as well as the roof where you could see all the land and the moat that surrounded the castle.

After the getting lost a bit in the castle, we found our group and boarded the bus to enter the city center of Tolentino. A very interesting clock gave information to people while in the town square: the time, date, phases of the moon and day of the week.

Then we visited a church that is so far the biggest I have seen while in Italy. I think it was the church of Saint Nicholas.... but I'll have to double check that. The inside ceiling of the main church area, above the pews, had large figures of different saints and the Virgin Mary and Christ and the diciples. They were fairly large, human like almost, it was impressive. We also got to see more fresco's. The one pictures below is of Saint Nicholas. It tells of his life and how he was saint-like throughout his childhood and into his adulthood. If you look closely too you can see where people have put graffiti. Not destroying the picture- but this grafitti was from people back in the 1800's who would come to this church and write their wishes for Saint Nick on the walls of his fresco. I saw handwriting from people from England that came here to ask for help from Santa Clause, I mean... WOW! Talk about an impressive letter to Santa.

After exploring the church more and realizing how tired I had become, we sat at a nice little cafe where I got some AMAZING hot chocolate and waited for our bus. Once home we fill our bellies with grilled cheese (with our favorite- gouda) and yummy nutella and fruit.

Saturday morning we woke and got ready to venture on the bus to Cityper- a mall just outside of town that has a large grocery store in it. While walking up the street to the bus stop, we came across an elderly lady. She asked (in Italian) if we were University of Macerata students. To our surprise we understood what she was saying and replied with a jovial, "Si!" Then we continued to talk to her and introduced ourselves and where we were from and then found out that she knows our director, Filiberto! We really only understood about every 3rd or 4th word, but it was so exciting to have a conversation with a local!! Her name is Yoanna, and lives just down the street from us and we think she's a landlord for some of the people in our group too.

Once we were at the grocery store we found mad discounts to which we were very excited about. We got a bunch of off brand products in order to save money, my favorite being Jovial Soda. Jill and I also found these great soup mixes that all you have to do is add water- finally directions we could understand! After filling our hand held baskets with as much as they could fill, we made our way to the cheese aisle, to obtain our gouda. But alas, after much searching we could not find it! Me on one end, and Jill on the other of the aisle, she asked, "Should we just try a new cheese?" A little white haired man next to her turned with a wide grin and whispered, "Go for it!" Clearly this man knew we needed to explore more than the world of gouda and gave us a little nudge. So we got some cheese that will be good fruit, some brie and some marscoponi... both of which we have found to be delicious.

Sunday we had decided that since nothing was open we would have a Gilmore Girls marathon and give me a mohawk... oh yes, you read correctly. During our time in Italy we have decided that we each are going to create a portfolio for America's Next Top Model. Although all of us involved in this endeavor are below 5'3", we knew it would prove to be good fun and keep us creative. Anywho- Sunday was my first photo shoot. My roommate, Jill, is a hairdresser and majoring in photography so she knew what she was doing. She started by giving me cornrows up the sides of my head to leadup to a row of long hair in the middle of my head where the mohawk would be. (Don't worry Mom, there was no shaving my head) With about 10 pounds of hair gel, and 2 million squirts of hairspray we were able to create a mound of hair that had height I never thought was possible. Although I don't have pictures on my computer yet, don't fret, I will soon post the outcome of our ridiculousness. Ciao bella!