Friday, January 16, 2009

Happenings and Observations

It was my roomate, Ela's, 24th birthday two nights ago and she had such a wonderful party. I thought I should put a few pictures up so you could see my four international roomates.
















Che belle ragazze!

What kind of creeped me out, I have to be honest, is that I later found out that evening that a popular bar in the area, which always floods students at the university with flyers for "ladies' night" etc., actually got hold of a picture of Ela and publically wished her happy birthday. Small-town life...


Oh Merlins. Italian men aren't stupid. They know that a lot of foreigners come to Perugia to specifically learn Italian at Stranieri. And then there are several very Americanized-bars right in the center of town. Why else would locals come there?

Anyways, it's amazing how much of an American influence you can feel in the choice of music that is played (not only in the American bars but everywhere) and the movies they play in the local cinema. My roomates, who all speak perfect english by the way, dream of going to visit NYC and our very familiar with our popular culture. At the same time, they have a very poor impression of Americans. They look down on our attitude concerning alcohol and perceive us as binge-drinking and going out of control at bars. My roomate just said that she sees Europeans as being more calm and down-to-earth rather then "extravagant" as she called us. I hate saying the obvious but we [Americans] really do need to be aware of how we act in a foreign country. I'm forgetting a lot of what they said but I'm interested in trying to find out more about what other people think of our country (definitely Obama support of course).

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I took a walk back from my class yesterday and did a bit of exploring. I just kept climbing up some stairs and came across these gorgeous views. I need to stop posting all of these pictures of the city, especially when they don't come out half as well as it looks, but I can't help it!





Anyways, now that I've finished my first week of classes, I've definitely gotten into the swing of things and now have the traveling bug (so hopefully this will make the blog more interesting for anyone who's reading this). If I get my act together, I plan to try to find my way around Assisi tomorrow and make it a day trip. Then, on Sunday, we have a mandatory orientation meeting (but, on the plus side, it's in the Perugian countryside....my roomates skipped out on it though, and are at Jess' grandparents' house an hour outside of Naples so I get to hang out with the general studies kids).

***OH! By the way. For anyone who shares my love of the Amelie soundtrack, or remembers when I said I saw a local accordian player on the street last Sunday, well, I have an update for you. I found a little touristy book for free in the "bar" that's in the building in the university and it had a section on "eccentric personalities in Perugia." Supposedly he has a Spanish/Brazilian background, and a mysterious past. Why he plays Amelie music all the time is because he *helped* write the score with Yann Tiersen (he met him in France)! :)

Ciao for now.

1 comment:

  1. As to your roommates having very poor impressions of Americans:
    Having seen my fellow CAPA students' behavior in a pub last night, I too have those same poor impressions of American students. The overwhelming majority of the students studying with CAPA were excessively loud, obnoxious, and binge-drinking as much as they possibly could. Turns out that not all stereotypes are ill-deserved (unfortunately for those of us that don't fit them).

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