What a weekend (or just a consecutive couple days away that felt like a weekend)! I have a hard time calling that an orientation. I'm pretty amazed at how go-go-go we've been since we got here, but its been awesome and now it will be time to get in a routine and get some sleep with classes starting - which I for some reason dont think is how it normally goes for school back home :-).
So on Sunday morning we left to drive to Assisi. After getting split into two groups for various activities and getting rooms and roommates, I had a general floor meeting to kick off the year just discussing normal, community building, private Jesuit school nonsense. Then some friends and I explored around Assisi for a few hours and what a sweet little town. 90% of the residents or travelers are people on pilgrimages to this religious holy land, so us loud sloppy group of Americans was partly embarrassing. After exploring and eating dinner, I found some new friends and chatted for a few hours over some wine. However, a much more massive group as outside making a ruckus because no other bar was open late on a Sunday night in the town.
Monday my group had a tour-guided walking tour and I was suprised at how much I enjoyed having the guide there to explain what we were seeing and to give some educational background versus basic, surface sight seeing. The town has kind of this epic feel - winding roads, houses on top of eachother built into the hillside, kinda creepy religious pictures everywhere you look, but they had alot of cool stuff. The churches were awesome and we saw St Francis's birthplace and tomb as well as some relics from his life. St Francis of Assisi is the guy who loved animals and built his theories around the worth of everything - the medieval hippie we decided. After lunch all of JFRC left the town on busses to a neighboring town an hour away called Gubbio. Here in Gubbio, the Gubbians often spend their time eating Goob before partaking in various Goobish activities and Goobering around. We met some Goobers and did some exploring of this quaint, silent, dead little town built long ago by the Goobanites. In all seriousness, it was an awesome trip, and we did Gubbio the right way for such a small town. We just kept hiking upward (located on a mountain) and eventually found an awesome trail that wound around and went into a clearing that overlook the entire city. Also, they have a ski lift to the top of the mountain that is closed in the off-season, which it was, so I decided to climb out onto this lift that butted out over the edge of the mountain - what an adventure. Headed back to Assisi, met some new friends at dinner, and went out for some more wine and hours of talking.
To go back to the embarrassing American acts of the night before, another large group formed at the bar from the night previously but even more rambunctious, however we found a quiet spot at a different bar, upstairs, in the corner, and it rocked. The other scene, people were stealing wine bottles, dropping wine bottles, puking, and staying after closing. One Italian man came up to one of the students and said "you wonder why we hate you Americans." What a ridiculous show by us, and I group myself with them because I feel ashamed just hearing about that. I'm totally buying into this culture of enjoying eachothers company, chatting, and drinking casually; however, many people must feel that getting hammered over here somehow is different than at home because it really seems like the only interest of a certain, but not a majority, group.
Marquette friends and I woke up early, hiked to a castle in the city that overlooks the city, and watched the sunrise. I scaled up the side of the castle and got an even better view and took pictures of the silhouette of the city as the sun rose over the mountains - rereading that sentence I'm having a hard time believing that its not a scene from a movie. Then after breakfast a large group started on a hike up to a spot on a neighboring mountain where St. Francis went to pray, a 3.5 miler straight uphill. That was tough, except some of us found a trail starting around the corner and decided to check it out - far from knowing it would be another couple hours, the most intense hike of my life leading to worries of puking and passing out from dehydration, and ending in the single most amazing thing I've done in my entire life. We found a road and an Italian hiker told us it would be another 45 minutes to the top, and some folk continued truckin' but others wanted to turn back and make it in time for lunch. As I said, I've never come close to a hike this intense, and in gear and a mindset that was not prepared for it. All in all, I literally rock climbed up to a point that was higher than any neighboring mountain and looked over the foggy hillsides for miles and about 7 other people joined - another movie sentence? It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen, literally, and without a doubt the highest I've ever been while not skiing. The air was like breathing the first breath on earth, the various towns were visible but the mountains were subdued in fog, but we were way above the fog, and there was even snow it was so high. Made some awesome friends, hiked back down, ate like I've never done before, and headed back to Rome.
I dont know if I ever wanna come home. Not only is the culture here so awesome, the school is full of the most interesting people, and everyone just starts talking to eachother without hesitation and does crazy things like scale full mountains spontaneously. The pictures from this Orientation are incredible, and its still been less than a week. School is starting, friends are being made, and talks of booking some trips are in full swing. Money is going to be alot tighter than I thought, but thats such a minor problem.
Hope everyone is enjoying the blog so far! I'm happy you all are following it and I hope its entertaining at least, and its a great way to share the pictures.
Peace - and just a quick hello...
