Arezzo, The City of Wonders

Wow.  It’s only Thursday and it feels like it’s been at least a week already.  The past couple days we had orientation, which was mostly just meeting the staff here in Arezzo and filling out some paper work.  For dinner, we went to this amazing restaurant called Mariano’s on the Corso Italia, the main street in the historic district of Arezzo.  We actually got to meet Mariano himself, who was the quintessential Italian chef.  We started off with this cool little vegetable cake that was kind of like a quiche.  I’m not really sure what it was, but it was delicious.  Then we had a dish that was pasta, but not really, followed by lamb shin and mashed potatoes.  By the time that the second course had finished, I was already stuffed and we still had two courses to go! How do the Italians do it?! Lucio, who is one of the OUA staff and was born in Arezzo, polished off every course with gusto.  I honestly have no idea where he put it because he isn’t much bigger than I am!  Personally, I got back to the Giuliani house and slipped into a coma. 

                                     

                                      

Today, we went on a tour of historic Arezzo.  We were shown the coat of arms that are still present on a lot of the buildings, and our guide told us about how Florence took over Arezzo.  Her description was that even after Florence took over, Arezzo did a lot of little things to spite the Florentines.  The two cities seem to have a mutual hatred of one another, but it’s all bark and no bite.  We went to a museum that belonged to an antique collector by the name Ivan Bruschi (I’m not positive on the spelling) who died in 1996 and requested that his home become a museum.  He’s actually a relative of my host family.  The Bruschi family is very prevalent in Arezzo.  Not only do they have the pastry shop, the also own a bar and a couple other places around the city, or so I was told. 

After the tour, we had to go to the post office to submit our Permesso di Soggiorno Kits, which is just permission to live in Italy for the four months that we’re here.  It was an interesting process, considering it mostly consisted of standing at the counter and handing over the packet and passport while Lucio ran around to the various students helping them and swiping the University card to pay for the packet.  The Post office was gorgeous though.  The ceilings were covered in beautiful paintings and sculptures, nothing like the dingy little holes back home.  I wish I had taken a picture, but I felt like that was little too touristy at that point.  We have to go to the police station in March to finish the process, which I think is odd since it’s halfway through our time here in Italy! Italian time I guess.

Tomorrow we are going to the flea market in what I think is the more modern part of the city.  It’s supposed to be really cool and filled with color and people.  Leanna said that we need to throw our American personal space bubble away if we plan on going, since the people crowd close as is the Italian way.  We also need to watch our wallets, since it is prime pickpocket territory.  Should be fun!