On Friday morning, mom and dad finally made it to
Italy! In case you didn’t know, this is
mom’s first time out of the country other than to Cozumel on a cruise and to
the Azores when she was two. Dad, of
course, has been everywhere. Anyway, I met
them at the airport in Rome so I could help them get back to Arezzo. Unfortunately, they didn’t recognize their
own daughter when they finally saw me. I
mean, I was holding up a handmade sign that said MOSES and everything, but
still nothing. (I was going to print off a professional looking sign, but they
stole the computers and printers out of the monastery) After they finally saw me (after raising my
sign as high as I could reach), we hopped on the Leonardo Express train to get
to the train station in the center of Rome.
Despite having traveled for over 15 hours, they still had another 3 hour
train ride before we got to Arezzo.
We sat on the very hot train for just under three
hours. As I worked on a little bit of
homework and then listened to the music, mom and dad passed out. Especially dad. In all fairness, they hadn’t exactly gotten a
whole lot of sleep on the airplane, but it was still entertaining for me. Not to mention, mom’s complaints about train
bathrooms were hilarious. She didn’t
realize that they literally just dump straight onto the tracks so there’s a bit
of a breeze coming up the hole!
By the time we finally reached Arezzo, we were all pretty
tired so we headed straight towards their B&B. We managed to check in mostly okay. I translated most of what the woman was
saying for mom and dad because she did not speak a lick of English, at least
until she started trying to tell us something about some fee to the booking
website. I’m not entirely sure why she
felt the need to tell us about this, especially considering it was obvious that
we weren’t really understanding. I had
to call Colin, our GRD, to come to the rescue.
Apparently it wasn’t anything important, but we wanted to be sure that
mom and dad didn’t still owe anything.
He was definitely a lifesaver!
Mom and dad were in desperate need of a nap after that, so I
left them at the B&B while I headed back to do homework. We met up again for dinner at a restaurant
called Il Cantuccio, which is absolutely delicious and their cheesecake is to
die for. Mom and dad were falling asleep
at the table, so I went back to the monastery and half-way worked on
homework. Mostly it consisted of staring
at my rather horrible essay before deciding it wasn’t going to get any better,
submitting it, and then watching Get Smart to make myself feel better, which
then lead to watching Stardust until 2 am.
Probably not the greatest decision in my life, but oh well.
Today, mom and dad walked over to my family’s pastry shop
for breakfast and they fell in love with them, just like my newfound muffin top
and I did. They both had one of Stefania’s
delicious muffins and a cappuccino. We
walked to the Saturday market that I haven’t visited since the first weekend
that we were here in Arezzo, which was a lot of fun. It’s a huge market and we actually did find
some fun things to buy, including a polka dot blazer. For lunch, we stopped at Bar Stefano for some
pasta before separating again so I could work on a paper for art history (which
I’m supposed to be doing right now, but it’s not going real well. I need another two pages but I’ve run out of
things to say and my introduction is going nowhere). Anyway,
we met up again for a tour of the monastery where most of the students live and
I study and hang out.
We then went for a little walk down the Corso Italia which
is the main shopping street of Arezzo and then stopped to get some stuff for a
snack that ended up being pretty much dinner.
We bought mozzarella, (extremely hard) bread, some Pecorino cheese,
olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and pesto to go with the tomatoes that mom had
bought at the market and just had a little snack while it rained. It was nice and peaceful, listening to the
rain and sitting with my family. We were
full at this point, but mom and dad would need something with a little protein
so we ventured out into the rain to get some piadinas (they’re like a cross
between a wrap and a quesadilla, but delicious).
View out Mom and Dad's window
Anyway, mom and dad headed back to their
B&B and I headed back to the monastery, where I am currently sitting and
procrastinating on doing my homework, like an awesome college student. Unfortunately, this the only productive thing
that I can do while procrastinating, and its time has come to an end as
well. Oh well, here’s some pictures of
mom and dad’s super exciting first day in Italy as a parting gift:
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