--- title: "Orientation" date: "2008-02-07" summary: "Three days of IES orientation in Perugia, Assisi and the Umbrian hills." topics: "aromanspring, travel" url: "https://stitcom.be/writing/2008-02-07-orientation" author: "Stephen Titcombe" --- # Orientation Three days of IES orientation in Perugia, Assisi and the Umbrian hills. *Originally posted on my Tumblr travel blog, A Roman Spring with IES, in 2008.* For orientation, IES removed us from our humble abodes in Rome to visit a much quieter country city. Actually, we visited several cities. It reminded me of a toured vacation of Europe. Anyway, we were told to pack a 3 day bag the night we got into Rome so that we could leave early the next morning for Perugia.  Perugia is the capital city of the Umbrian Province and is a gorgeous city built in the rolling hills of Italy. We arrived after about 2 hours by bus and unpacked our things into our hotel rooms. My roommate for the orientation period was from Chicago (perhaps that is why they put us together, because everyone else seems to be from the East Coast). His name is Rigo and he is a really nice guy. I later learned that he is an Italian major, not a bad friend to make when you know no Italian. We had a large lunch around 1pm before we left for tours. When I mean large lunch, I really mean LARGE lunch. We were served a course of pasta (where we were asked to take seconds, thank God I didn’t), a course of turkey (asked to take seconds again), and a custard desert. I don’t think I have ever felt so full in my life! I asked my ISC(Italian Student Companion), Valerio, how much he ate and he said he had seconds of everything (he tried to get seconds of desert but they wouldn’t give it to him). If that is really how the Italians eat, I really don’t understand why they are not an obese nation. The tour was very interesting. My guide, besides being a very attractive Italian women, was very smart and filled us in on all the local history of the town. I can’t believe the amount of history one small town can have in Italy! She was telling us how the town was built on Roman ruins (some of which is still visible today) and how the Tuscans didn’t want these Roman reminders in place so they decided to build right on top of them. Crazy! The following day, Wednesday, we had a morning orientation session about happenings within Rome and the IES program. It looks as if I won’t be able to take both the economics and religion classes I wanted because they occur at the same time. So, I will have to find something else that works…. That afternoon, we jumped on the bus and met up with our tour guide in a town called Assisi. I liked it much better than Perugia. There was a large church built there in the name of Saint Francis, where his tomb is still today. The artwork on the inside of the building was amazing (hopefully I will post pictures soon so that you can take a glimpse of their beauty). I also ventured out to a Fortress located on the very top of the hill the town was built on. The view from up there was amazing, a wide view of the valley and surrounding hills. I don’t think I have been anywhere as beautiful before. That night we had another large dinner at a restaurant in the hills of Assisi. The meal took over three hours! A staff member on our bus joked that it was short for Italian standards (or at least I think he is joking). Finally, today we checked out of our hotel and drove to Orvieto where we took a gondola up a steep hill and into the city. I thought it was a pretty city but I didn’t find anything to spectacular about it; that is, until we came upon the Orvieto Cathedral. It is a truely remarkable building that took three centuries to complete. The outside depicts various scenes from the Bible, as well as important figures, all carved or panted onto the front face. By far, my favorite part of it was the carved scenes that depicted several stories from the Bible. One of them was the story of Adam and Eve, beautifully carved and full of rich symbolic meaning. Unfortunately, my written descriptions do not do justice to it (hopefully pictures coming soon!). After the tour, we hung out in the town and bought some pizza and gelato. My favorite part of lunch is that IES gave us an envolope with 10 euros in it and on the outside it had written “IES free lunch money”. I hardly think that anything I receive from IES is “free”, but that is okay. And so ends orientation, we arrived back in Rome today around 530pm and made our way, via bus, back to the apartment. A word of warning about the Roman bus systems, they are a very good place for people to pick-pocket you. My ISC got his wallet stolen. Not a fun situation to be in. Besides from that, Valerio brought me to the supermarket down the street to buy groceries. That was very interesting. He also showed me how a typical Italian would cook pasta. So, anyone who wants to learn when I get home, I would be happy to show you. I will leave you will one final fact that I found when asking about food in Italy with my ISC. Apparently, to Valerio’s knowledge, there is no such thing as Alfredo sauce for pasta in Italy. They only eat red sauce. Until next time, Ciao! Stephen ## Photos [Photo: Our terminal at the Frankfurt airport] *Our terminal at the Frankfurt airport* [Photo: Angel, my travel companion from Gustavus] *Angel, my travel companion from Gustavus* [Photo: Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi] *Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi* [Photo: Photo from Orientation, February 2008] [Photo: “PAX” written in front of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. It means “Peace”.] *“PAX” written in front of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. It means “Peace”.* [Photo: overlooking the valley from Assisi] *overlooking the valley from Assisi* [Photo: street of Assisi] *street of Assisi* [Photo: valley view from orvieto] *valley view from orvieto* [Photo: valley view from orvieto] *valley view from orvieto* [Photo: Street in orvieto] *Street in orvieto* [Photo: Orvieto Cathedral] *Orvieto Cathedral* [Photo: One of the pillars sculpted into the front of the orvieto cathdral] *One of the pillars sculpted into the front of the orvieto cathdral* [Photo: The sculpted story of Genesis on the front of the orvieto cathedral. There were three of these story boards….truely amazing.] *The sculpted story of Genesis on the front of the orvieto cathedral. There were three of these story boards….truely amazing.* [Photo: Sculpted depiction of Adam naming the animals from Genesis. Amazing detail! Look at the hand of God coming from the heavens to show that he approves.] *Sculpted depiction of Adam naming the animals from Genesis. Amazing detail! Look at the hand of God coming from the heavens to show that he approves.* [Photo: The statue inside the Orvieto cathedral. It was so life like that you could see the veins in Jesus’ arms] *The statue inside the Orvieto cathedral. It was so life like that you could see the veins in Jesus’ arms* [Photo: Me over looking the valley from orvieto] *Me over looking the valley from orvieto* [Photo: Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi] *Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi*