Urbino, lezioni, e dentifricio (Urbino, classes, and toothpaste)

Finally - I am officially a student of l'Università di Bologna.  And you thought it would never happen, right?  But Italians don't really care much for time, anyway, things just sort of happen when the happen.  So I guess it's sort of nice to know that my 9 am class will never really start before 9:15 - we're talking 15 extra minutes sleep, right?

But I digress - time to back up a little bit.  This past Saturday I went to Urbino, which promptly won me over and has taken a place among my top 3 Italian cities.  Urbino is in Le Marche (this is very cool - I had never been to this region before!), which is on the Eastern side of the boot.  But here is the kicker - Urbino is literally impossible to reach by train.  As in, it is built into the "hills," which are actually more like mountains to a midwesterner such as myself (let's face it, these "hills" far surpass any black diamond run I've ever seen east of the Rockies).  So I think if you ever felt the strong urge to make it to Urbino, and you didn't have a car to drive there, you would have to go through some complicated process of taking the train to Pesaro, then a bus from there, etc etc...you get the idea.  So we drove 2 1/2 hours to this walled city, built into a mountain, and I slowly came to realization throughout the day that I never would have even known of Urbino (much less made it there) had I not been doing this program.  To think I never would have seen this place!  Urbino is incredible!  First of all, the city really is walled, and you need really climb to get in centro - in this way, it reminded me a lot of Siena, with lots of little winding, climbing streets.  In the morning we toured the Palazzo Ducale of Federico III da Montefeltro (this is just a fancy way of saying "that one really rich Duke who practically owned the place during the Renaissance).  This was a special treat as well because it holds a Raphael work (if not more than one) and also "La città ideale," a famous Renaissance painting that shows the ideals of perspective and linearity (I suggest searching on google images for this).  

And oh yeah, did I mention that Raphael was born in Urbino?  How cool is that!?  So we took a little trip to his house, which is now a museum, and we wandered through his hallways that afternoon.  However, since we were obviously famished after the Palazzo Ducale, we went to lunch at a cute trattoria where I ate, I think, some of the best food of my year here yet.  The best thing about these Italian restaurants is that they are so unassuming - they often look so modest inside, and they are not trying to be something grander than what they are, and yet the food always takes your breath away.  The quality of this food was simply amazing.  First we had two different types of pasta, one with a red tomato sauce and the other a wheat pasta with veggies.  Simple, but pure and tasty.  Our secondo piatto was even better - "stinchi di maiale con rosmarino".  Basically, we were given mini crock-pots of what was pig shin meat, and it was made with oil and rosemary.  I have never loved pork more in my life - this meat was so tender and the rosemary was the perfect flavor to add to it.  This was served with patate fritte also made with rosemary.  Afterwards, along with lemon cake (which I actually didn't like, sadly), they gave us little glasses of cherry wine and espressos.  And thank goodness my friends made the right decision to order a slice of WARM flourless chocolate cake.  In short, it was heavenly.

After our meal and before Raphael's house, we walked up to the top of the hill that Urbino sits on and got a view of the surrounding countryside - it was beautiful, especially with the trees and grass beginning to change colors for autumn. Pictures really do not do it justice.  However, since I have been sans camera and have been unable to show you all what I have seen, here is my latest suggestion: go to http://www.bcsp.unibo.it - click on "Events" on the side bar.  Then to see the updated albums of my class, you can look at "Villa Ghigi" and "Ravenna" (Urbino isn't updated yet).  

Anyway, to continue this long and arduous post, I finally had my first italian university class yesterday.  This class is called "Gli stati uniti nel mondo contemporaneo" - yes, I am taking US history.  This is actually sort of my extra class, the one I don't really need, but the professor is really great.  He is interesting and clear, and I am mentally thanking my American profs for directing me toward taking US history abroad.  In my two days in the class, I can already tell that it is going to be a really different experience.  The past two days have really been all about religion and politics, and the difference between a catholic vs. protestant/separation of church and state nation.  Really fascinating stuff, and so far the Italian hasn't been too hard to keep up with.  We'll also be following the election, which I am grateful for - this is a historic year! VOTE!!!!

And now, I am libera - completely free.  My next class doesn't begin until October 8th.  So I have a few days to putz around.  Maybe I'll go to Florence?  We'll see what happens.

And oh yeah, toothpaste!  So I ran out of my american Arm&Hammer toothpaste - a sad day, but obviously I'm not in England and this isn't the middle ages, so dental hygiene exists here.  So I go to the store and decide, "Hey, I am adventurous.  I try new things.  I'm not going to buy Colgate or Aquafresh...time to try some Italian toothpaste."  So I pick up some sort of Italian natural looking toothpaste, figuring it will be pretty good and kind of gentle like my Arm&Hammer stuff.  Well, I don't know whose idea it was, but "Mint and Eucalyptus" as a toothpaste flavor is...interesting, to say the least.  I still haven't decided if you could call it refreshing.  And I also haven't decided if it tastes like hand lotion.  But who knows, maybe I'll love it after I go through this first tube...

For now, arrivaderci!