Dov'è Montecasale? Plan B: Narnia. I hope the next thing to fall off is this building, with her in it. (Montecasale/La Verna, Arezzo, and Bagnoregio)

Stress. All of my papers (bar one) were due this week. Ugh. But we did go to the Perugina factory!

Except the factory wasn't actually running since when it gets nice the Italians stop buying chocolate and switch to gelato. Go figure. Whatever, they gave us lots of chocolate.

On Friday we had a class trip for Franciscan class (again) to Montecasale and La Verna. Except the bus driver didn't know we were supposed to go to Montecasale, so we almost got to La Verna before the error was corrected. But he didn't know how to get there, so he kept stopping people on the street. Hence, the first part of the title of this blog.
Montecasale is pretty cool. I think the cappuccini(yes, like cappuccino) monks have something to do with it, but mostly we went there for... you guessed it: FRANCIS!!!

You can kind of see the three crosses in the background on the hill. They're for the three thieves. They lived in and terrorized the valley below. One day they came to the friars and asked them for food. The friars refused them since they were thieves, but when Francis returned from... whatever it is that Francis is always off doing... he scolded the friars and ran after the thieves. He gave them all the food he had collected to eat for the day. And then the thieves converted into Franciscans.

nice story eh?

UNTIL YOU FIND OUT THEY HAVE TWO OF THE SKULLS OF THE THIEVES JUST CHILLIN THERE.
Awkward.


Anyway, St. Bonaventure and St. Anthony of Padova stayed here too, and we checked out their rooms.

Leigh is about the same height as me. we had to crouch to get in the door. That's never happened before.

Here's Bonaventure's bed.

And I thought my bed in Perugia was bad.

Francis' bed isn't much better. Or worse. Either way, I'm glad I don't have to sleep there.

After that, we looked around outside. We found Francis chillin' and enjoying nature and stuff, like he usual did.

I decided to keep him company.

After that, we boarded our bus and actually went to La Verna.

Oh. P.S. There was an adorable cat stuck in a tree before we went into the church. We tried to help it but we couldn't. It was out of the tree when we left. I think Francey had something to do with it.

Next: La Verna. Not Cafe La Verna like we have on the SBU campus, but the real mountain that Francis owned... well it was given to him. Anyway, this is where he got the stigmata.
Francis spent a lot of his time here praying and stuff.

He even had 5 star accommodations!

Wait.

The cave he slept in was FREEZING. And it was really hot outside. I have no idea how that man ever slept.

The spot where he got the stigmata. DON'T GET TOO CLOSE YOU COULD GET IT TOO. Lol jk but seriously.

There's always a picture of him getting the stigmata from a seraph.

This is allegedly a rock that like absorbed Francis when the Devil tried to tempt him to jump off La Verna. Weird.

It's a really pretty place. Like, I loved it.

There's this thing called "Jutting out rock" and people either carve crosses into the stone or they make them with sticks. Mary and I made them. She carved hers.

This one's for you, Francey.

Twice a day they do a procession of the friars from the main basilica to the chapel of the stigmata.

It was pretty cool. they chant/sing in Italian.

It's just really cool to be in these places and to think, "Wow. Saint Francis was literally right here." At least, I think it's cool.

The next day I got up early and went to some of the open-air markets in Perugia. They were really cool. Then Mary and I went to Arezzo, the city where La Vita e Bella took place, and a cute little town in general.

There was a cute park!

Soak up the sun. oh yeahhhh.

Mostly we went for shopping, but the real adventure was trying to get home.

We got to the train station and it said our train was leaving from platform 3. No big deal. We sat and waited. the train was late. A train pulled up to platform 3.

Simultaneously, another train came to platform 2.

We got on the platform 3 train. Almost an hour into the ride, the conductor came to check our tickets. We were almost home, so no big deal.

Except he stops and looks at me funny.
"this train is going to Rome."
... what?

Guess what happened. The train we were supposed to get on came in on platform 2, not 3 like the board at the station had said. There must have been an announcement, but we missed it or whatever. It had to have switched reeeeeeeally close to the arrival, since some other guys had asked us like a minute before if this platform was for Perugia. We thought it was.

So conductor guy looks up trains for us. The next stop was Orvieto (which we would ironically be visiting tomorrow. We would have stayed overnight there if we had had ANYTHING with us besides daytrip stuff...) and there were no trains to Perugia from there.

Great. But wait, the next stop, Orte, had a solution. We got off at Orte and took a train to Foligno. Then we were to take a bus to Perugia. No big deal.

We got on the train to Foligno and found more people travelling back to Perugia. Awesome. Things were looking up despite the fact that if we had taken the correct train we would have been home by now.

At one point one of the stops sounded like it was Narnia. That was our Plan B. Go to Narnia.

So in Foligno we get of the train and run to where the bus is. Everyone else on the train seemed to have the same idea, since THE BUS WAS COMPLETELY FULL.

It was a substitute service, so I guess the train ticket system didn't recognize that it was selling too many tickets. A lot of people had tickets but couldn't get on the bus. People were standing and sitting on the stairs.

People were screaming and one English speaking guy kind of explained to us the things that happened. But the bus was taking so long to leave and figure it out that he tried to hitchhike. It didn't work.

They wouldn't let the bus leave, people were freaking out, some guy ran into a glass door. Finally the Carabineri were called. The bus eventually left and either the company or the Carabinieri called taxis for all of us that were stranded. Good thing we didn't have to pay, since Folignio is half an hour away from Perugia.

We finally got home at like 12:30, and I had to shower and get ready for bed. 'Cause the next day was another trip: Orvieto and Bagnoregio!

Ironically Mary and I were in Orvieto the day before, but we never got off the train so it was still a new place. Cool.

Orvieto's claim to fame is the stunning church. I know that this is a similar claim to many other Italian cities, but fo realz this one is amazing.

First view of the church.

Wow.

there's no way to get the entire facade of the church in one shot because it's so big.

It's really intricate though. This part is a carved depiction of the story of Adam and Eve.

Intense.

But the real treasure of the trip, and really in my opinion my time in Italy, was our next stop:

Bagnoregio. I mean, you go though Bagnoregio Proper and suddenly BAM. THERE'S CIVITA DI BAGNOREGIO. It's unreal. Huge green valley and suddenly on top of this limestone formation there's a city that looks like it's in the sky. No big deal.

Bagnoregio (pronounces bahn-your-eh-gee-oh) is known as "the Dying City" and is an endangered landmark. The formation that it's built on is crumbling away, and eventually the city will no longer exist because it will have all fallen away. Very few people actually live there. It's mostly tourists.

I'm not sure I feel connected to it because it's where Saint Bonaventure was born, or just because it seriously looks like a fairytale town, but I LOVED IT.

Here's a little story about good ol' Bonaventure. When Bonnie was a baby (hence I, and all of us in our Franciscan class, affectionately refer to him as "Baby Bonnie") he was really sick. Francey came to town and Baby Bonnie's parents took him to see Francis. Francey blessed Baby Bonnie and the kid got better. Francis exclaimed: "Oh, Buona Ventura!" which means good fortune. When Baby Bonnie (his name was not in fact Bonaventure... it was Giovanni, just like Francis) grew up and joined the Franciscans, he took the name Bonaventura.

The view is really stunning. No pictures could do justice to it.

All right. So we're starving. We got a reservation at a restaurant that Dr. C had gone to before with Sister Margaret, the president of SBU. Her picture is actually on the wall of the restaurant. Cool.

But as soon as we walk in and Dr. C asks for our table, the waitress says, "Don't speak Italian. I can't understand your Italian. Speak English."

Rude.

Anyway, we sit down and order. A bunch of people get stuff with tartufo nero (black truffle), and I got penne with tomato sauce, sausage, and mushrooms. Mary got a four cheese pasta. The waitress goes to put in our order and comes back a few minutes later.

IN ITALIAN she says that there are only 4 pots for cooking pasta and we have ordered 5 kinds of pasta. She asked me if I wanted to switch since penne takes longer to make anyway. I said I didn't care. Cause I didn't.

When they started bringing out our food, we noticed something strange. There were 9 of us (8 ordered pasta) and they brought out 8 tartufo dishes. Once they clearly weren't bringing us any more food and Mary and I didn't have our correct ones but we had 2 extra tartufo dishes, Dr. C called the waitress over and told her we had gotten the wrong food.

IN ITALIAN: "No," she said. "I explained to you. She said to change the dish."

3 things are wrong here: 1. I thought she meant that she would change the PASTA not the entire dish.
2. She only had asked me if I wanted to switch, not Mary, yet neither of us got what we ordered.
3. If she didn't want us speaking Italian, why had she explained it to us in Italian? Why not English?

So Dr. C demanded that we get our food. The waitress turned to Mary and said venomously, in English this time, "Well, what do you want?"

Mary, with just as much poison in her voice, "What I ordered."


Another waitress who had been kind of taking care of us came over and sweetly explained that there had been a mistake and they would bring out the last dish shortly.

...
Last dish...
Where was my food?

They didn't come over to our table again until they brought Mary her pasta.

Nothing for me.

Dr. C called the nice waitress over and said "She doesn't have food." She looked shocked and upset, so she told biotch waitress... WHO PROCEEDED TO GET THE CHEF.

The Chef came to our table and was like "What's the problem."

"She has no food." Gesture to my empty place setting.

"Well we have another reservation for this table at 2. We have seatings from 12 to 2 and 2 to 4." It was 2:20. Not only was he not apologizing or getting me food, he was trying to kick us out.

"But she didn't get what she ordered!"

"what did you order?"
In a small voice I say, "Penne-"
"Penne takes 15 minutes. Too long. What do you want."
"Uhhhh-"
"You want gnocchi with tomato and basil?"
NO YOU STUPID CHEF I WANT WHAT I ORDERED AN HOUR AGO. EFFFFFFFF.
"I don't want anything from you anymore." Mary offered to share. "I'll share hers."

Chef leaves. Mary and I split her food. Dr. C repeatedly apologizes to me. I tell him it's okay. He says it's not. I mean it's not okay but it isn't his fault.

Finally we finish and peace out. Dr. C is settling the bill while we wait outside and discuss how rude they were to us. We contemplate telling the people who are waiting outside (the 2 o'clock reservation) that the restaurant is terrible.

And here's a picture of Dr. C doing just that when he came outside. One of them spoke enough English to understand him (the service was bad, I didn't get food, etc...) and they left to go to a different restaurant.
That's also where the third quote of the title came from.

Fortunately it didn't take away from my love of Bagnoregio.

Bonaventure's Cave.

La Casa di San Bonaventura. There's only a wall left because the rest of the house fell off. Dying City, remember? There's a church in Bagnoregio Proper that allegedly has Bonaventure's arm. Just his arm. But we didn't have time to see that.
Just enjoy the rest of the pictures that I have from Bagnoregio, or just check out my albums from the weekend:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390723&id=697649967&l=0f7d7855c5

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390729&id=697649967&l=054503c9c9

Aaaaaaaaaaaand there were cats in Bagnoregio too. It's a sign that I need some quality kitty time when I get home.


Love you all! 19 days until I come home. Whoa. It's the last week of classes, too, so things are getting down to the wire.

Ciao for now!