That Awkward Moment When… (Horseback Riding, Last days in Perugia, Easter)

Holy wow. As I write this blog it is currently Easter Sunday, which means I have 6 days before I board the bus to Rome to head home to America.
It’s hard to believe that the only place out of the country that I’d been before this was Canada. Now I’ve been all over Italy, Ireland, England, and France. And I haven’t even seen half of what’s out there yet.

We've been going out a lot since classes have been over. I was wearing heels one night and wanted it to be forever documented that I once looked tall:

Take that Mary!

We've also been spending inordinate amounts of time together. Can't you tell?

Also, up until yesterday the weather has been PHENOMENAL. This is in the Medieval Gardens.
Anyway, before nostalgia kicks in, this post isn’t for me to complain/be excited about going home. It’s mainly about my adventure with Kara and Mary when we went horseback riding on Friday, from which I am still sore as I write this.
So in our useful little Umbra handbook, there’s a section for Do-it-yourself-adventures!! Under this section it suggests all sorts of things, but the one that caught our attention was horseback riding. We contacted them and after trying to work around all of our schedules we figured out that Friday was the best day, and afternoon was the best time.
We had to take a bus way out of the center where we live, so we got away from the city. It was great! We took the bus to its last stop then our contact came to pick us up to take us to her home/stables. Awesomely enough, her name was Veronica (shout out to my best friend Ronnie! I’ll be home soon!) and she was super nice. She seemed really excited to have us.
She has a freakin’ gorgeous house. And her property is huge. She owns 5 horses, so she took one, Kara, Mary, and I had ours, and Veronica’s daughter took her horse.

First she had to gather all of them.

Then we had to find out which one was ours.
When we got there, we had to groom our horses to get to know them and just really to groom them since they’d been out in the fields all day.

Kara’s was Fury. Don't worry, she wasn't like her name suggests.

Mary’s was Luna.

And mine was Jada!

We groomed them and Veronica did their saddles while Mary, Kara, and I got out helmets. Veronica gave us the basic tips and instructions for riding and how to best manage each horse. For instance, I was riding on a Western Saddle (the one with the pommel) but had to use both hands on the reins (which is English style) to better control Jada.

Next we mounted our horses so Veronica could adjust our stirrups.

We then had to try and control our horses and walk them in a circle. Except getting the horses to start is the hardest part and when they have a new rider they try and test them. Also, all the horses wanted to do was eat, so we had to yank their heads out of the grass and make them listen to us.

Jada didn't pull too many shenanigans.

Fury was apparently and angel.

Then we set out for the trails. Now, not that this is a little known fact, but usually when I ride a horse someone is leading the thing and I just have to hold on. Not this time. I had to actually control Jada when she was walking. Fortunately the horse was used to the trails and quite well trained, so she usually just went the best way.
Now all of the horses were quite well-behaved, but Mary’s was in heat so she was a bit more independent. Mary couldn’t get Luna to do anything she didn’t want to do. Luna kept stopping throughout the trip.
Here’s how the order was: Veronica’s daughter, Kara, Mary, Me, Veronica. We were supposed to go in a nice line, equidistant from each other. Except this is what happened:

Ok so my paint skillz are a little lacking. We weren't walking towards a cliff btw that's just me being lazy. We did, however, go to a castle:

The base was from like the 13th century. It had a lot of uses and history, like rich people used to send their illegitimate children there, and it was used during the inquisition and such.

"Guys, we just rode horses to a real castle."

After exploring the castle and once we managed to tear our horses away from all of the grass around it, we continued onward.

The next trails were really rough. They were steep and had lots of hills. Thankfully, the expression "The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh" is not in fact limited to the song or to horses specifically with sleighs attached to them. Unfortunately, the expression could read "The horse knows the way to carry the rider except for the fact that the horse goes the path of least resistance for itself and doesn't care that the rider is getting hit in the face with branches and bushes."

Still, I was glad that I didn't have to direct my horse on the hills. Mary's horse stopped at every bush that had one particular flower to eat and Jada kept trying to pass her. But Jada had to stay between Luna and Veronica's horse because Luna does not like the other horse and tries to kick it. Also, whenever Kara would fall a little behind Veronica's daughter she would urge her horse to trot to catch up. No big deal, except Jada would see Fury trotting and try to do the same. Most of the time Luna wouldn't go, so we would have to be content with walking, which I was actually fine with. Trotting was scary for someone who had never ridden by herself before (AKA ME).

Mary looks happy, but there were many times when Luna would do whatevs she wanted. Also, I kept saying "That awkward moment when..." because sometimes Luna would just stop. And Mary would kick her. And she'd stay stopped. Then she'd... relieve herself. Right in front of me. And in the middle of the road. Many awkward moments when you just have to wait for the horse in front of you to do its thing.

Kara's horse was awesome. 'Nuff said.

So through all the steep trails and bushes hitting us, we got to our second point of interest: an Etruscan Tomb.

Creepily hidden in the middle of the woods, it was from like the Second Century and had only relatively recently been discovered in the 1920's. It was completely covered with dirt until somehow someone found it. Apparently other excavations were attempted (you could see in the forest where these huge holes had been dug) but no other tombs were found. There was all sorts of gold and stuff in the tomb 'cause it apparently belonged to an Etruscan prince, but the people who found the tomb sold it to some German dude. Allegedly the guy who sold the stuff died a year later and no one knows quite how. He took a gun into the woods to shoot some birds and somehow he died.

Weird.

There's a big stone door on the tomb that you can open and close too. Kara took a picture of me doing it, but alas it was on her camera. Neither of them wanted to touch the tomb. We'll see how my life goes. I meant only respect and awe, Etruscan royalty.

Anyway, we followed a path through the forest and came upon this huge plateau. It was just amazing!

So wide and free. We spun around in it a la Sound of Music. Veronica also gave us snacks and we ate those here.

We had to pass the tomb again on the way down.

So after that we made our way slowly back to Veronica's house. We had to groom the horses again then take them down to the stables.

We fed them too. Hungry hungry horses.

After that we wandered around the property for a while. We didn't want to have to rush with the grooming, so we told Veronica we were fine taking the last bus. She took us back to a bus stop that had a bar across from it so we could chill there. We chilled until the bus came.

I should have known this bus would be trouble when IT ALMOST PASSED US WHEN WE WERE AT THE STOP. Not our fault the stop was poorly lit and had a tree near it. Geez.

Anyway, the bus didn't go all the way into the center. It stopped in San Marco, which is quite a bit outside the center. We had to call the Umbra Emergency number because we were in the middle of nowhere and had no idea how to get home. Logically, I can't make my mind understand the bus system. I don't get why a bus would only go half of the route back into town when the other bus 5 hours ago did all the stops. I mean if it went a liiiiiiiiiiiiiittle closer to the center it would have been fine. But no. Umbra gave us the number to call a taxi, and we took another unnecessary taxi ride. Oh Italy. I'd never ridden a taxi before I met you, and now I don;t even know how much I've spent on them thanks to public transportation mishaps.

It should be noted that on every single trip I have taken, some type of problem has arisen with transportation: be it planes, trains, cars, subways etc... gah.

Anyway, we chilled around Perugia for the weekend. they have all sorts of stands selling breads, cheeses, meats, olives, and all sorts of knickknacks, and we went to the Saturday market by the football stadium to check out all the stuff they have there. Then I took a 3 hour nap because I haven't napped in weeks (the weather has been great so I'm like I ONLY HAVE X NUMBER OF DAYS IN ITALY I CAN'T WASTE TIME) and it was raining outside.

I went to this restaurant called Osteria Del Tempo Perso - the Osteria of Lost Time. It's a slow-food restaurant where they make everything from scratch and it's super cheap. Except the meal took 3 hours. This isn't much longer than the average Italian meal though. I'm gonna miss such long dinners. But also I miss being in and out of a restaurant in an hour.

Anyway, today is Easter, so Mary and I went to mass this morning at the Duomo. We couldn't understand any of it, but it was nice to go. It really made me miss home when I saw families all together and knew that I wouldn't get to have a nice dinner with my family. We can't even really make anything nice because we are limited to frying pans.

Things I can;t wait for at home: Microwave, working oven, dishwasher, real washing machine, dryer, toaster.

Nevertheless, Mary and I made a nice breakfast/brunch after church:

Eggs and "toast," plus a breaded veal cutlet for me (I like bein' fancy, Mary doesn't like killing baby animals...) for brunch. Except the "toast" pan is awkwardly shaped.

With that awkward moment when your "toast" goes from bread to burned, we ended up making the toast kind of in the egg pan.

I also bought a cannolo (one cannoli) from the festival, but opted to save that once I saw that Morgan (another roommate and my past roommate from Bonaventure) had bought an Easter Cake. Or a Torta di Pasqua to be artsy (see what I did there?)

Check out the rest of my album here:
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Buona Pasqua a tutti! Fra sei giorni ritorno a la casa mia! I'm coming home in 6 days!