Ciao!

View from my window of which I can see the corner of the Duomo 

courtyard behind our temporary home before we move into the monastery

      The beauty of the city of Orvieto is breath-taking in any context, but it is especially beautiful when one has been trapped within the confines of the Fiumicino airport in Rome for nearly 9 hours. Delirium luckily is also a great bonding mechanism. Me and my 19 other fellow students have now seen every possible weather condition in a day and have been given a very warm welcome despite the freezing cold weather. The warmest welcome came from a café which treated us to pastries and cappuccinos on the house and from the priest of the parish chiesa (church) of which we attended mass this morning. He invited us to join them on the journey to Easter (which can be even more deeply understood concerning our journey to the cross and in community), and the passages that were read seemed catered to our experience. The first passage was about Abram needing to leave his country in order to show his faithfulness and for God to create him into the man he was to be, Abraham. The third was the Transfiguration of Christ, and the fourth a passage about how we are strangers to this earth and citizens of heaven. I am so excited to begin a life that is not so full of Italian clichés, but full of lovely surprises on every corner. From the karaoke at the local restaurant where we have all of our meals to the cats that climb up in my lap and fall asleep as I enjoy a cappuccino in a café, Orvieto is proving to be all and more than hoped for or knew I wanted. Here's to becoming as close to the town, history, culture, and my community as the urban city center is close to the countryside... which are almost indistinct from one another. Unreal.