"mi chiamo Bond....James Bond"

oh my goodness oh my goodness... so much has gone on since i have blogged.ok so thursday we left early in the morning to go to Assisi, the first of our many stops on our trip. The first place we stopped at was outside of Assis. we went into the church that was built around the church that St. Francis built. It was really neat to actually be in the same place that Francis had once been in. After we had toured around, we ate lunch right outside of the cathedral. you know your lunch isnt good when the pigeons wont even eat it. stale bread and meat is not tasty at all. after lunch we walked around in the stands for a while and bought a bunch of small gifts. one has to get a rosewood rosary while they are in Assisi. next we were on our way to Medieval Assisi. we stopped out the outskirts to take pictures. The city is huge! Once we were actually in Assisi, we went to the cathedral of St francis. while we were there we got to go down into the crypt and saw the tomb of St. Francis. it was a really cool experience. there are also 5 other tombs in the crypt. 4 of which are Francis's best friends, and loyal followers, as well as one women who we believe was the last person that Francis was in contact with before he died. from the catherdal, we walked up and up and up to a higher part of the city to see the church of st. claire. while we were there we also go to see where she was buried. in the crypt, they had some relics, one of which was he shoe of St. Francis. This shoe was the shoe that he was wearing when he received the stigmata. Now Claires bone are in a maniquin, that is wearing that habit that the poor claires wear now. FAter that we had like 2 hours of free time, so we decide to walk around. while we were walking, we found this little store that was selling soccer jerseys for 5 and 10 euros, so we decided to get some. i ended up getting a De Rossi Italy jersey. after that we headed to the hotel for dinner. Hotel Sacro Cuore. This place was beautiful! the hotel over looked the city off of a side of a mountain. once we got there we had an hour before dinner, so we decided to watch some tv.... of course, the only language that they have is ....dun dun dun Italian!... so we watched a few episodes of scrubs on MTV. of course scrubs was dubbed, but one of the guys watching had seen the episode before and kept us up to date with what was going on. the food there was amazing!!!!we had this delicious pasta dish, then soup and a second course of chicken Parmesan, and tiramisu! i was stuffed after the pasta! after that we all got ready for bed we had to be up early the next day for classes, so christina zach gabe fiona and i decided to watch some tv. on one of the stations they had a james bond movie playing. It was golden eye so we decided to watch that. i will have to say i have never seen a Bond movie before, but it was still a good movie for being dubbed. after that was over me and christina crashed. the next morining we were up bright and early we had to leave the hotel at 7:45 :/. we were on our way to Norcia, to visit the home town of Benedict. once we were there we got to go to a latin mass with the benedictine monks in the Cathedral. that was really cool to experience. after that mass the abbot came and talked to us. most of the monks were americans, but the had a few indonesians and europeans there. there are 14 in total and they had just celebrated the 10th anniversary of being back in Norcia. after that we walked around again before going up the mountian into a really smal city. i wish i could remember the name:/. being in the mountian reminded me of LOTRs. it was so pretty there but cold. after that we headed down the mountian and back to the hotel. The next day was Pietro's our RDs birthday so we went out for a night on the town in Perugia. we went to a bar because the club was going to be way to expensive. (i had a coke. i wasnt going to take any chances on getting sick this trip) after that we were told about a little bar down below where they had a DJ for free. so we went there and danced for a few hours. some of us decided to leave early but Pietro didnt have a phone to call a taxi, bc he had left it with the girls who stayed back. (they ended up not even using the phone at all :/) so we started walking back bc we couldnt call a taxi. we walked up hills and down hills for a good hour before finally stopping and calling a cab. it was 1:45 am before we got back. once we got to the hotel we crashed. luckily we didnt have to leave until 10 the next morning. 9 am rolls around the next morning and my alarm goes off...me and christina didnt get out of bed till 9:30. by 10 we were on our way back to Perugia. we walked around the town and went into the Cathedral there. the church is believe to had the wedding ring of the virgin mary in a case in the wall. they also had a replica out for people to see. we a a little bit of free time to walk around so we decided to het some chocolate. francesco said that Perugia is known for there chocolate, so why not. I got some dark chocolate with almonds and some orange chocolate. both are really good! i figured out what im going to do for my family members for christmas, but it will not be discussed here! after that we stopped at this castle on the lake. a feww of us went up into the castle to take picstures. it was amazing! once we were back at the villa we all just chilled and relaxed after our long trip. sunday was game day! not football, but SOCCER! we went to mass at 11 and the walked around for a while befpre the game at 3. we kinda got lost and couldnt find where we were supposed to meet everyone. we stopped at one place and waited while the guys ran to find the other group. we were then told that the other group was on the opposite side of the stadium so we had to run around to the other side. once we were on the other side, we couldnt find them and we had to run all the way back around to where we first started...it was a long run/walk. at the game we had a blast. soccer here is like football back home it is a lifestyle. one person i saw there was a pregnant lady who was cheering and watching the game. there was also a bunch of guys who were in front of us who were completely drunk and crazy. i guess you could say that they were the italians version of rednecks. one of them kept blowing this thing in my ear it was kinda like a vuvuzella, but worse..... oh well. They lost to Palermo, and i learned a lot of italain... none f which is appropiate...but all in all i had a great adventure in italy this weekend.