a weekend in italy

Time has been passing very quickly. I've realized that I'll have been in Italy a month this coming Wednesday. Now that I've settled into a routine, the days just roll by. Every weekend we travel as a group to surrounding cities. This past Saturday we went to Assisi and Perugia. Assisi was an amazing town. Its the town Saint Francis began the Franciscan order. It was interesting to visit the grave of the namesake of my favorite city. After visiting the Church of San Francisco, we explored the town and eventually made it to the market. I discovered that the weekend markets are where most people buy the things they need. You can get anything from shampoo to fruit and vegetables. Since I've been in need of warmer clothes I went in search of a sweater. Once I found one, I put my bartering skills to the test. I'm proud to say I haggled the price down three euro (I did all this in Italian, mind you.) It ended up costing seven euro, much better than the 280 euro sweaters in town.
From Assisi, we traveled to nearby Perugia. We only had three hours in this town, my friends and I decided to spend it in a leisurely manner rather than rush around. Emogene, Lindsey, Dan, and I found a great little pizza place and spent our time there. We had pizza, salad, and later coffees. I think it was the best meal I've had in Italy.
I spend my Sundays catching up on the work I wasn't able to do the day prior while traveling. So I spent most of the day drawing and working on art history. The weekend was caped nicely with a piano concert at the theater in town. It was an amazing recital, the pianist played pieces by Chopin, Liszt, and Debussy. The music was incredible and it was also a good opportunity to hand out with the locals. I feel like my Italian is coming along nicely. I'm not forced to use it much since I'm living and working with Americans but I've come a long way since the beginning of the semester.