This weekend I found myself on a class trip to Subiaco and Assisi (more importantly the monasteries of St. Benedict and St. Francis). We left Friday morning bright and early and arrived in Subiaco around ten. We got a tour of the monastery founded by St. Benedict. It was really gorgeous-- about halfway up a mountain. The bus ride getting up there was exceedingly scary. I don't like big vehicles on small winding roads, but we made it safely. More annoyingly, everyone applauded every time the bus managed to get around a corner. We have a very enthusiastic class that likes to applaud anything and everything: when the plane successfully takes off, when the plane successfully lands, when someone enters the classroom a few minutes late.. etc. Back to the story: so after the guided tour of the monastery, we went to lunch at a little place where we got three types of pasta. We eat pasta twice daily here, and we're all starting to look a little pregnant (this is evidently called "pasta belly" and will subside when we get back to America and stop eating so many carbs).
Friday afternoon we again hit the road and made it into Assisi after dark. Nothing super eventful happened that night. Then on Saturday we went to St. Francis Basilica, and had a guided tour of that, and got to see the crypt of St. Francis (awesome). In the afternoon we took an hour long hike up to St. Francis' hermitage. We had mass up there with Msgr. Fucinaro, which was really nice. The hike down got a little interesting. We definitely took a little path instead of the main road, and we got a little lost but ended up at a sketchy hotel to ask for directions. So while someone else went to go get a map, I took a cue from St. Francis and befriended the local wildlife (I'll post a picture of that later... :) ). Saturday night we had dinner and ANOTHER wine tasting. The glasses were freaking enormous, so i dumped about 70% of my glasses into someone's who had a higher tolerance.
We just got back from Assisi, and classes resume as usual tomorrow morning. Which means its homework time!! [To explain the title... the campus water is really gross. There's a sign up in a neighboring town that warns against drinking the water because of its high arsenic content. But it's probably okay, it just has a really gross taste. And it leaves a nasty buildup in your hair. So the water in Assisi was especially delicious]
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