After some hectic days throughout the trip, we are finally settling into our “base” town of Orvieto. We have already established a few things about Orvieto. We even have a local gelato guy.
One of the things I have most enjoyed about Orvieto is learning to play tennis better. Almost every day, we go the courts overlooking the beautiful town Duomo and play. I have gotten a little better than when we first played. Back then, I was holding my racquet wrong, running in front of dad to volley the ball (and almost getting clocked by a tennis racquet), and having my shot bounce before hitting the net. Needless to say, I was terrible. But after a couple of lessons from Giuseppe, our fabulous and patient tennis instructor, I got to a level where I didn’t epic-fail every time. Now, we play tennis almost every day.
Orvieto has also been our home base for excursion trips out to Florence, Venice, and finally Pompeii and Naples. We have enjoyed every last one of those trips, but we still are happy whenever we return to our hometown.
We have also established a couple of restaurants that we like, and where we go regularly. The first is a Chinese place on the outskirts of town. Now, you may be thinking, Chinese restaurant in Italy? How does that play out? Well, actually pretty well. It’s a nice place that serves some mean dumplings, delicious sweet and sour chicken, and some hot and spicy soup to end all hot and spicy soup. We also have some go to Italian food at a restaurant that we simply call “The Deck Place” Why? Because it just got a new deck. (Laughter sound here.) Anyway, we like to go there for a good pizza every so often.
We have also been cooking in our apartment lately, including the worst attempt at bread that you have ever seen. (I said “bread,” but you could not give it that high of a title.)
Us making the “bread,” and the miserable final product.
Even after all of those amazing components of Orvieto, there is one that overshadows them all: The Corpus Domani festival. This is an event that only happens once a year. The Corpus Domani is pretty much a solemn procession of kings, flag bearers, drummers, horn players, and the best play-acting military that you have ever seen. It looks too real to be happening.
So, yeah. I love Orvieto, and I would definitely spend more time in it if I could. It is just as good as any other place I’ve been. (Sorry Palo Alto!) I will definitely be sad when we leave, but Japan will also be amazing. It’s like that song; make new friends, but keep the old. But it’s not that. Instead it’s love new places, love the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.
Fanatical Sabbatical 