{visitare}

In early March we had a few visitors! Some fellow IA students who are now studying in Coburg, Germany were able to swing the Orvieto on their way to their study abroad program. I was so glad they were able to visit! I didn't realize it at the time, but it is easy to forget how good you have it until someone new comes along and shows you how to fully appreciate it all over again.... and... I missed them! Just a couple of pics!

{orvieto}

Candlelit precessional through Orvieto on Good Friday.

{beautiful}

{Olive}

Today I went to the market and purchased 5 euros worth of olives, my lunch, and also revisited one of my favorite shops in Orvieto...  I went there yesterday without any cash and fell in love with this olive wood chopping block/cutting board.... and today I made it my own! The shop, Patris, is owned and operated by two artisan wood workers that make everything in house out of local materials.... very nice people! I plan to return!

Check out Patris' website HERE

{neve}

{snow}

Our day trip to Assisi was cancelled due to abnormal weather conditions... apparently it is unsafe to climb  icy cliffside roads in a tour bus during a blizzard.... so after a day of hangin out inside.... my roommates and I are going to explore Orvieto.... more specifically the Duomo and a couple of museums.....

For my ma....
Debuting a wonderful gray skirt my mother made for me!

{cittaslow}

{slow city}


Orvieto, the city where I will be studying, practices cittaslow, a movement that is spreading internationally... take a look!

Cittaslow is a movement founded in Italy in October 1999. The inspiration of Cittaslow was the Slow Food organization. Cittaslow's goals include improving the quality of life in towns by slowing down its overall pace, especially in a city's use of spaces and the flow of life and traffic through them. Cittaslow is part of a cultural trend known as the Slow movement.

There are 50 goals and principles that each Cittaslow town commits to work to achieve. Although there will always be place for improvement these goals serve as tangible benchmarks to improve the quality of life in the city.

The main aims of the movement are:

• making life better for everyone living in an urban environment
• improving the quality of life in the cities
• resisting the homogenization and globalization of towns around the globe
• protecting the environment
• promoting cultural diversity and uniqueness of individual cities
• provide inspiration for a healthier lifestyle

{more here}

Professor Guttorm Fløistad summarizes the philosophy, stating:

"The only thing for certain is that everything changes. The rate of change increases. If you want to hang on you better speed up. That is the message of today. It could however be useful to remind everyone that our basic needs never change. The need to be seen and appreciated! It is the need to belong. The need for nearness and care, and for a little love! This is given only through slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection and togetherness. There we will find real renewal."

{more here}

What does this mean for me? Long meals, an extra glass of wine, siesta, daily walks throughout the community in the evening, and the opportunity for a better appreciation for the people and places that surround me...

orvieto, italy {umbria}

{orvieto map}

Orvieto, Italy is a small hilltop city {around five thousand people} where i will be studying alongside twenty-nine other K-State students from the seventeenth of January until the fifth of may

On January seventeenth we will be flying as a group out of Kansas City at about eight-thirty a.m. and connecting with our flight to Rome, Italy in Washington D.C.  

As for today, I am sitting in mid-western Minnesota, making lists and piles, preparing for a daunting shopping trip, then packing!