Bisous Ciao: Urbino and Classes

I realized that, although Italian dorm life is indeed fascinating, the grand majority of my posts have been about that and not the actual city of Urbino. And even though that makes sense—our dorm building is a 10 minute walk from the city, on top of another hill, and our classes are held in a high school outside the city walls—I should probably write a bit about the actual city of Urbino. I should be able to write historical things tomorrow, because we're going to have a guided tour of the Ducal Palace in the afternoon, but for the moment, I'll just make a few observations.

Urbino is one big hill. It's a beautiful one, but it's a hill nonetheless. What does this mean? Why is it relevant? Well, to enter the city, we have to walk the 20 minutes to the wall, and then, once inside, up a very steep hill. My Clarks are sturdy and have good traction, and are sandals so my feet don't sweat in the heat. Other students aren't so lucky. The stones that pave the roads in Urbino can be slippery, and in the heat, it's harder to pay attention. Fortunately for us, the best gelateria in the city is right at the top of that first hill, so we get a reward for our first city climb!

Urbino is a famous little Renaissance city in the Marche region of Italy. Famous for its Ducal Palace (which I should have something to say about tomorrow), it is about half the size of my hometown, Clarence, NY in terms of population. In terms of actual size, it's much, much smaller—the whole center city being contained within the walls. And there isn't much else, I found out today, because you can see almost everything if you climb up to the fortress. There is a great view.

Urbino, viewed from the park at the fortress. Not bad, huh?

Urbino has a specialty food, we have learned, which is called "una crescia sfogliata. And yesterday, we found the greatest place ever to eat them. They are super cheap, a nice pastry crust wrapped around a center of your choice. Yesterday, I had prosciutto and cheese; today, mozzarella and tomato. The place we've found is just outside the wall at the top end of the city, and I believe that is why it costs almost nothing to eat there (about 4 euros for a crescia with one thing in the center). Their wine is delicious as well, and I had a spritz today. Molto buono, buonissimo!

It was delicious!

Today, I did an unreasonable amount of work in an unreasonably short amount of time. Clearly, the Princeton conditioning has set in, and I am now apparently capable of writing a 3 page essay in a language I just started learning last year in an hour and a half. You see, I'm going to Rome this weekend, and don't want to be bothered with an essay to write. I'm more than happy to read in the bus there and back.

After our crescia dinner, we got back to Tridente to do our reading, and found out today was Davide's birthday! So, we all headed over to the Caffè degli amici where a cake was waiting for us. Italians and their birthday cakes, let me tell you! A fun night was had by all!