Dia dieci (June 14)

I’m sitting here in the Kehoe center library. The collection is amazing! Over the past 42 years (yes, this is the 42^nd summer of the program), the thousands of alumnae have left books for us to read. They have everything from Emily Giffin, to Italian text books, to Harry Potter 7 for us to read while we’re here. We get several internet hot spots on our campus, which is divided into two basic places that cover about 5 acres of land on this mountain. The hot-spots are in the common room (much like the AOP common room, where all of our dorm halls intersect), the breakfast room, the main room of the Kehoe, where I believe we’ll have art history class, and a few classrooms in the Severini school which is right down the hill from us and has a huge UGA gate. 

(A brief pause for a quick picture tour of JDK)

Common room/library

breakfast room

student kitchen

me cooking brown eggs which are much more fresh, yellow and yummy here :-)

JDK auditorium (Art History class room)

I found out today, that the Italian teacher here actually grew up in Cortona and found out about Georgia from this program. He now lives in Athens and comes to Cortona to teach and see his family every summer! I also found out on my tour of the city, that one of the most famous movie stars (“Life is Beautiful”) and a famous Italian rapper are also from Cortona. R.G. Brown, the oldest, cutest professor here gave us a tour of the city.

We were divided into five groups and my friends and I ran for him because he used to be the program director until 2006, and he still continues to come here in the summers to teach sculpture. He’s much like Mary Ruth Moore in the respect that he’s in love with his craft and with Cortona so much that just being around him makes you inspired. He practically spews wisdom, and he’s so helpful. He has no children but he expressed that he believes all of us to be his own kids. He’s the kind of grandpa professor that you just want to have close to you so you can get a little lovin. And multiple times during the tour people would yell at him from across the piazza and he’d walk to a loving empbrace. They’d catch up in Italian or English for a few moments and then his old friends would go back to errands or running their shops, or whatever it is they do. Any question I had, he’d answer. He showed us all the key spots, like the ATM’s, the farmacy, the museums, and a couple really cool historical spots. We saw a small portion left from the plague where they had doors (that are now filled in with stone) for the dead people because they thought it bad luck for the living to use the same doors as those who had died. He also showed us buildings in the medieval district where they have beams of wood that are 600 years old, because they weren’t allowed to build out into the streets so the 1^st floor (because the bottom floor is the ground floor) would jut out above the ground floor with beams supporting it, so they could make their homes bigger. I’m going to take my camera down with the photo class soon to get the morning light and shoot some of these places so y’all can see! 

R.G. also took us to this beautiful old theater that used to show movies in English once a week, but due to budget cuts they only have Italian, and at times during the summer will have church plays or bands come through or local productions that we’ll be invited to! At the end of the tour he took us to the book/art store where I got some tape and supplies for the graphic design journal that I have to start while I’m here to note all the good and bad design and signage. Spivey is really interested in the design on little things like postage, sugar packets, and ticket stubbs here, so I’ve been hoarding everything. It will be a cool journal, similar to the one I made for language arts when I went to London. I’m also looking closely at all the graffiti here because we might do a project on that. 

I know we’re doing a post card project so comment below with your address if you want me to send you one that I make! Vasilisa and I were sitting at dinner back in Rome and I pulled off a wine label to put in my journal as we got to talking about how we want to do a wine tasting. At some Winery’s you can make your own wine and we were thinking it would be really cool if we designed our own wine labels so the entire bottle would be our own!

I really like these:

We fed Spivey the idea and if we have enough time she wants do to it! But back to today… so we stopped also at a paper and journal store where we found the treasure store of Italian leather journals in the basement. We made friends with the owner Ivan, and he gave us coffee while we shopped. The journals are very pricey because they’re made from hand in Tuscany, but they’re beautiful and you can by journal refills once you fill in all the paper. You can also buy a planner re-fill and he said he’d order me one in, so that might be a purchase I have to make! We also went back to the art store and made friends with Julio, the owner who’s friends with R.G. and Vasillisa and I thought he was so cute that we asked him for a hug, and I received my first European kiss-on-each-cheek experience!

We ate our lunch on the town steps, that are known as a meeting place. It’s said that if you sit on them for long enough you will see everyone in Cortona, because everyone will eventually pass through there. It was my favorite and most delicious meal by far. The sandwiches we got were only 3.50 euro from the little grocery store across the piazza. Foccia bread, turkey, tomato, pesto and mozarello. So yummy! I also got a bag of chips, the first snickers bar I’ve spotted in Europe, and a Gatorade (one small break of my drinking rule). It was the best combination of American/Italian food and for the first time, I felt very at home.

After lunch it started pouring so we took refuge in a leather shop and hopped shop to shop. This little town has everything! They have a make-up and nail polish store, jewelry stores, shoe stores… essentially all that I’d need! I was joking last night with Ryan and Kellie that I’d love if we’d have a Walmart here with walmart prices. We talked about how we really did miss home and all of the conveniences of America. Ryan bought a guitar in Rome, because it was a little piece of what he does at home. By today thought, I am fully over that little bought of homesickness and have chosen to adopt and love Cortona as my home for now J

I’m going to post this, some pictures, and wash some clothes before dinner. Until tomorrow, Ciao!