Assisi

This weekend I went on a school trip to Assisi, which is a beautiful medieval town that has the church of St. Francis. Our group got a tour of the Church and I learned so much about St. Francis and his followers - the Franciscans. The church was very colorful and had beautiful frescoes of his life. After our tour of the church, we had free time so Kathleen, Elena, and I decided to get some lunch and walk around the town. The weather was perfect for that. (a little info on Elena...I met her on the trip. She goes to school in Syracuse and she lived in Alaska for several years but now lives in Connecticut. She has a boyfriend in Alaska who's a fisherman, and she wants to move back to Alaska after college). After lunch we decided to hike all the way up to a fortress where we heard we get the best views of the mountains. The streets in Assisi are ancient and all the houses are made out of stone...just like they were in the 1100s. It kind of reminded my of Jerusalem. Some streets are made up entirely of steps and they lead in all sorts of directions. We didn't really know where the fortress was, but all we knew is that we had to keep going up. So every time we saw two different alleys, we took the one that led us up higher. The views on the way up were beautiful and it was a great way to work off our lunch. The air was soooooo fresh. Once we got up, we realized that we only had 20 min to go all the way down and catch the bus. So we didn't get a chance to walk into the fortress, but we did manage to take some great pictures on the way up. We speed walked all the way down and made it for the bus.
Kathleen invited Jenah and Elena for dinner Friday night at our apartment. It was the first time I cooked for guests!! We went out and got some wine. We cooked fish, pasta, green beans, and I made a salad. Our dinner turned out to be a great success! It was nice having people over and we're thinking of doing that every Friday. It's as close to Shabbat dinner as I'll ever get here. Elena heard on the news that a volcano is supposed to erupt in Alaska really soon and that's close to where her boyfriend lives. She called him on the phone in a panic but he was away fishing in the seas haha. Before we went out that night, Kathleen, Elena, and Jenah did the dance to Beyonce's "Put a Ring on it" and it was hilarious...and I caught it on camera so I'll post it soon.