Living in tokyo.: 05/25/08

I spent the day on my own walking around Florence. I actually didn't get very far because I found a park with trees!! I get excited when I see trees as there are so few in the historic section of this town. My goal today was to study italiano and that I did. I sat in the park on a rather uncomfortable cement bench with no back and studied for almost four hours. I missed Friday so I wanted to get caught up in the book. The park was full of people-groups of friends, married couples, neighbors, young students, little children, people meeting for dates. I noticed people didn't just pass through the park quickly headed for home. Some were there when I got there and were still there when I left four hours later. What looked like a family was sitting near me. They sat and talked nonstop for four hours. It was fun pausing from my studying to listen to their conversation very little of which I understood. It's exciting when I understand something I just learned. It's so strange that I'm so motivated to learn Italian. I do just enjoy the discipline but I don't really know where I'm going with it. What will I ever do with it? Do I even have to worry about that? Maybe I didn't think everything through before I came here. So strange. Who knows what will happen... Anyway, it made me happy that these people in the park were not in a rush to get anywhere. They weren't alone at home watching TV. They were doing what human beings were meant to do. Communicate with each other. Good for them.

St. Francis of Assis

April 24th, 2008
Our train was at 8:09 so we got up around 6:30. Everything is within a twenty minute walk in this town so we could easily walk to the station in 20 minutes. Two friends from my class joined us. Juliane and Priscila. Juliane is from Germany and Priscilla is from the states. They both are finishing degrees in fashion business. Jonathan and I walked to Juliane’s place to meet her there as she is on the way to the station and Priscilla met us at the Duomo because she didn’t know where Juliane’s apartment was. We were off to the very spiritual capital of Umbria, Assisi. St. Francis was born there. He was the son of a wealthy clothe merchant in 1182. He had big dreams of becoming a knight but he had a gradual religious awakening which led him to a completely different calling. At the church of San Damiano, he heard the voice of Jesus on the crucifix. “Francis, repair my church.”
From that moment on, he gave up everything he had. He walked the countryside, wearing simple robes and telling people about the virtues of poverty and love for all people. Many people were attracted to his lifestyle and he developed the first order of the Frati Minori which after his death became known as the Franciscans.
Needless, to say we were very excited to visit such a hotly place. I felt guilty for taking a train there. That’s too easy. I felt like we should crawl on our knees all the way to Assisi. Oh, well we decided to take the train. I needed to sip coffee on the way you know!
It was a pleasant trip through the hills and villages of Tuscany and Umbria. There is a sense of relief as we leave Florence because there is SPACE, SKY, TREES, NORMAL BUILDINGS. It was a little over two hours to Assisi. We arrived hungry so we had a little snack at the lovely train station. We weren’t sure how to get into town-didn’t even know the direction but as we left the train station and looked out into the distance we were stunned to see Assisi sitting majestically on a hill. It was a beautiful, sunny day with nothing but fields of wheat and poppies between us and the birthplace of St. Francesco. We were so excited we almost started running. It was a lovely 30-45 minute walk there.
The countryside truly was beautiful-just like imagined Italy to be. Fields of green as far as you could see. There was no one around. All the other tourists we assumed were on big tour busses. Which we found out was true as there were thousands of tourists there as we arrived.
Our first stop was the Basilica Di San Franceso. I thought it was beautiful but Jonathan could really feel the holiness there. He is very sensitive to those things. We lost him for a while as he was meditating near the tomb of St. Francis. We then walked around the town, looking at all the tourist shops, stopping by the Basilica of St. Chiara. St. Chiara (Clare) was a spiritual contemporary of St. Fancis and founded the Order of the Poor Ladies. The Bysantine cross that is said to have spoken to St. Francis is also there.
We also visited the Tempio di Minerva.
For lunch we went to a wonderful restaurant called La Pantolla. It was in our guidebook. It was very reasonable and delicious.
After lunch we walked up to the Rocca Maggiore which provided a wonderful view of the city and the countryside. So far we had only walked up hill so I was excited to walk back down the hill. We were thinking about visiting the nearby city Perugia but decided by the time we got back to the station there really wouldn’t be enough time. We walked back to the station. The next train wasn’t for over an hour so we walked around the area of the station a bit. There was an impressive church just behind the station. I got in trouble for taking a picture in it. We were on the train at 7:19 and got back to Florence a little before ten. A great trip. Juliane and Priscilla were great company. I think we had our best day so far in Italy.