I made another small grocery store run today during our long lunch break. Going in this time, I felt like a pro. The first time I went, I walked around the two aisle store nearly 10 times just to figure out where things were located. I had to carefully study pictures on all the packages, no reading possible. All in Italian. This time I knew the exact places I needed to look. Such a local.
Of course after the grocery store run, a gelato purchase was in order. I’m learning at a very fast rate how to operate in the gelato shop. They’ll have my order memorized by next week.
When we have class days in Orvieto, we also have a lot of free time. You must understand this little town. When we get out of class at 4:30, there is not much to go “do.” We’re not in a sightseeing town, as I mentioned earlier. That’s what all of our travel days are for. Let me give you a run down of an Orvieto local’s day: Open their shop at 9 am. Hang out in the streets. Work until 1 pm. Go home for lunch and a nap (about a 3 hour break). Come back later to open shops until dinner time. Hang out in the streets. Eat 3 hour dinners. Hang out in the streets. Go to sleep.
Clearly, Italians like to socialize and eat. At restaurants, waiters will never ask if you want the check and will never put it down without you asking. Many times you need to make a request for the bill multiple times before actually getting it 30 minutes later. If you don’t want to be out for hours, start asking for the check early. There’s some Italian kulture for you.
Caroline and I learned an important phrase today. We didn’t want to have a sit down dinner tonight and decided we wanted to pick up something instead. We ran into a cute pizzeria, and then I spotted the name in my Rick Steves! He gave it great reviews. We wanted the pizza to-go so we said, “Da portar via” and then enjoyed it on the terrace at the hotel. Bene!
Eating my delicious pizza on the terrace.
