Chapter 24: Further Adventures and Misadventures

Yesterday we went to Perugia, which was really nice. We spent the whole day exploring crooked little streets and generally wandering around. We saw an ancient Estruscan well which was interesting enough as a historical site, but the neatest thing about it was the air. It was moist and steamy down there, by no means a temperature at which you'd normally be able to see your breath, but we could see it anyway. And unlike breathing into cold air, the clouds didn't disappear. Letting out a long whistle would emit this eerie echoing sound that would twist out of your throat in the form of writhing steam. It was very cool.

We also saw a sort of old official building which almost gave Lisi a heart attack because it turned out to be filled with blue chairs. A lovely old Renaissance building, and the chairs inside were bright blue. I think she was ready to declare war over the matter if not choke up her own spleen in shock.

Later, according to my notes, we had a good lunch and had a nice time spending a couple hours in a safe latch. I'm not sure what this means, other than that I need to work on writing more legibly. I do remember spending a couple hours drinking some super intense hot chocolate in a little cafe, though I'm not sure how that becomes a safe latch. On second glance, we may have spent a couple hours in a cafe latte, though that doens't sound so great either. Anyway.

The train ride back to San Guistino consisted mostly of us laughing our heads off at various memories and reminiscings from when Lisi was in New Mexico. As we're sitting there cracking up and talking rather loudly like any good pair of Americans (yes Lisi is American when speaking English is involved), the train pulls to a stop at some small town and a few people get up to get off the train. This guy approaches us with a grin like nothing you've ever seen.

"You speak English?" he asks Lisi, absolutely thrilled at the very idea.
"Yes, we are English speakers." Her eloquent response.
"I no speak English." This guy is really excited about this.
"Oh, well I'm sorry to hear that." She has no idea what she's talking about but is trying to be nice anyway.
"I'm sorry."
And he turns around and walks away as though we were just the highlight of his year. I spent most of the conversation ready to duck because the whole time he's talking his entire set of teeth are flopping back and forth as though they will fall on me at any moment. All in all it was quite the adventure.

So that was yesterday. Today we got briefly sidetracked on our journey to Cortona (freaking Piazza Garibaldi) and spent the rest of the day wandering around and trying to find lunch, which we eventually did in a little pastry shop. You have NO idea how hard it is to find lunch in Cortona. Well, actually, how hard it is to find a single living person in Cortona, much less one who's ready and willing to feed you. There was one construction worker guy who watched amusedly as we passed back and forth probably eight times on our epic search for vittles, but unfortunately he was unable to provide any. FINALLY we found lunch (at about 5 pm) in a little pastry shop (wait, I already told you that). Ok rewind. BEFORE the epic quest for lunch we saw... oh no wait. That was after lunch. Yeah. AFTER lunch we went to this church which was the second tourist attraction I've now come across which was cool because of whistling. The acoustics in there were so incredibly awesome. Which is, I suppose, true of any cathedral, except normally you don't have all those acoustics to yourself and therefore the ability to stand around whistling in them. I would let out the tiniest little whistle and it would continue ringing for eternity. Man it was awesome. It made me want to burst out into song and sing a round with myself, but somehow I didn't think that was entirely... kosher? orthodox? which religion are we discussing here? Anyway yeah. When I grow up, I want a cathedral in my back yard so I can sing in it.

BEFORE the church, we had lunch, guess where, yes, in a little pastry shop. But BEFORE that we hiked to the top of the hill (Cortona IS a hill) to an epic looking castle thingy which had an awesome door which was unfortunately rater epically locked and couldn't be entered. We did find a friar and a nun having a conversation by a little mini stonehenge thing. We took picture of them when they weren't looking, and then we went back down into Cortona where we eventually managed to find lunch. In a little pastry shop.

Ok, I think it's about time I tell you about this little pastry shop. They had crappy pizza. But very good pastries. And chocolates. And I discovered the ultimate wonder food. This was like the best dessert I have ever had. It was like somebody designed this amazing thing to be perfectly tailored to my tastebuds. Unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, and thus will never find it again. Oh well.

That's it for the pastry shop. AFTER lunch we eventually left. But first saw a whistling church. And then left. With corn nuts. Yes, I bought corn nuts in Italy. They were tasty.

Tonight it got really windy. I first noticed when it was rattling the window in the bathroom. When I came back to our room I wanted to look out the door to try and see the wind. I opened the door and stuck my head outside and was seized with a sudden unimaginable terror. I'm not sure why. Outside was entirely black except for one section of light visible through the clouds down in the valley. Light rain. Heavy wind. But it hit me with this feeling of "oh my god something is going to get me if i do not close this door right NOW." Naturally this was intriguing and naturally I went back several times to scare the living daylights out of myself. Once I even decided to go back with the lights off, in the pitch dark. This was particularly frightening as all the doors in the rest of the house began moving about of their own accord as soon as lights were off. This turned out to be-- well no, I don't want to tell you what it turned out to be because then it doesn't sound as cool or as scary. The doors were moving by themselves in the dark. And creaking. And howling. End of story.