The sea and a symphony

I just thought I should give a quick update on what I’ve been up to lately. I am now in Orvieto, a small village built on a plateau. I arrived here today after spending four nights in Follonica, a small resort town on the coast. In Follonica our hotel was right on the coast, and our rooms had balconies that looked out over the sea! While we were there we took most of our finals. I still have one more to take tomorrow, but after that I am all done with school work for this semester…yay! There wasn’t much to do in Follonica other than spend time on the beach, so it was a really good place to be with minimum distractions for finals. My daily schedule went like this: wake up, go for a run on the beach, get ready for the day, eat breakfast, study a bit for my upcoming final, take my final at 10:30, spend a couple hours relaxing on the beach, study for a few hours for the next day’s final, then go to dinner in the hotel at 7:30. I loved spending time on the beach, and I actually got a tan! Also, the dinner at the hotel was wonderful. We had a choice of what we wanted, and I usually chose seafood. I can’t imagine a better place to take finals. In fact, I think St. Mary’s should take all of it’s students to the beach for finals each semester.

Today in Orvieto I did a bit of exploring, and when we went to the cathedral we were pleasantly surprised to find a symphony orchestra practicing. We found out that they were offering a free concert at 5:00, so we decided to go. I just got back from it, and it was amazing. The setting inside the cathedral was perfect, and the acoustics were great. When we arrived at 4:40, there was standing room only inside this huge cathedral. It turns out the band conductor used to be the conductor for the New York Symphony Orchestra, and he is world famous. What a day to pick to come to Orvieto! Then, as we were walking back to our hotel, a marching band came right by us on the street. They were citizens of Orvieto in an antifascism group. So, all in all it was a very musical sort of day.

I will be staying in Orvieto tonight and tomorrow night, then we depart for Rome, where I will be staying for three nights.