Un Giorno di Sole

Attention, ladies and gentlemen! Michelle and I have had two consecutive good days of Assisi life. Let me tell you about them:

Michelle and the sunset over Umbria

Sunday was our day off, and what a great day! Giordano dropped us off in Assisi right by Porto Nuovo, which meant we couldn't make the 9:00am Mass at San Francesco as we had anticipated. Undeterred, we strolled right out the gate toward San Damiano. That was probably the best decision we made that day. The church of San Damiano is where San Francesco heard "Go, Francesco, and repair my house, which as you can see is falling into ruin" from a crucifix upon which he was meditating. He proceeded to restore the current building of San Damiano. This church was also the location from which Santa Chiara cared for the sick with her order of Poor Clares.

I love that frescoes are everywhere;
this one is part of a wall in Assisi.

Fun fact: The Hermitage where St. Francis
often went to pray is at the top of Mt. Subasio.
 "Alias" reference, anyone?

Michelle and I really loved this church. Before Mass, the Franciscan Brother who was the music minister reviewed the refrain of every song we sang there and called out the numbers in the hymnal. It's so much easier to sing Italian songs when the lyrics are in front of you! The church is small, so the liturgy had a small-town feel, if you will. The Franciscans used incense, and I bet the homily on the separation of the sheep from the goats was great. A girl behind us even talked to us after Mass to ask for a tissue, which according to Michelle, signals that we are approachable.

We popped into St. Clare's Basilica to see the crucifix (moved from St. Damian's by the Poor Clares) that spoke to St. Francis telling him to rebuild the Church. We were also able to see relics of clothes worn by both saints of Assisi in the crypt, as well as St. Clare's tomb. Did you know that St. Charles Borromeo donated a silver box for better storing St. Clare's hair? That was hundreds of years after she had died.  I just picture Charles walking into the room where he saw her hair and saying, "Yes, we need a box for that." It's not what I would have said, but hey, I'm no saint.

Pranzo

Michelle and I Christmas shopped afterward, and it was low-key because it wasn't the mall or Wal-Mart or online. It was glorious. We dined on the terrace overlooking the main square. I had veal-stuffed, homemade ravioli in an orange cream sauce, and we halved an app of roasted onions in a balsamic glaze. We split some vino rosso, because yes, it's cheaper than water and so much more delicious. We waved to Brothers in an Umbrian fabric store and greeted Sisters on the street. We watched yet another beautiful sunset.

When Giordano picked us up around 5pm, he took us to a spring on the side of a mountain to refill the water jugs we use for drinking. We ate dinner with the family, and Giordano played a bunch of English songs on his phone that we didn't know...until Aerosmith started howling, "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." We proceeded to have a dance party in the small room between the living room and kitchen. When I say "we," I mean Tamara started it, and all six of us joined in for a solid 30 minutes. It was so unusual and fun!

Walking in Assisi

Packaged Christmas gift

On Monday, Giada was ill, so Michelle and I were in charge of keeping Gemma out of the house. It was relatively easy. Then we got in touch with our pioneer woman roots and pulled apart the wool that was in Giada's pillow to make it fluffy again. It's a long process, and we didn't finish. We got to do our laundry because it was un giorno di sole (a sunny day) for a second day in a row, and we want our clothes to dry before we leave on Friday. We ended the day with another B-list Christmas film that wasn't as good as our last one.

Wool fluffing