Some scenes from my recent walks along the streets of Perugia. Click to enlarge.

Pretty amazing stained glass — the process of restoration.

After studying a few languages over the years — French in high school, Hebrew in college, Greek in seminary and Spanish post-doctorate — I like getting down to basics. Tell me how to conjugate verbs, s’il vous plaît. Fill my head with vocabulary, por favor. Pronouns and prepositions, בבקשה. I’d like some adjectives, παρακαλώ. So today was a productive day of learning Italian — we covered many of the important basics. Before class I reviewed essere (to be), and avere (to have), then in class we moved on to present tense of regular verbs with the three main endings: parlare (to speak) represents the “-are” family; scrivere (to write) represents the “-ere” clan; and dormire (to sleep) fills the bill for the “-ire” group. So if I were being a good student right now I would drop the blog and instead be reciting in my mind: “parlo, parli, parla, parliamo, parlate, parlano; scrivo, scrivi, scrive, scriviamo, scrivete, scriveno, dormo, dormi, dorme, dormiamo, dormite, dormono” etc.*

Instead I had lunch, went on a tour of a stained glass restoration shop, took a nap, and updated you on my life via this blog.

A slide of typical old city Italian life just a block from our lunch stop.

I dined with Thomas, Patricia, Roxanne and Dieter at Piazza Republica for lunch. Afterward I joined a group of about 8 of us for an excursion to a stained glass restoration company. Although the tour was exclusively in Italian, I could clearly make out that the glass was beautiful, it was difficult to restore, that the building housing it was very old, and that this company’s glass is in lots of famous churches, and also a cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Before going on I should announce that I do know a little something about stained glass. In the mid-1980’s at the Fall City United Methodist Church I was honored to lead the congregation in installation of beautiful windows, produced by Perry Stained Glass Studio in Issaquah. They put together some gorgeous windows for the church, a real highlight of the old, 1890’s building. Then when I was in Wenatchee I led in the restoration of its leaded glass windows, once again by Jim and Liz Perry. Then as pastor in Seattle our building committee chose Mark Eric Gulsrud as designer for two, beautiful, contemporary windows. Jim and Liz built them and they are just lovely. In between all of this I briefly took up stained glass as a hobby, but more importantly I often visited Jim and Liz in their studio while they were laboring away on windows for my churches. They built a beautiful small window for me, too, which I still have an will hang when I have just the right place for it.

Glass has been in the blood of Madelena’s family for five generations.

So, I was looking forward to seeing how the Italians do glass (vetro). Our little group from the school arrived at a bit past 4:00 in the afternoon and were greeted by a mid-30’s Italiana, Madalena, a fifth generation glass maker who is justifiably proud of the traditions of her glass-making family. She welcomed us into her family’s home/shop and as we entered we walked past shelves containing file boxes of correspondence going back over 250 years.

She took us through the earliest shop, a small room with an ancient oven for glass, followed by a larger studio with designs from the early 19th century, then into a more modern studio where glass currently is restored. I was intrigued to see that the company does make some of its own glass, but was particularly surprised to see that the shop makes its own lead came. I’ve only ever seen the mass-produced variety.

I have never in my life seen a stained glass window with this amount of detail and beauty. Truly awesome.

Most impressive of all, though, is the 19th century glass in the realistic style. In the past I have not been a big fan of this kind of art glass, which relies on a great deal of surface painting to achieve its effect. But a life-size window that depicts a woman in a blue dress is mind-bogglingly detailed and vivid in its colors — quite extraordinary and far beyond anything I’ve seen in this style.

Once our tour was over I headed with our group up the hill to Centro Storico, as the historic center of Italian cities is usually called. I wandered through the large bookstore off the Piazza Republica and to a gelato place for an irresistible sweet, then I hit the sack for a much-needed sleep. Ah, yes. Dormire.

Dinnertime came with a tap on the door from Thomas. Graziella had prepared another feast of pasta as primi, followed today by chicken for me and beef for the red meat eaters. I’m sad to say that Thomas and Flavia have only two more days with our little family. Presumably Monday will bring a couple of new students to share Graziella’s airy apartment. I’ll be the senior Italian student then, which should be scary to contemplate. Flavia has already advised me to put in a request to move to Thomas’ room, which has its own bathroom as well as a panoramic view of the city and the green hills beyond.

Oh, one last highlight of the day. There’s always a treat on the reception desk at our school. Today it was ……

Nutella®, as plentiful in Italy as espresso.

*Note to my Italian-gentsia friends, I’ve intentionally made one error. Can you find it?

Today my head wants to explode — so much information about the Italian language in so little time.

The day began at the usual hour — 4:00 a.m. when for some reason I’ve been waking up. This time I managed to force myself back to sleep, and I reawakened at 7:00, refreshed and ready to begin the day. The rest of the apartment — including my hostess Graziella and my two fellow students Thomas and Flavia — was still fast asleep. I caught up on a Facebook argument I’m having with an atheist back in Seattle and then headed to the showers after I started to hear people stir. After my shower Grazielle had a breakfast of toast, cake and peanut butter ready (no Nutella®), which I washed down with a caffe latte.

School secretary Giulia waves from behind the Comitato Linguistico desk.

After breakfast I went back to my room to see if I could catch Theresa at home while she was still awake. We talked on FaceTime and it was great to see her face and hear her voice. By the time we were finished, Thomas was ready to head to school, so we walked down the hill together to Comitato Linguistico, our language school, Thomas leading the way.

Comitato is housed on the fifth floor of a 1970’s era office building just above the main Perugia bus station, and its quarters are cozy, modern and friendly. I met Giulia, with whom I’d had several email conversations over the last months, and was oriented by Frederika, the owner. She showed me around and described the optional excursions students can take. I signed up for every one, including a city tour this afternoon, a bike trip to Lake Trasimeno tomorrow, a stained glass restoration tour Wednesday, a wine tasting Thursday and an Italian movie on Friday — so many excursions that I had to mark them in my iPhone calendar. After finishing this task I discovered my class wouldn’t start until 10:00, which gave me time for a second breakfast at a nearby cafe.

When I came back I met my first teacher, David, a friendly young Perugian. My fellow students in class are a young Dutch woman, Patricia, and an American woman from Fresno, Delia. She seems to have a lot more Italian than Patricia or me, so today’s lessons were elementary for her, challenging for Patricia and me.

David and me with our grammar book.

David walked us through some basics. Pronouns, conjugation of “to be,” a couple of prepositions, and some vocabulary — all in one hour. In our conversation time the first question in Italian was “where are you from?” followed by “how old are you?” and “where do you work?” The first question was easy. My answer to the second question led to some surprised looks, which I took as flattery. The answer to the third question was the one I’m still trying out. “Sono scrittore” (I’m a writer). Then I described my plan to write a guidebook, to walk from Florence to Rome, the address of my blog, etc.

At 11:00 it was David’s time to transition to another class, and Delia left to join a different class too, likely more advanced. Patricia and I were then introduced to Maria, a 31-year old teacher from southern Italy. She was full of laughter and jokes as she led us through vocabulary words. The general topic was “Details” and we learned how to describe information about people like their work, hobbies, musical preferences, favorite color, favorite beverage and food, sports, languages they know, marital status, and general personality traits. Soon Maria, too, was asking my vocation, and when I answered, “Sono scrittore,” she unfortunately asked, “How long have you been a writer?” Thinking back to the immigration officer in London who’d negotiated the answer with me I responded, “Four days.” She would have none of that, and before long I was describing my work as a Methodist pastor for 34 years. Soon I was also sharing in halting Italian about divorce, girlfriend, children, languages I’d learned, educational attainment, etc. Patricia also shared, as did Maria. We enjoyed much laughter as we learned about each other. Maria had ruled that English was forbidden in class. Spanish, however, would be acceptable, which was a great relief. Both Patricia and I spent much of the class speaking and hearing in Español. I’m not sure either of us can separate the two languages quite yet.

View of city rooftops.

After class Patricia and I walked up to the main pedestrian area and sat for a quick lunch. She’s a communications student at university in Amsterdam with a boyfriend of 5 years. She reminded me that I’d told her I had a 2:00 meeting, so I jogged down the street at 2:01 to meet Kenneth Miner, a Camino de Santiago pilgrim from Oklahoma with whom I’d been chatting on Facebook and on this blog. Kenneth was inspired to walk from Assisi to Rome after reading last year’s blog entries and he heads off tomorrow from Assisi. He’s something of a medical miracle, having had leg bones on both sides replaced in surgery last year.

After lunch I headed home to blog a little, then took a quick nap before my 5:00 p.m. tour of the city with other students. David served as our guide and walked us through the Papal Fortress and many other sites in town, after which we gathered over drinks in a hip bar. As we sat and I listened to other students talk I couldn’t help but feel very old and very tired. My head was about to explode with so much input all at once. I decided to believe that if I can survive these four weeks I will come out knowing some Italian.

David shows our group the fountain at Piazza 4 Novembre in the heart of Perugia.

After the tour I headed back home, ready for dinner. I’m longing to speak only in English for awhile, but as I walked I had Italian phrases running through my head and I was starting to think about how I would tell Graciella that I may miss dinner tomorrow night due to a bike trip to Lake Trasimeno. Funny that the words I should say in Italian came instantly into my head. Maybe some will indeed be sticky enough to be there when I need them over the next months.

Dinner included an Italian monologue on the topic of dinosaurs by Graciella’s grandson, Alesandro. He’s a bundle of energy, which is much more than I am after a hard first day of Italian. Graciella, who’s hosted many students, asked in Italian if I was tired. I answered honestly. She slowly and knowingly nodded her head as she swallowed a bite of salad. “Il primo giorno è sempre il più difficile.”

Along with bread, water, a bottle of local white wine, and all of the plates and utensils I couldn’t help but notice a jar of Nutella® sitting alone in front of my plate. Graziella picked it up, showed it to me, and said, “Look what I bought at the store today.”